A lmost three decades have passed since Mao Zedong died on September 9, 1976, and China has become a country he could have never imagined.

But is the tendency to mass action a la the Cultural Revolution really over?

It may not be the way Mao intended for his legacy to be played out but a wildly popular TV program seems to prove that the Great Helmsman, in some form, marches on. Of course, if Chairman Mao could tune in, log on, or send a text message on his mobile phone, he might fume with jealousy over a few young girls - the same age as his Red Guard minions who shook the country in the 1960s - who have led tens of millions of Chinese in a new cultural revolution.

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Welcome to the Mongolian Cow Sour Yoghurt Super-Voice Girls!

They're a far cry from the rosy- cheeked, dam-building "iron girls" of socialist lore, and they're not even Mongolian. But their sugary style represents the kitsch kingdom that is modern China.

They are participants in an annual nationally televised singing contest sponsored by Mongolian Cow, or Mengniu, a huge Inner Mongolia-based dairy company.

Since its 2004 launch, this American Idol rip-off has penetrated every mass medium in the mainland, capturing 1.3 billion hearts, minds and pockets. This is the "Super Girl Era."

As it neared its late-August climax, it had become the highest-rated mainland TV show for several consecutive months.

Responding to the slogan, "Super Girls, sing as you want!" more than 150,000 women signed up for auditions that started in February. Many were schoolgirls who skipped class to wait for hours in long queues.

The gala finale just over a week ago wooed 400 million viewers, nearly one third of the country's population. The three finalists collected more than eight million votes. The champion, Li Yuchun, a 21-year-old music student from Chengdu, won 3.52 million votes after singing a mixture of Chinese folk songs, Latino and American pop tunes.

Mao would be in awe of such pulling power. Ironically, the show was produced and aired on Hunan Satellite TV from the dusty southern industrial city of Changsha where Mao attended college and his revolutionary fervor was sparked.

The Super Girls stir the nation. For six months, hundreds of millions of Comrade Couch Potatoes have spent their Friday nights watching hopefuls struggling, often hilariously, through each stage of the contest.

Even major Communist Party mouthpieces such as the People's Daily and Xinhua News Agency have run reports, surveys and commentaries.

Some in the Western media have hailed it as a pop music pro-democracy movement. The China Daily quotes a renowned mainland critic as saying the show "blazed a trail of cultural democracy."

For others, the girls and their fans represent "a budding grassroots people's movement," while some revile it as "mad-girl disease" infecting the entire population.

The official organ of Mao's beloved People's Liberation Army, The PLA Daily, writes: "This participatory passion that's been hiding deeply in people's hearts, has even surprised us ... such expressions of the people are not just a test of media control."

Behind the clean-cut girl contestants with their dyed hair, miniskirts or baggy pants are the real actors on this stage - the girls' huge following, some as young as two and others past 70. Loyal fans and voters include civil servants, policemen and some of the country's leading singers and writers.

Watching hundreds of millions of Chinese intoxicated with the act of voting for a singer is entertaining enough and may be a hopeful harbinger of a more democratic China. But is this a resurrection of the spirit of democracy so brutally crushed in Tiananmen or is it just another current driving the zealous passions of people in the same manner as the Cultural Revolution?

Super Girl fans take to the streets in their millions, holding placards and shouting slogans, just like Red Guards although they look different and the props have changed, of course.

Their hands wave mobile phones instead of the Little Red Book, as they shout their slogans.

Sometimes, they even scuffle in the streets as they defend and promote not their political line but their favorite idol. They trade gossip and launch stinging attacks in chatrooms and online bulletin boards.

They even have their revolutionary bases, at least in the virtual world. The finalists have personal Web sites, run by fans, or designated online forums. Every fan club has a name and a uniform - T-shirts bearing the portrait of their Super Girl. Li Yuchun's fans call themselves "Corns," a play on a Chinese pun, Yu mi, which sounds similar to "fiends for Yu." They affectionately call Li "Chunchun."

