The tale of two Suns couldn't be more different.

Even as one Sun continues to shine, the other Sun continues to seek stardom.

One was plain, the other glamorous.

One didn't have much financial support, the other had her pastor husband and an entire church congregation behind her.

And yet Stefanie Sun is the best-selling recording artiste in Singapore today.

Ms Ho Yeow Sun, also known as Sun Ho, has been chasing after stardom for more than 10 years but has yet to come anywhere near Sun's success.

Sun is unlike the glamorous divas - think Faye Wong and Sammi Cheng - who have dominated the music scene in Hong Kong.

Yet she holds her own in Hong Kong, Taiwan and China.

How did she achieve so much with so little? Who made her so?

Unlike Ms Ho, the odds were stacked against Sun from the start.

She was fresh out of school and was more comfortable speaking English than Mandarin, unlike talented singer-songwriters like Emil Chau and A*Mei, who scored hit after hit in Taiwan.

But Sun's self-titled debut album, She Is Sun Yanzi, went on to sell 150,000 copies within the first month of its release in June 2000.

While Ms Ho had the backing of her charismatic husband, Kong Hee, and his 33,000-strong City Harvest Church congregation, the woman largely known to have helped kick-start Sun's career is Ms Kathleen Tan.

Then managing director of Warner Music Group in Singapore, Ms Tan says: "Stefanie Sun has sheer talent that money can't buy.

"Of course, there are many other factors that make a star, but talent is the basic prerequisite.

"If I, as the managing director, and my counterpart in Taiwan didn't believe in that talent, she would not be what she is today."

Ms Tan is now the regional commercial head at AirAsia.

She says: "While we knew we had a talent with us, we also knew that we needed to do something different. If we had launched her album in the usual way, we might not have struck gold.

"Some people thought it was a risk that I was taking, but I had confidence after hearing her voice. I knew we had a winner once we adopted the right marketing strategy."

Sun's early mentors, Lee Wei Song and Lee Si Song, had approached Warner Music Singapore for a recording contract in 1999.

At that time, it was rare for record companies to sign on local acts.

"Most of them preferred to import releases and market them here. They were usually big names or upcoming names that had already gained a following," says Ms Tan.

"What we had to do was just to bring the artistes here on promo tours."

She adds: "But I felt that we should take a new route and groom our own talent."

One challenge that set Sun back was her raw-face appeal against that of others who exuded glitz, glamour and sexiness.

Ms Tan notes: "Stefanie was also more comfortable speaking in English than in Mandarin.

"She's friendly, but somewhat shy and quiet. We even had to put her on a media training course so that she could speak comfortably and handle the media."

But for a Singaporean singer to be successful, "you must start elsewhere... Singapore is just too small", adds Ms Tan.

Still, she insists: "But I can't claim all the credit... We worked very closely with our team in Taiwan and we hit on the idea of making use of the Internet, which was at its peak then."

Read the full story here.

This article was first published in The New Paper.