Africa
Produce Camp 2020 is a popular chinese reality. But there's a stunning story of a participant this year. That of Chinese African singer Zhong Feifei.
Zhong who is Chinese-Congolese is helping to bring diversity to the Chinese entertainment industry.
She competed on the show with 101 contestants vying for a stardom in a seven-member girl group. The show has gathered much attention both domestically and abroad, with millions of views on episodes and clips uploaded on YouTube.
"I think the only time I felt identity crisis is when I first moved back to Congo. I wasn't growing up that much as a biracial, like in biracial way. I wasn't that aware of my Congolese culture." Zhong says.
Zhong's presence on the popular show drew mixed reactions, with dedicated fans rallying to support her and others attacking her for her background.
she still very much remember the first fan letter she ever read - from a girl in the U.S..
"She said something about, I being the reason - that I could bring so many people from different cultural backgrounds together," Zhong said. _"_They get to communicate, they get to sort of work together to support me and I thought that was like a very cool thing ."
VLOG VIDEOS AND MORE TV SHOWS
Zhong started off as a fashion and lifestyle vlogger on Weibo (similar to Twitter), and Bilibili (a Chinese video-sharing website launched in 2010) and has now reconnected with Congolese culture.
To her surprise, the Produce Camp 101 show reached out and asked her to audition.
During her performance of Meghan Trainor's "Me Too," which received over 1.7 million views on YouTube, Zhong showed off her singing and dancing skills. She made it all the way to the 27th spot before being eliminated.
But not before she had acquired more than one million followers on Weibo and a sizeable international following.
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