Finding her voice

Lowdermilk sings with Starlight Boulevard host Bi Fujian. [Photo by Zou Hong/China Daily]

Born in Demark, she moved to the US with her family at the age of 7, and then came to China in 2010 with her parents who were both English teachers, when she was 10.

"I grew up here. When I first came here, there were only two subway lines. That one was still under construction," she says, pointing to a roaring Batong line train outside. Despite her typical Caucasian look - fair skin, deep-set eyes and high-bridged nose, Lowdermilk has the aura of a young Chinese woman, with her dark hair and her quiet, humble personality.

Her favorite food is also typical Chinese: malatang, which has various raw ingredients cooked in a communal pot blended with spices, a dish that originated from Chongqing and the surrounding Sichuan province.

As the youngest of 11 children in her family, Lowdermilk was a naughty imp, always trying to get attention from other family members.

"I was pushed down a lot. My parents didn't think I was a princess. They thought I was basically not very intelligent," she says. "My brothers are very smart. They have all kinds of artistic talents. They just could do everything and I couldn't. Nothing really clicked with me."

She was lonely during the first three or four years in Beijing, since she lost all her friends in the US and couldn't adjust to her new life. The 10-year-old girl was angry with her parents and she didn't understand the city life around her.

That suddenly changed when she started teaching herself how to sing Chinese folk songs in 2009.

One day, she was practicing a folk song from Shaanxi province in northwestern China. She sang it with the high pitch and dialect for hours at home. When she turned around, her mother was standing there.