Which helps explain how a 21-year-old Sichuanese music student named Li Yuchun has become one of the most popular figures in China. In August, Li won a televised American Idol-like singing contest produced by Hunan province's Entertainment Channel and bearing its own inimitable name: "Mongolian Cow Sour Yogurt Super Girl's Voice." (Its sponsor makes yogurt.) The show drew the largest audiences in the history of Chinese television. As the competition narrowed, the media covered it like a war or the O.J. Simpson trial. By the time the finale aired, some 400 million people were tuning in.