Teen behind the champion

New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof describes Hou Yifan as the "human face of rising China". Provided to China Daily

She is the world's youngest champ, but still wears Mickey Mouse on her jeans

To all appearances, she could have been the girl-next-door, with cute clips in her hair and a pair of jeans spotting Disney appliqus. But unlike most giggling schoolgirls her age, the 16-year-old is very calm and collected, and speaks softly and slowly.

Those measured tones probably come from her years of training with intense concentration at the chessboard, where she now rules.

Still, her youthfulness shows through as she plays with her hair and flips my business card over and over again in her hands. We were sitting down for an interview at the Chinese Chess Academy, where they are still all hyped up over her recent win at the Women's World Chess Championship last month in Hatay, Turkey.

The New York Times' Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist Nicholas Kristof last month described Hou as the "human face of rising China", which Kristof described, "belongs not to some Politburo chief, not to an Internet tycoon, but to a quiet, mild-mannered teenage girl named Hou Yifan."

He went on to describe Hou as the icon who "reflects the way China - by investing heavily in education and human capital, particularly in young women - is increasingly having a greater impact on every aspect of the world.

" China has also done an extraordinarily good job of investing in its people and in spreading opportunity across the country. Moreover, perhaps as a legacy of Confucianism, its citizens have shown a passion for education and self-improvement - along with remarkable capacity for discipline and hard work, what the Chinese call chi ku, or 'eating bitterness'.

"Only about 1 percent of Chinese play chess, and China has never been a chess power. But since 1991, China has produced four women's world chess champions, and Ms. Hou is the one with by far the most promise."

Eat you heart out. Hou is clearly a product of the gentle Tiger mama and her Dragon coach.

Kristof goes on to describe how he challenged Hou to a game of chess, and was soundly defeated in 21 moves, even though she had just got off the plane from Turkey.

The girl herself shrugs it all off.

"I'm still who I am, and I just do what I should do," she says with a smile, She also refuses to be labeled a "genius" and in all her media interviews, Hou has always simply admitted that she has been "blessed with some gift in this particular field".

Her day starts at 8.30 in the morning when she reports at the Chess Academy and plays chess until 11 am. After lunch and a short nap, she returns for another two to three hours' of training. In the evenings, she may spend some time swimming, "just for exercise and always very slow".

Hou likes reading, but prefers literature and biography to scientific works. She recently read Hillary Clinton's autobiography Living History and thinks Clinton is a "really great woman".

Like all young girls her age, she enjoys movies and is a fan of singer Wei Chen, who gained fame in Happy Boys, the Chinese version of American Idol. And then, there is the Internet, which Hou admits she cannot live without.

This is where she expands her social network and keeps up with friends she cannot meet often physically.

And like a normal teenager, too, she argues with her parents often, she says.

"But our family is really democratic. No one always has the final say. It depends on who uses the more reasonable argument."

Hou Yifan has two targets. One is to keep honing her skills in chess.

The other wish is to go to university just like her closest rival, Ruan Lufei, who is now a doctoral candidate at Carnegie Mellon University in the US.

With a career path supported by her country and the unfailing support from her parents, Hou Yifan will be doing all that, before you have time to think "checkmate".