Q: What prompted you to start a Xu Fei fan club?
A: I only started taking notice of Xu Fei when she sang the classic The Admonition of Love during the preliminary round of the contest back in May. She was sitting on the floor singing and playing the guitar and it was just so captivating. Her delivery of the song was so refreshing that it felt like a glass of icy water on a scorching summer day. Then for the next few days, that imagery and the melody just kept popping up in my mind. It was a bit embarrassing at first when I and a few friends went to the PLA art school where she studies and hung around the entrance hoping to catch a glimpse of her.
What has drawn the fans together and when did you start working on the club?
Most of us first met via online bulletin board services dedicated to Xu Fei. Then I started the club in May when Xu Fei began her quest for the top 10 in Changsha. Now we have about 200 registered members and roughly 200 more active members.
What do you and the club normally do to support Xu Fei?
First, we try to mobilise people close to us - our family, and friends - to vote for her. We also go to popular places regularly to raise awareness of Xu Fei and to get people to support her. We have also greeted her or seen her off at the airport a few times to show our allegiance. Once we waited for more than eight hours to greet her at the Beijing airport when her flight was delayed by bad weather. In July, more than 100 of us attended a function in Beijing for the release of an album featuring Changsha's top 10 contestants, including Xu Fei.