Chinese youth says no contest: Liu 1, Yao 2

BEIJING, April 3 -- Chinese Olympic hurdles champion Liu Xiang and superstar basketballer Yao Ming have relegated English footballer David Beckham to third spot in the sporting hearts of Chinese youngsters.

Beckham, however, still topped the poll for the Asia-Pacific area.

A survey, released by international market research firm Synovate, asked 11,886 people from 11 Asia-Pacific countries and regions, aged eight to 24, about their favorite stars, personal-product ownership, leisure activities and Internet usage.

More than 2,000 respondents were from the Chinese mainland, including Shanghai. Taiwan pop star Jay Chow was voted most popular singer by young mainlanders, with 20 percent of the total votes. Hong Kong singer and actor Andy Lau followed.

Wang Yimin, an 18-year-old high-school respondent, said he loves Chow because he's more than a simple pop singer. "What I admire most about Jay is that he is able to weave many old Chinese literature works into his songs ... that's quite inspiring," Wang said.

The survey reported that youngsters on China's mainland have a multi-tasking and media-rich lifestyle. Young respondents on the mainland were found to fit 39 hours of activities into every 24-hour period - and still manage a night's sleep. This was an hour more than the regional average.

Over 10 hours out of the 39 hours were spent in media activities, such as reading newspapers or magazines, watching TV or surfing the Internet.

Darryl Andrew, Synovate's CEO for China, said that the result indicated the extreme multi-tasking capabilities of the new generation of Chinese youngsters.

"The frenetic pace of a digitally driven society has been embraced by China's young people," he said.

"They are downloading from the Internet while reading newspapers, or they may be texting on theirmobile phone and playing anonline game at the same time."

(Source: Shanghai Daily)