Well; as I became a fan of alan more than one year ago, I wanted to see how alan was famous in China. And I'm not saying Hong Kong or Taiwan, really Mainland.
I thought she wasn't known in Mainland, but I was wrong. Well, she's not as famous as superstars Jay Chou, Angela Zhang, Jolin Tsai, Rainie Yang, Huang Xiao Ming, and another ugly super famous girl I forgot the name. But more famous than I thought, really.
Two days after the landing on China, I went back to my homeland in Shanghai, but not at the center of Shanghai, at the West-North side, in the district of Jiading. I live in the center of the district, which is totally surrounded by the countryside, and luxurious isolated blocks of villas. I was thinking : I'll never hear about alan here...
So I went as usual as the Xin Hua Bookstore (as I've already said in another post), to look at what was new.
I got to say, the vendors (all women) are not used to see a mixed tall teenager (which more looks like a French who doesn't speak Chinese), they start as always to comment me very loudly, that may be the most rude and the most infuriating thing I've ever seen. They ask me questions in engRish (Where do you come from? bla bla bla), and then I respond in Chinese, they got impressed, ask me even more question, well, it's impossible to search something quietly. But I forgot anything when I saw the "Lan Se" staring at me, I rushed and bought it super quickly. It was exposed in front of the corner of the music products. And it was the last one. I wanted to look for Xin De Dong Fang and SSZRL, but with all the people following me, I couldn't do it. (And when I went back there, I searched for them and they weren't there).
I go very often to see my mother's best childhood friend (who is my "Gan Mama" that is to say my second mother), who lives near us. She 's got a daughter who is 24 years old (who is also my "second" sister). (I don't know if I've ever post this in the forum...?) I started to chat with her about the music in China, and then I asked her about alan. She said : Oh yes ! The girl who sings in Japanese. She's said to sound like a Japanese even when she sings in Chinese. (Huh, wtf ?) She said that without any emotion, it was obvious that she didn't listen to alan. She said : Hey, that's alan on TV, right ? The TV was on, and they were broadcasting the Inoherb CM, right at the moment. I was like : *-*. So she said : OK, now I know you love alan, huhuh. Whenever you want a Chinese CD when you go back to France, just ask me, I can buy it for you.
I think that the fact she sings mainly in Japanese won't help her being famous in China, but nowadays, it's not as important as before.
Another day, I went to a restaurant. When I went out, I saw a magazine, and alan was on the cover (the EPSON promotion picture, which is on the Lan Se sticker). Talking about magazines, a lot of Chinese girls buy magazines like Bea's Up, ViVi, etc. in Chinese edition (the same as the Japaneses, but translated). My first cousin has got a ladies fashion shop, which sells quite well. She buys a lot of magazines like that every months and makes it available to all the visitors. I used to go to her shop nearly every afternoon, when the temperature was really really hot. I loved drawing the fashionable clothes of these magazines. I enjoyed a lot of things, like every month Ayu's ViVi Diary, and there were barely often pages related to alan. There were there two pages about her 1st concert, another page to promote the EPSON campaign. And when I made a playlist on my cousin's computer to put some music in her shop (that was so much fun), I was putting a lot of alan songs (Pinguu's massive alan promotion in China ! xD) My cousin said once : Oh, that's Alan Dawa Zhuoma, the singer from Xifang (= The West Side of China). Her wailing is incredible, I'll never be able to make one like her (song playing : Ming Ri Zang Ge).
The most important comes here :
I went in a group to Japan one week. They were all close friends of one of my Gan mama's friends. I had to share a room with another guy (18 years old). He's the type of college guy who works a lot at school. So once, he was telling me about the Japanese girls and the Chinese girls (sometimes, he was telling me some weird things, but whatever). He told me about Bing Qi Bu (Ayumi Hamasaki in Chinese), bla bla bla, all the female singers were short, bla bla bla, Japanese girls were prettier than Chinese girls... And then he said : You know, there's a Chinese singer called alan. (I kept attention at what he said at this moment) She comes from Sichuan, and at the debut, nobody wanted her to sing in Mainland, she was really poor (well, he didn't said that, but I have no idea how to translate that). But then, Japanese people took her to Japan, and then she became more and more famous in China. That's why Japan is good in term of music, bla bla bla bla.... But well, alan's music is very good, and I think she's REALLY pretty, like all those beautiful Japanese girls. LMAO he said this as if he was in love with alan XD. I was like : :embarrassed y'know, alan is my favorite singer---------- (guy talk)
The last day, I went shopping in Ginza, and I bought plenty of CDs. When I got back to the car other people said "SHOW US THE CD YOU BOUGHT" Ok ok, So I show them all the CDs. In the group, there were 3 other teenagers guys (14 years old, 17 years old, 18 years old). They all said : "ALAN ?! YOU BOUGHT SOMETHING BY ALAN ?! GIMME THAT GIMME THAT GIMME THAT !!!". Me : don't crash my Kaze ni mukau hana copies or I'll be mad at you! (while all the mothers at the back of the car took my MOON/blossom copy, LMAO. They all know Ayu)
So that's all I remember about what I heard about alan. Thank you if you've read it in full ^^ It's funny to notice that alan is more effective with young people in China.
Sun Oct 04, 2020 6:56 pm by 
Subject: Everything I heard about alan in Mainland China. 