Fans of other finalists call themselves "Chalks," "Bean Jellies" or "Lunch Boxes."

In the final stages of the contest, the girls' ultimate fate is decided by millions of SMS messages sent by phone-wielding fans. The SMS-tapping masses can consign a singer to the dustbin of defeat even after judges vote her in.

With finalists selected from aud- itions held in large cities nationwide, by the time of the coronation, the judges have been sidelined and SMS voters hold absolute power.

One can find fans on a series of message boards on the mainland's leading search engine, Baidu.com. I track down a few "Corns" the day before the finale and find a posting inside Li Yuchun's message bar on Baidu that lists meeting points and times in different cities throughout China.

Followers are urged to take to the streets to rally votes for a last-ditch effort. Organizers post their mobile phone numbers in messages.

On online media reports and TV video clips, I see mobs of screaming idol-mad fans besieging major city centers and the live concert venue in Changsha.

I dial "Bubu" in Chengdu. Like all other Internet surfers, Bubu is an online nickname. A very young voice answers. Bubu reluctantly says she is a high school student.

School and university students were the major campaigning force during the summer vacation.

"We've been working hard, rain or shine," Bubu says. "This week we got people to give us more than 10,000 yuan to buy mobile phone cards. Now we Corns are very excited and ner-vous."

One phone number can only be used to send 15 text messages to cast 15 votes per contest, so the more phone numbers one has, the more votes one can send. One temporary phone card gives one mobile number, which means 15 votes.

As well as rallying the use of friends' and relatives' mobile phones, the fans campaign in busy shopping districts and outside mobile phone shops, begging people to lend them their phones to send SMS votes.

The newly rich also get in on the act. A mainland newspaper reports that a mystery businessman walked into a mobile phone shop and bought 500,000 yuan worth of phone cards for the contests.

The day after the final round, I call Pop Corn, a Corn leader in Chengdu. Pop Corn is recovering from an all- night celebration in a packed karaoke bar. It was thrilling, she says. Super Girl Li's father, a policeman, made a brief appearance.

Pop Corn, 28, calls herself a freelance businesswoman and, in another eerie echo of Cultural Revolution groupthink, organizes her family to show "Corn"solidarity - the entire clan watched the show religiously every Friday evening.

Pop Corn is adamant that Li is someone unique, not quite a figure of worship but beyond the mortal plane. "She's not a human, nor is she a goddess," she says. "Maybe it sounds very corny but I have an undying love for her."

She vehemently fends off rumors that the androgynous, flat-chested starlet, who looks vaguely like a miniature of the basketball giant Yaoming, is not a real girl. Rivals suggest the reason Li has so many female fans is because she may be a lesbian or transsexual.

And indeed Li's appeal seems rather odd. She doesn't have the best voice. She dances awkwardly and sings as if she has a mouthful of spit.

But it is her natural style and inner charm that count, say the Corns. Li doesn't copy pop stars and thus represents innocence and purity in a materialistic world. Or so they say.

Old Candy, a Corn leader in Tianjin, is adamant Li has a "devilish power."

"She's like a magnet, drawing me close to her," says the 30-year-old accountant. Her two-year-old son is a little Corn, she says proudly.

I wonder, though, are they aware they have fallen victim to a "cunningly planned" business scheme, as suggested by China Daily?

Mainland media reported that Hunan Satellite TV is the real winner, charging 20,000 yuan (HK$19,200) for a 15-second commercial. Two days after the finals, the network launches an album of songs from the 10 finalists and is planning a series of Super Girl concerts in 10 mainland cities.

Li herself is rumored to be signing a five-million-yuan contract with the network.

Others have also been quick to cash in: Li Yuchun dolls are already on sale and a book entitled Li Yuchun, Very Handsome has been published by a Guangxi publishing house.

