Peng scaled the heights of fame long before her husband, President Xi Jinping. She spent two decades as a nationally renowned folksinger, known for belting out patriotic tunes on elaborate television specials. She began to dodge the limelight in 2007, to give precedence to Xi's political career.
Last March, Peng sent shockwaves through Chinese social media when she appeared with Xi in Moscow wearing a sharp trench coat and handbag.
One fan – a 34-year-old woman named Li who started a popular Peng Liyuan fan group online – described her hero as humble, friendly, and glamorous.
"Her influence means far more now than it could if she was just a singer," she said. "She gives our people face – and she not only has traditional beauty, but also international charm."
While Sasha and Malia Obama frequently appear in the US press, Peng's 21-year-old daughter Xi Mingze, who pseudonymously enrolled at Harvard University in 2010, is shrouded in a cloak of official secrecy. Even the notoriously prying Mail on Sunday was unable to discover much about her in a 2017 profile – "she's a bookworm, very quiet and studious", an acquaintance told the paper. She's under constant protection by bodyguards, and she rarely parties.
Peng was born in Yuncheng, a rural county in coastal Shandong Province, in 1962. Her mother was a singer, and her father was a cultural bureaucrat, former neighbours told the Hong Kong newspaper Ming Pao. She joined the People's Liberation Army at 18 as a civilian. By 1986, when she met her future husband Xi Jinping on a blind date, she was already a renowned soprano; he was a mid-level provincial official.
【米歇尔访华:中美第一夫人风格对比】相关文章:
★ 永远不要以貌取人
最新
2020-09-15
2020-09-15
2020-09-15
2020-09-15
2020-09-15
2020-09-15