We are cheesy, but we are popular!

It's a familiar picture at weddings, funerals, or a ground-breaking ceremony in Taiwan, where you see girls dancing on a decorated truck with flashing neon lights and loud music. They usually wear tiny tops, short pants and high platform boots, and sing and dance in an arousing way -- all the better to excite the male guests at the party.

"Let us welcome the hottest Taiwanese girl group -- Shining 3 Girl!" the MC yelled, at a year-end bash earlier this year for a cable TV company. Hsiao-yun (小云), the eldest of the three, came out first and gyrated all the way to the main stage. Then, Hsiao-chen (小珍), the middle sister, carried a huge white snake into the spotlight and encouraged the reptile to wrap itself around her lithe body. After which, the youngest sister Hsiao-ying (小瑩) joined in, jumping and singing, accompanied by loud and cheesy techno music, more lights and dry ice.

"Yo-ah! Yo-ah! Yo-ah! Yo!!" the audience shouted out, in time to the beat of the music. Others in the audience blew their whistles and when the atmosphere had reached a fever pitch, Hsiao-ying did her party trick of bending backward to the floor and forming an arch to show off her belly and briefs.

"I really can't recall how many shows we have done in the past three months. One day, from noon time to late evening, we performed at 10 different year-end parties," Hsiao-yun said.

"We have been singing for one man who has had four weddings with four different wives. We have even sung at a divorce party, because both sides were celebrating getting rid of each other," Hsiao-chen said.

Shining 3 Girl is part of the family-business entertainment group called Shining Variety Group (閃亮綜藝團), led by the three girls' father Chiang Wan-yuan (江萬源). The family is based in Chungli, Taoyuan County, and since elementary school Chiang has been taking the girls out to perform in towns and cities throughout Taiwan. The girls estimate they have helped the family earn NT$20 million over the past 10 years, charging around NT$15,000 for 30 minutes of entertainment.

The singing and dancing style of the Shining 3 Girl may be corny, but it is working for them. Last year, they were invited on celebrity Jacky Wu's (吳宗憲) TV show and since then invitations have been non-stop. Now, they have signed with local record label Water Music to release their first album Shining 3 Girl, subtitled, "The first Tai-mei (台妹) group." Tai-mei, literally means Taiwanese sisters, but the implication is more sexy chick. It is Shining 3 Girl's unique selling point.

"It is our intention to label them as the Tai-mei group. I know that this may be seen by many as low culture or low class. But at the end of the day, it's simply a kind of performance style. And we all know that such performances have been popular in Taiwan for a long time," said Water Ko (柯英高), CEO of Water Music, which is a record label mostly publishing Taiwanese-language music and artists.

Like many Taiwanese, Ko said he saw the girls' performance at a wedding party. And he was so impressed by the show, he bought it. "The most valuable quality of the three girls is that they are always sincere, naive and jolly," Ko said. "From a record company's point of view, these kinds of qualities are marketable and make them good artists."

So for the first record album, Ko did not water down the rawness of the girls' act and the result is a Taiwanese-style techno, with the girls singing mainly in unison. All 10 songs are fast paced and there is even one Taiwanese-language techno song called, "Let's Show it Off" (來去帕一下). The girls say the song is being widely played in night markets in Southern Taiwan.