You Mi, a lovely and confident 17-year-old student, is the first Chinese high school student to appear on the cover of the popular young adults' fashion magazine Seventeen.
"You is IN," said Wang Lihua, Editor-in-Chief of Seventeen. "She is active and mature (成熟的) because of her knowledge on everything from academic studies, to books on art, to movies. We found she's the very style we're looking for to represent young people's attitudes."
You also impressed Wang with her fluent English when they first met last year. As the hostess of an English broadcasting programme at the High School Affiliated to Renmin University, You is always praised for speaking English almost like a native speaker. "I've built up my English by watching thousands of English DVDs since I was 10," she explained.
But for You, watching isn't enough. Last year, while in Senior 1, she met a talented boy who showed self-made DV movies at the English Corner in her school.
"I thought it was so cool and I knew that I should start making my own films," she said. So she wrote a campus (校园 ) story, persuaded schoolmates to star in it and then began shooting a 30-minute DV movie, all in English. "I played one of the leading roles, actually I was everything in my film. I worked on it every single day during the SARS holidays," she recalled. The movie finally became a big hit on campus, earning You a strong reputation (名气) as a DV movie director.
But this is not the only field she wants to master. Despite being a science student, You likes art, literature and fashion design very much.
"There are people who can be artists，there are people who edit books, and there are people who become film producers. But I just hope to mix all the things up!" she said. "There is an old saying I believe: Chance favours only the prepared mind."
