Rising to fame in the late 1980s, she is one of China’s earliest and most prominent pop singers after the Mao era, known for her rich, powerful, and dignified voice, which has made her a staple of televised galas.
She developed a love for music during her childhood, influenced by her mother’s fondness for the Taiwanese singer Teresa Teng, whose songs were officially banned but privately popular in China at the time.
Inspired, she auditioned and joined the Nanjing Military Region‘s Frontline Song and Dance Troupe that same year and released her debut album, Boiling Hot Coffee.
Mao rose to household fame with her performance of Yearning on the 1988 CCTV’s Spring Festival Gala, the most watched show in China and the world.
Mao was subsequently imposed a disciplinary warning and placed under three months of house arrest by the Frontline Song and Dance Troupe, until her back taxes and fines, totally 230, 000 yuan, were claimed.
In 1993, Mao was demobilized from the military and joined Hong Kong’s Capital Artists, becoming one of the earliest singers from mainland China to sign with a professional music label.
This commercial branding marked a change in her musical style and image, which, despite Mao’s pride in its feminist and emotional qualities, received mixed reviews at the time.
They met in 1987, when Zhang was a music editor for the Oriental Song and Dance Troupe, while Mao was in Gu Jianfen’s singing training program in Beijing.
Through the singer’s introduction, Mao met a wealthy British businessman based in Singapore and began an affair before Zhang left China[6].