Sexy model turns heads at Beijing Auto Show
A Chinese model who wore a revealing diamond-studded dress at the Beijing Auto Show last week has become an overnight star.
BMW model Li Yingzhi, 22, has become the subject of several blogs and newspaper articles after the dress she wore sparked furious debate.
According to several online blogs, Li is a popular, up-and-coming Chinese model and actress from Qingdao, Shandong Province. Dubbed the “Beauty of Qingdao”, the slender 1.77m-tall model has worked as a catwalk model, car show model, fashion model, dancer and actress.
Her Weibo page has over 274,000 fans, while her profile on Facebook says she has won several modeling awards such as the 2009 Runner-up at the Miss International Beauty Queen contest.
She also has an YouTube channel which has already garnered nearly 4000 views.
In December 2010, she was romantically linked to Jackie Chan’s son, Jaycee Chan.
Li and several other skimpily-clad car models at the show have caused an uproar among the Chinese online community, with some web users claiming the Auto Show had become more of a “breast show” than a car exhibition.
Even Beijing’s Capital Ethics Development Office has weighed in, saying on its website that some of outfits worn by the models have a “negative social impact”.
The 10-day Auto Show, which started on April 23rd and ends this Wednesday, has over 1,125 cars on display. But all the talk has been around the car models, rather than the cars themselves.
One Weibo user said: "The show has been totally ruined by some models, as people swarm there to see all kinds of women and 'airbags' of different sizes. I miss the exhibitions of the past."
Referring to pictures of Gan Lulu, an explicitly dressed model known for showing off her homemade nude photos, a microblogger joked on Sina Weibo site: "The brand is trying to convey the features of its car - convertible with double airbags."
However, a director of performances at the auto exhibition, Yang Yang, explained that the models were merely chosen to compliment the cars and their features.
In 2009, there was a similar online uproar in Singapore, where a mystery model raised eyebrows with her revealing dressing and compromising poses on the cars during the Super Import Nights car show at the Singapore Expo.
