SHE sings Shanghai opera and speaks fluent Mandarin.

But when Miss Lou Jing competed to be China's next reality TV pop star, it was not her voice that was criticised - it was her black skin.

The daughter of a Chinese mother and an absent African-American father, 20-year-old Miss Lou caused a media storm when she was named one of Shanghai's five finalists for Let's Go! Oriental Angel, an American Idol-style show, reported AFP.

But her fame has been for all of the wrong reasons, after her appearance sparked a vigorous and often vicious nationwide debate on whether she was even fit to be on Chinese television because of the colour of her skin.

"I am Chinese," Miss Lou told AFP in an interview.

"But when I read the comments, I started to question myself. I never questioned myself before. This time I started to think about how I am different from others."

Shocked: Miss Lou Jing said the racist comments made her think about how she is different from others.

She added: "I couldn't help crying. I felt hurt. I never meant to offend anyone."

Miss Lou said she feels tougher and more mature after her experience, but added if she could do it all over again, she would not have gone on the show at all.

An instructor at Shanghai Drama Academy, where Miss Lou studies broadcasting, put forward the mixed-race beauty and a handful of classmates to appear on the television talent show, without asking first.

She was selected for the top 30 nationwide, but was not among the 12 contestants chosen by judges for the next round.

Miss Lou said she was not surprised by the judges' decision, but was shocked by the thousands of web postings that followed, most of them negative and many of them expressing racist views.

Although Miss Lou is still working towards her dream of being a television presenter, she said the episode had left her less optimistic about whether she can find a place on China's airwaves.

Traditional beauty

"They want a TV host who is considered traditionally beautiful," she said.

"Ever since I appeared on TV, I realised that maybe I don't fit the image of a TV host. Many believe a TV host should have white skin, high nose and big eyes."

Coming ahead of US President Barack Obama's first visit to China, Miss Lou's experience has put a spotlight on perceptions of race in the country.

Even though Mr Obama is wildly popular among the Chinese people and the country is rapidly expanding its ties with Africa, commentators said Miss Lou's story exposes deep racism in China, where the ethnic Han are in a vast majority.

"In the same year Americans welcomed Obama into the White House, we can't even accept this girl with a different skin colour?" wrote Ms Hung Huang, a talk show host and magazine publisher often described as "China's Oprah Winfrey".

"We tend to be biased against those who are darker-skinned, while admiring races that are paler than us. It is a deeply rooted evil within us," Ms Hung wrote on her blog.

China Daily columnist Raymond Zhou called the backlash against Miss Lou "outright racism," and said the bias against dark skin was also an offshoot of class discrimination: field labourers were tanned while the rich were pale.

"Many of us even look down on fellow Chinese who have darker skin, especially women. Beauty products that claim to whiten the skin always fetch a premium. And children are constantly praised for having fair skin," he wrote.

Miss Lou said she would follow Mr Obama's visit to China, adding that the US president is one of her heroes.

She said: "He convinced people that he has the capacity to change what people thought of African-Americans. Compared to him, I don't have that capacity for change because the Chinese media is too powerful."

This article was first published in The New Paper.