Zhang Fengxi is quieter than expected upon first meeting. The runner-up of the first “China’s Got Talent” TV show, best known for her lively imitations of famous stand-up comedians, turns out to be a serious student and an obedient daughter when not in the limelight. Just a normal 10-year-old.

Zhang, like many girls her age, dotes on pink, princess stories, colorful skirts and iPad games. She is shy amid strangers.

“My dream for the future?” She tilts her head for a while and thought about it. “Ah, don’t laugh at me,” she says at last, with a timid smile. “But I want to become a UN spokeswoman because I love talking on stage.”

Her mother, Feng Jiuyin, smiles benignly at her response.

“That really is a dream, just a bit too big,” Feng says. “But since we have such a great ambition, we should study hard from now on, shouldn’t we?”

Zhang rose to stardom three years ago, when she won second prize in the popular nationwide TV talent show. Her poker face, oily well-combed hair, tailor-made black tuxedo, adult-like pose and dark sense of humor, uttered in authentic Shanghai dialect, was a shoe-in imitation of stand-up comedian Zhou Libo.

It was Zhang herself who took the initiative to go on the show. She phoned to apply — just “for fun.” Since Zhang loves to chat on the phone and often calls friends, relatives or teachers after dinner, her mother didn’t know about her daughter’s call to the TV show.

“I was washing dishes in the kitchen, not knowing that she had chatted with the director on the phone for half an hour,” her mother recalls. “Who knows what they were talking about!”

A star-struck six-year-old could have little idea that fame also has its cruel moments.

She came in for some public criticism after she declined, on air, to accept a hug from the man who beat her to the first prize — Liu Wei, a pianist without arms.

Never smile on stage

“I did not hug him, but I said congratulations to him and made a bow, though the audience didn’t hear it because my microphone was off and the cameras were all focused on Liu Wei,” Zhang says by way of explanation. “Plus I was really hungry at the time.”

Her mother interjects, “To be frank, she was a little afraid. Liu was a very introverted person and he seldom talked with other contestants, so when a stranger offered her a hug, she was kind of frightened. She was only six years old and didn’t know about the adult world. I don’t think she should be blamed for that.”

Zhang’s appearance was also criticized because the little girl never smiled on stage, and some viewers questioned whether her parents were just pushy stage people using their daughter to make some money.

Her parents have tried to fend off the worst of the public pressure.

“Life is like a train rolling forward,” Zhang says, somewhat philosophically. “Your train has passed this station, and it is the same with little accomplishments. Don’t look back because it’s all over. That was what my mother told me. My first thing at that time was to get ready for being a first-year student.”

After that star-studded summer, Zhang entered the Yifu Primary School in Xuhui District. Her parents refused all the interviews and further TV programs. Zhang’s life smoothly shifted from rising star to ordinary student.

“I think the most important thing is to help her establish a healthy life attitude,” mother Feng says. “We told her there are people who like you and people who don’t. Don’t worry about it too much and don’t take yourself too seriously.”

Zhang nowadays is well behaved, polite and unassuming. If she is noticed on the street, she says hello and is happy to chat or take photos with fans. “They like me. I like they like me,” Zhang says.

In school, she applied for the cooking class and became quite the little chef, mastering dishes like fried shrimp, scallion pancakes and pumpkin soup. Every time she learned a new dish, she shared it with classmates.

Once she pestered her mother to help her make 40 pancakes for her classmates. “Fourty steaming hot pancakes,” she clarified. Her mother had to rise early that day to help her in the kitchen.

“I just wanted everyone in my class to sample my cooking skills,” she says. “But I managed to make only about 20 pancakes and was late for school.”

Zhang could write her name at the age of three and had learned about 1,000 Chinese characters in the kindergarten.

The girl opened a weibo microblog on the Internet after her TV success and began to record her daily life.

Many people said they suspect most of the blog is written by her parents. Some left unkind remarks on the blog. “How could I not be sad?” Zhang explains. “But I didn’t cry because I’m tough.”

Her parents once again came to the rescue.

“They told me just let it go because you can’t make everyone happy,” she says. “There are different kinds of people in the world and they have different thoughts. What I should do is to mind my own business, work hard and be a reasonable and polite girl. As to how other people look at me, I can’t control that.”

Strict parental supervision

Her mother still supports her weibo effort. “It’s a good thing,” she says. “She keeps it like a diary, so she will have many memories to look back on someday.”

But the weibo blog remains under strict parental supervision.

One time, Zhang wrote on her blog: “No more school! Vacation, please!”

“My mother saw it and, uh, you know the rest of the story,” Zhang says, making a face at her mother.

Television producers, seeing a good thing, beseeched the parents not to kill their daughter’s talent by refusing to let her on stage again.

“I thought about it seriously,” Feng says. “The girl has some talent and she has some success. If I constrained her development, she would blame me one day when she grew up. After a long talk with her, we allowed her to go on TV again, but we also made it clear that nothing was to interfere with her schoolwork.”

Zhang has kept her part of the bargain the last three years. TV commitments remain a sideline. She maintains straight As and ranks in the top three of her class. This semester, she carried home four school awards and won scholarships.

Zhang reads a lot, from ancient books to modern novels, though she might not fully understand them. Once she borrowed a six-year-grade Chinese textbook, used as a stage prop on a TV show and began teaching herself Chinese classics.

Feng says she never treats her daughter like a child.

“Since she was three years old, we always have asked for her opinion when we made family decisions, such as buying a new microwave,” Feng says. “She would recommend styles, colors and brands she saw on TV commercials.”

People often criticize Zhang, saying that she’s not especially cute, given her somewhat cold, unsmiling demeanor.

“It’s the image the director asked me to create,” she says. “Actually, I think it’s quite cool.”

At home, Zhang is happy to be alone, reading books or practicing the piano. She is lucky to avoid the private tutoring to which many youngsters her age are subjected by parents eager for good academic grades.

“We think she can learn well enough at school, and we don’t want to burden her at an age when she should play and enjoy herself,” the mother says.

As for the girl’s dream of working for the United Nations, her mother remains more pragmatic.

“I just want her to become a kind and upright person who can stand on her own feet,” she says.