Jane Zhang

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Early years
Her father was an engine attendant for a transportation company in Chengdu, and her mother was a shop assistant. During her childhood, she performed at her parents' workplace on several occasions. However, her parents divorced when she was 13; two years later, Zhang's father died. This forced her to work outside of school; she started to sing at a local public house, where her uncle played the accompaniments.

While performing at the pub, Zhang was exposed to a wide variety of music genres, and developed a taste for American country singers in addition to Western pop singers, such as Mariah Carey and Christina Aguilera. Because she was unable to afford her own music players, Zhang frequently borrowed walkmans and headphones from her classmates, and skipped lunches to save enough money for cassettes. After graduating from college, she studied at Sichuan University's Foreign Language Department where she was majoring in English; she dropped out soon after to compete in the 2005 Super Girl competition.

005: Super Girl competition

Zhang auditioned for the Super Girl contest in 2005. Super Girl (simplified Chinese: 超级女声; traditional Chinese: 超級女聲) is the Chinese equivalent to the popular Idol franchise where only female contestants were allowed to participate. She auditioned in Chengdu, and after progressing through the preliminary rounds, she entered the national competition with Li Yuchun and He Jie (simplified Chinese: 何洁; traditional Chinese: 何潔).

Throughout the series, she had established a fan base whose members called themselves "Liang Fen" (simplified Chinese: 凉粉), a phrase that combined the Chinese pronunciation of her name and the English word "fan." The term "Liang Fen" originated from Hong Kong years ago, but is now used to define a particular type of bean jelly snack in central China.

Zhang demonstrated her ability to sing in foreign languages, with performances of "I Still Believe," "What's Up," "Beautiful," and "Don't Cry for Me Argentina." As such, she was recognized by judges, critics and musicians to be the most talented singer in this competition.[citation needed] Some critics even regarded her as one of China's best artists. Nevertheless, she was not the most popular contestant among young supporters. Her final number of votes by text messaging was 1.3 million. Consequently, she placed third behind Li Yuchun and Zhou Bichang. Her loss did not come as a shock because Li and Zhou had garnered more popularity during the competition. Their creative eccentricity and tomboyish appearances triumphed over Zhang's "old, introverted, pretty-girl" image.

Source:Wikipedia