By Tom Phillips , Shanghai. She is a year-old shopkeeper who transformed herself into China's first and only female impersonator of Mao Tse-tung.
But while Chen Yan's unlikely career as a Mao Tse-tung look-a-like has brought her fame and a measure of fortune it has also wrecked her marriage, a Chinese magazine claimed on Thursday. For Mrs Chen told the Global People magazine that her husband had grown tired of feeling "he is sleeping with [the] Chairman and that their sex life had been destroyed. Chen Yan's transformation into the Great Helmsman began in when she appeared on a televised talent show and was asked to impersonate the award-winning actor Tang Guoqiang, who is famous for playing historical figures including Mao.
Mrs Chen was eliminated from the program but returned to her home in Sichuan province's Mianyang to find that her "Mao face" had made her a local celebrity. China to seize illegally-built buildings. Eight stone Chairman Mao statue unveiled. Cult of Mao should be reassessed, says grandson. Mao's hometown prepares for a revamp and his reputation is re-examined. Buoyed by her new found fame and sensing there was money to be made from impersonating China's chubby-faced revolutionary leader, Mrs Chen set about transforming herself into Mao.
At just five-foot tall, she began with her body. She changed her habits, abandoning the traditional hobbies of a rural Sichuan woman: mahjong gambling sessions and square dancing. She even gave up wearing skirts after fans began accosting her in the street with the question: "How can you wear skirts when you are playing Chairman Mao? The mother-of-one also poured over Mao's mannerisms, particularly the way in which he would "smoke, wave [and] gaze into the distance.
In an increasingly capitalist China, Mrs Chen's Mao-makeover paid off: property developers and department stores beat a path to her door hoping to use her uncanny likeness to the Chairman to sell their products.