Hunan Satellite TV's net profit from its share from Super Girl text messaging alone this year is estimated to reach at least 30 million yuan.

China's SMS business is controlled by four telecom companies: China Mobile, China Telecom, Unicom and China Netcom. Every text message costs the sender 10 cents. But in order to vote in the contest, text senders are forced to sign up to special Super Girls SMS news and advertising bulletins for additional charges.

"We Corns are very angry about the telecom companies exploiting us," says Pop Corn. "But we would sacrifice for Li at any costs."

Their love is so pure that they guard their online revolutionary redoubts jealously against commercialism.

Chrislee.cn, a popular Web site dedicated to Li, is an ad-free domain. The founder and Webmaster is nick- named Radish and is a self-taught freelance IT technician. He tells me that more than 36,000 Corns have sub- scribed to his Web site but none wants any ads or corporate sponsorship. Most Corn leaders financed the voting campaigns out of their own pockets.

Until Li's emergence, Radish was indifferent to pop culture.

"I was never a star chaser," he says from his home in Ping Dingshan, a coal mining center in Henan province. He was drawn to Li's star power after she won more than 200,000 SMS votes in an earlier round in July.

Since then, Radish has become a diehard Corn, giving his time and donating 50,000 yuan to run the Web operation. He even volunteered to give Li a more Western surname, "Lee," on top of her English name Chris. Thus chrislee.cn has become the "Corn Base" for many Li fans.

It is as if this "Corn solidarity" is the people's revolution, part two. The Corns organize themselves into eight geographic bases including an "overseas Corn base."

Every base has a Webmaster and a couple of Corn leaders to organize voting campaigns and fan parties. Meetings are called on Baidu.com or qq.com, another popular Web site with instant messaging.

The Corns are jealous of the competing "Bean Jelly Army Regiment" that organizes operations along the lines of a government divided into five ministries - propaganda, finance, planning, live broadcast site, and organizational surveillance.

Political alliances are also common. At one stage, the Corns, Bean Jellies, and Lunch Boxes in Chengdu, where the Super Girls are the most popular, formed a "Chengdu Snacks Alliance" to fight the "Chalks."

Sadly, what's really missing among all these fanatics is a sense of rebellion. Don't expect a Tiananmen or even a Woodstock, these fans are caught in a herd mentality, behaving like regi- mented, albeit very civilized, Red Guards. Instead of Mao, they've got Super Girls.

China Daily tartly asks: "How come an imitation of a democratic system ends up selecting a singer who has the least ability to carry a tune?"

The fans take offense. "Who said we Corns can't think independently?" protests Pop Corn, citing the story of a 74-year-old woman who flew from Shanghai to Changsha to deliver home- made sticky rice cakes to Li during the finals.

"Nobody forced her to do that," she says. But beware. Individual dissent is monitored and crushed by Li's online army.

Radish says Corns encourage each other to turn in Web messages that are "not nice" so the Webmaster can delete them.

"Our purpose is simple," Radish says. "We love Li Yuchun.

"It has nothing to do with politics. Now society is very stable, we don't have to worry about it."

How about volunteering to help the underprivileged or make society even better? I ask.

"That's the government's business," says Pop Corn.

Is this then a personality cult? I ask.

Oh no, she says, like all fans, she insists that it's just pure love, an expression of heartfelt devotion.

One Corn wrote a song dedicated to Li and posted it on chrislee.cn. Perhaps the lyrics sum it up:

Your little smile is enough to burn us down/

We catch a fever as soon as you dance/

Watching you from the beginning up till now/

We'll struggle to raise you higher/

Until our thumbs are numb from typing SMS/

And our pockets are empty/

We knock the keyboards without stopping/

We are your Corns/We are your power/

Don't think too much/We aren't fussy/

Just keep looking for yourself.

In the "Super Girl Era" in the new China, it seems power flows not from the barrel of a gun, but from busy thumbs pressing mobile phone buttons.