Girls get ready to be the next BoA

 SunMin and Zhang Li Yin, two rising teen pop stars of different nationality, have taken meaningful steps to become "the next big things" in the Asian pop music scene.

Eighteen-year-old Korean SunMin (Lee Sun-min) made her sensational debut in Korea through "SBS Ingigayo," on which she and Shin Hye-sung (a member of the famous boy band Shinhwa) performed a duet on her song "Keep Holding U." Ten days later, 16-year-old Chinese R&B sensation Zhang Li Yin fascinated Korean audiences with her charming stage presence and great vocal talent on Saturday, as she sang her debut single "Timeless" on MBC's "Show! Musical Central."

 

In addition to being teen pop princesses with superior singing abilities, the two singers have much in common. Both of them are R&B singers and, like BoA once was, they were trained to succeed in a foreign market from the very beginning.

 

Zhang first came to Korea in 2003 as one of many trainees of Seoul-based entertainment giant SM Entertainment. Since then, the native of Szechuan province has gone through intensive and extensive training to become a Chinese version of BoA, whose four previous albums released in Japan topped the Oricon (Japanese Billboard) chart. "Whitney Houston and Mariah Carey were two of my biggest idols and they still are," said the sweet, baby-faced singer in an interview with The Korea Herald in pretty fluent Korean. "I know that I am attracting public attention because I'm Chinese. But I also know that I have to establish myself with nothing but my musical endeavors," continued Zhang, whose parents are both violinists.

SunMin, on the other hand, is the ambitious work of Good Entertainment. The management company, one of the biggest rivals of SM Entertainment, is molding her to achieve what BoA, with the support of SM, has achieved in Japan. From the very moment she was taken on by the company, she began studying Japanese, dreaming to become a star in Japan.

Her company was also very supportive, believing that her style and image would be received well in Japan. It was Kubota Toshinobu, a pioneering Japanese soul and R&B performer who, after hearing her demo by chance, asked her to be his duet partner for the original Japanese version of "Keep Holding U," the theme song of the current Japanese disaster blockbuster "Sinking of Japan."

"I was very nervous at the idea of singing with such a renowned musician, but he is a nice and open-mined person. He made me feel completely relaxed," Lee said in an interview. According to her, her current promotion with Shin in Korea is temporary - just to greet her Korean fans before she embarks on her solo career in Japan soon, with the release of her first single album. "It was great though, getting attention from my own country's folks," she continued.

Up until now, the two singers have turned out to be successful in their target markets. Zhang's "Timeless" music video topped the charts presented by online pop music portal Dosirak, right after it was released at the end of the last month, while SunMin and Kubota's "Keep Holding U" single album sold more than 70,000 copies in Japan in two weeks. It is hard to deny that their initial success owes much to their duet partners. Additionally, they can hardly be perfectly articulate in expressing their feelings when they sing in their second languages, which must be the biggest obstacle to becoming a true star in a foreign market.

Luckily though, they seem to know what they have to do for now to be a true star. "My manager worries that too much practice might hurt my vocal cord, but I know I still have much to improve," Zhang said. "In Japan, I think about coming back to Korea to see my parents a couple of times a day. But I know I have to overcome that kind of feeling. I have a long way to go," Lee said.

(danlee@heraldm.com)

By Lee Yong-sung