Miss A: Jia, Min, Suzy and Fei. Photo: Courtesy of JYP Entertainment

By Park Gayoung

In a waiting room behind the stage at Dayin Theater at The Place in Beijing, the four scantily-clad members of Miss A deftly bounced back and forth between a reporter's questions and a photographer taking their pictures.

Answering in Chinese and Korean, the multinational group with two Chinese and two Korean members was waiting to perform in front of a sellout crowd of 600 Chinese fans.

Although the performance was a showcase for Samsung's new tablet PC, the Galaxy TAB, the event also had special significance for two members of the band - Jia and Fei, who go by their first names and were making their entertainment debut in their home country.

Only five months after the group's launch on July 1 in South Korea, Miss A has yet to make their official tour in China, but plans are certainly in the works.

Queens of Korea

When they made their debut in South Korea with their first debut single, "Bad Girl, Good Girl," they shocked the audiences with their powerful dancing. One of the parts of their video that always elicits the crowd's cheers is when the girls slide onto the floor and thrust their thighs into the air. It took only two weeks to conquer the music charts and to become one of the top girl groups.

Meng Jia, 21, originally from Hunan Province, stood out from the other female performers from the start. Known as Jia in the band, her hair was neon-pink in the first video, but now she's bleached out all the color for their second single, "Breathe," which also hit the top of the charts.

"I am really happy to perform in front of Chinese fans. I'm really happy and moved to perform in China," she says, speaking in fluent Korean.

Meng's major was Chinese classical dance but she liked hip-hop. She later came to Beijing to study modern dance at Beijing Contemporary Music Academy. Even before finishing one semester, she made her way to dance hip-hop on big stages as she passed an audition held by one of the biggest entertainment groups in South Korea, JYP Entertainment in 2007.

The other Chinese member, Wang Feifei who goes by Fei, 23, hails from Hainan Province and studied dancing in Guangzhou. She adds, "we don't have any specific dates scheduled for our debut in China, but we're coming to China for sure."

Wang's parents were concerned when she told them she was going to South Korea to become a singer. Now her parents are happy with their daughter's success, and check out Wang's videos and news online.

The news of her stardom wasn't very convincing to her friends. "My friends would not believe that I would have made it in Korea," Wang says.

It didn't occur to Wang either that she would gain much popularity in South Korea. "I did not expect this at all. I thought I would just end up as a trainee."

Pop competition

Some fans waited over 5 hours to get into the small theater. For many of them, having Chinese singers is a main draw. "I started paying attention to Miss A because there are two Chinese members," a teenaged fan named Liu said. "That will help them be very successful in China."

Miss A has had to differentiate itself from other girl groups in South Korea as competition in the pop world heats up.

South Korea has been obsessed with girl groups since 2007 when Wonder Girls and Girls' Generation made their debut. The groups quickly burst out of South Korea and into the larger Japanese market, where CD sales are still high. But Miss A is clearly tailored to China, a sign of the rapid growth in the massive country's music industry.

While China is obviously in the cards - the two Korean members of Miss A can already speak basic Chinese - the singers themselves are clearly not business experts.

"We don't know much about the markets," says Lee Min-young or Min, 19. "That's for the company to think about."

Lee Minyoung might have been picked partly because of her connections to America, where her company sent Lee for voice, dance and language lessons for five years. Originally she went to launch her career there, but the opportunities never materialized. Lee has now spent a total of 8 years training for pop stardom.

The other Korean singer, Bae Suzy, 16, has the least amount of experience on the international stage and training, but she's trying to make up for it by learning Chinese every day. "Sister Fei and Jia help me to learn Chinese," she says.

Although she's the youngest, she's the tallest among the four girls and attracts the biggest male fanbase. She thinks she was lucky to join the group after only one year's training.

Although each member has been training for a long time on their own, Miss A came into being only a few months before their launch.

Chart creators

How they conquered the Korean pop music scene, however, has more to do with their backers. JYP Entertainment is the king-maker of Korean music. They've produced Asian heartthrob Rain and the Wonder Girls, the first Asian group to make a major splash on the US Billboard charts.

Last year, The Wonder Girls single, "Nobody," was hugely popular in China. Miss A is the first girl group to debut under the JYP Entertainment umbrella since the Wonder Girls; they're often referred to as the younger sister of the Wonder Girls.

Ye Qing, a high school student from Zhangjiakou, Hebei Province, four hours away from Beijing by train, was one of several hundreds of fans waiting for the concert. He skipped school to come and see Miss A's performance.

"I am a dancer and I want to get training from JYP. Becoming a star in South Korea like Fei and Jia and coming back to China seems a great idea. Actually I think it's better to make a debut in Korea," Ye says.

For this year, they hope to top other chart rookies in South Korea. "As it's only once in a life time, we want to have the honor of receiving Rookie of the Year," says Bae. But next year, they will come to China as their first step to claim the Asian market. "We first want to be the best in Asia and we want to get an A grade for dance and A grade for singing, that's what Miss A means," Lee says.

gayoungpark@globaltimes.com.cn