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Zhang Shuang, a cheerful twenty-something from Liaoning, China, isn't typical pop-star material. She doesn't sing or dance or suffer wardrobe malfunctions. Her principal talent, to which she has devoted her life, is playing the pipa, a lutelike Chinese instrument more at home in Peking opera than Top-40 countdowns. Growing up, Zhang was realistic about how far that specialty might take her. "I thought that if I was lucky," she says, "I could join a traditional ensemble and do some teaching on the side."

Zhang has been considerably luckier: she's a member of the 12 Girls Band, a group of young ladies whose enthusiastic renditions of musical chestnuts on traditional Chinese instruments have become a sensation outside their homeland. Their first overseas album, Beautiful Energy, has sold more than 2 million CDs in Japan and hundreds of thousands more across Asia since last summer. A 32-date Japan tour last month sold out in 10 minutes, and a follow-up album, Shining Energy, has gone platinum since its release in March. "They're outselling the biggest Japanese stars," says Rei Miyazaki, an editor at the Tokyo-based music magazine Oricon. "Nobody thought a foreign band could ever do that, much less a Chinese one."

At a time when Chinese-made products are seizing global markets, the 12 Girls Band has become the mainland's first pop-musical export. The Sino-Japanese balance of cultural trade used to be decidedly in Japan's favor. Although Chinese youth followed Japanese TV dramas and pop idols, the straitlaced mainland entertainment industry offered little in exchange. But today, the 12 Girls Band (which actually numbers 13, including one alternate) is ubiquitous in Japan. They star in commercials for chocolate and cell phones, comedians parody them on TV, and in what may be the most compelling proof of their fame, there's even a porn video featuring naked look-alikes.

Elegantly draped in flowing dresses and sporting flight-attendant smiles that never flicker, the 12 women breeze their way through easy-listening instrumental stylings of everything from Japanese pop songs to Chinese folk favorites and American jazz standards. The group's composer and arranger, Liang Jianfeng, says their sound "combines the best elements of Chinese and Western music." In practice, that means retaining just enough Chinese flavor to create an exotic sheen without alienating listeners unaccustomed to the moan of the erhu (a two-stringed fiddle) or the plink of the pipa. The finished product is about as Chinese as Enya is Celtic—but their culture-shockproof tunes travel well across borders and in elevators. The group's version of the jazz classic Take Five is nowadays piped over the p.a. systems of Tokyo convenience stores.

As a business concept, the 12 Girls Band is more audacious than its pleasantly conventional music. The group was the inspiration of Beijing-based rock producer Wang Xiaojing, who several years ago hit upon the idea of forming a band by picking the prettiest women from China's élite musical academies. "First and foremost," says Wang, who in 2001 auditioned 4,000 women on the way to choosing his lucky 13, "they had to be beautiful. Twelve beautiful girls standing on a stage is a spectacle in itself, even without any music."

Despite its combination of beauty and talent, the band didn't prove a hit with Chinese audiences. Their luck changed only after Kazuma Tomoto, a Warner Music executive in Tokyo, saw a 12 Girls Band concert video and decided to import them to Japan. "I'd been thinking that Japan needed a new, energetic sound to jolt it out of its funk," says Tomoto. "The second I saw them, I knew they were going to be huge." His bosses weren't convinced, so Tomoto quit his job and started his own music label. It paid off: Tomoto's Platia Entertainment earned almost $50 million in its first year of operation.

Success hasn't translated into rock-star lifestyles for the band members. Their annual incomes are in the tens of thousands of dollars, according to producer Wang (who quickly adds that "most Chinese folk musicians make a lot less"). But self-advancement appears not to be a major priority. "When we're abroad, we try to think of ourselves not as individuals but as representatives of China," says Zhang, brimming with the winning patriotism of a socialist poster girl. The band's next stop: the U.S. Wang is hoping Americans will succumb to the group's siren charms when a U.S. debut album, Eastern Energy—which features a cover of Coldplay's Clocks—is released in August. "I'm a gambler," says Wang, "and I'm betting again."

It's a good bet. Even for the musically skeptical, there's something mesmerizing about the band's graceful stage presence, their technical virtuosity—and most of all, their euphoric expressions as they play their instruments. "At the academy, I felt I was playing music from the past," says Zhang, who left home at age 11 to study at Beijing's Central Conservatory of Music. "But now I'm finally getting to express myself." To continue doing that, all she has to do is pluck that pipa—and keep smiling.

• Ilya Garger | Tokyo
• With their traditional Chinese instruments and megawatt smiles, 12 Girls Band has become China's first pop-music export