VICKI ZHAO, the mainland's first real celebrity, whose image is idolised across the country by millionaires and migrant workers alike, is looking decidedly ropey. Dressed in a black leather trouser suit with a silver chain dangling from her left ear lobe, Zhao Wei, as she's known in Chinese, is sitting in the offices of her record company, Virgin China, sucking on a cheap Zhongnanhai brand cigarette. Her big, shapely eyes are bloodshot.
Approaching the end of a day of interviews for her new album, Piao, Zhao looks tired. She spies a camera and quickly jams on a pair of sunglasses. As an afterthought, she stubs the cigarette out in a paper cup. Fidgeting, Zhao starts playing with a black plastic lighter, but that too is quickly taken away by her PR minder, Kong Jing, a plump woman in rose-tinted glasses who is given to intervening swiftly when she doesn't like questions and who scolds reporters for not being sycophantic.
Amid all this, Zhao sits quietly, looking bored. She doesn't need more negative publicity. She's already swimming in it.
'I hope my fans can learn who the real Zhao Wei is and get rid of all the misunderstandings there were before,' she says. 'There are too many versions of me and many are messy.'
So, who is the real Zhao Wei? According to the cover of Piao, the real Vicki Zhao is 'simple, unsophisticated, unsuspecting like a child, sentimental, and serious towards the drama and music she likes'. All Zhao will say of herself is: 'I am a simple and good person.' When pressed for more, she looks bored and doodles on a paper cup in front of her. 'Those media reporters who know me well and my friends know what my real personality is. Those who read newspapers and watch TV don't know what my real personality is,' she says.
Zhao, 28, shot to fame in 1998 with her role as Little Swallow in the TV series My Fair Princess, a Chinese-Taiwanese drama set in the Qing dynasty about a lively commoner (Zhao) who is elevated to the position of princess, who then shakes up the dynasty. The part gave her more exposure than any other actress in China, and Zhao was instantly the mainland's No1 glamour girl. Her image grew with the mainland entertainment industry and when she branched into singing, she hit it even bigger.