denny Ethnic & National book

A Star Rising From the Grasslands---- On May 12, 2002, Soinam Wangmowon the only gold medal for amateur singers at the 10th National TV Contest of Young Singers, with her song Golden Hometown. On May 17, she won the best singer award at the final. These made her a star following in the footsteps of Cedain Zholma, a female singer from Tibet loved throughout China. Soinam Wangmo came from a small village in Nagqu. Tucked away at an elevation of 4400 meters, it is some 700 km from Lhasa. Her mother is over 70, and she has two sisters, one elder brother and one younger brother. She followed other members in her family in herding since childhood. High skies dotted with white clouds above mirrored by white sheep dotted over the landscape below are embedded in her mind. Soinam Wangmo loves singing and her teachers were herders who sang songs full of a loving desire for life. "When young, I joined them to sing while herding sheep," she recalls. "We sang the praises of the blue sky, the white clouds, the grassland and everything we encountered in life. "We created words to sing and sang freely to satisfy ourselves." According to Soinam Wangmo, her father was the best singer in her neighborhood. And she herself was known far and wide in her early teens for her singing talent. Unfortunately, her father died when she was 14, and the songs she sang were somewhat sorrowful. At the end of 1991, Soinam Wangmo, then 14, was recruited by the Sog County Song and Dance Troupe. In the ...