Source: China Overseas Chinese Network WeChat public account
Chinese youth said | Yang Bo: In Sydney, restore an original "Yunnan"
He is a Bai from Dali, Yunnan, and moved to Australia for love;
He works as an international student liaison in the school, helping Chinese students in every detail from reading to eating;
He also set up the Yunnan National Art Troupe to bring colorful and original Chinese ethnic minority culture to Sydney...
In this issue of "Chinese Youth Speaks", Yang Bo from Sydney tells his "two-sided" life.
The following is Yang Bo's self-statement:
I came to Sydney for love. I am a Bai from Dali, Yunnan, and my wife Victoria is an Australian girl. I officially moved to Australia in 2011, and I am now ten years old.
Yang Bo (right) and Mrs. Victoria (left)
At first, I didn't realise the difficulties of moving to Australia, and the two of us excitedly started a new chapter in Sydney like a "honeymoon", but soon trouble came to us: we ran out of money.
I had to find a job as soon as possible to support my family. Originally, I wanted to work as a TV director in my profession, but due to the lack of network resources, lack of work experience and other reasons, I ran into a wall in the interview.
In order to gain a firm foothold, I finally put away my dreams and chose to compromise with life. I have met many Chinese friends in Sydney, and in my exchanges with them, I have found that many children from Chinese families will lose themselves for a long time after coming to Sydney, especially those who have come to sydney in secondary school, and their life and learning pressure and social pressure are very large.
Helping the children of such Chinese families through the "lost" period and letting them find their way as soon as possible is something I very much want to do, and it is also the help that these children need at this stage. This inspired my career plans, so I found my current job.
I now work as an International Student Liaison officer at a secondary school in Sydney. In simple terms, my job is to build a "bridge" between the school and students and parents, so that parents can better understand the development of their children in school, and also let the school more accurately understand the needs of students and parents.
In the case of campus life, for example, Australians have relatively simple lunches, such as sandwiches. Although the school has a canteen, there is no Chinese "three dishes and one soup" dish. Many international students can't adapt to a sandwich in a short period of time, especially students from China, and there are times when they don't have enough to eat or don't eat at noon. After class, they will go to a nearby fast food restaurant to buy high-calorie food, such as fried chicken legs, Fries and a cup of Coke, unconsciously forming a habit of overeating, and some international students who have just arrived in Australia will soon gain weight.
Problems like this need to be solved by the teachers who manage campus life. In addition to the popular Australian healthy diet, we also have to adjust the canteen recipe according to the needs of students, and every week the school canteen will have a different hot food recipe for Asian students.
In addition, many of the international students who attend secondary school in Sydney live in local families, and the host family will be responsible for their meals. Outside of class, we also communicate with the student's host family guardian and provide feedback on the issue. After communication, the children's meals will be improved.
Outside of work, I hope to spread China's excellent culture and art to Sydney. Therefore, with the support of my fellow villagers in Sydney and Yunnan, I set up a non-profit community cultural and artistic troupe with ethnic minorities in Yunnan as the mainstay.
At the beginning of its establishment, we called the "Tongxianghui Art Troupe", and most of the members of the troupe were people born in Yunnan. Today, we are called "Sydney, Australia Yunnan National Art Troupe", with me as the artistic director, the members of the troupe come from all walks of life, including international students, businessmen, white-collar workers, nurses, etc., everyone has come together because of their love for Chinese ethnic minority culture.
We hope that through performances, the romantic and rustic beauty of Yunnan will be transmitted to Sydney, which is also highly inclusive, so that more people can feel the charm of Yunnan and contribute to the cultural exchanges between China and Australia.
The large-scale cultural activities we participate in mainly include: Huaxing Art Festival, Mid-Autumn Festival Evening Party, Chinese New Year Lantern Festival, etc., as well as various festivals held by the Sydney local government every year. In terms of style, we pursue full of ethnic minority customs, so that the audience can feel the warmth and charm of Yunnan.
Before the pandemic, the troupe's daily rehearsals were generally once a week, all year round. Some members of the group have to take the bus and then transfer to the train in order to participate in a rehearsal, and the commute time is more than two hours, and it is early in the morning when they return home after the rehearsal.
The coordination of rehearsal time is my biggest headache, because I don't want to affect everyone's normal life and work too much. In the first few weeks of the show, I will increase the rehearsal time or concentrate on training as appropriate. During this special period, everyone takes a bite of bread after work and rushes to the rehearsal hall. Fortunately, everyone really loves Chinese national culture and loves the stage, so they all work hard to participate in rehearsals, without complaint, and work together to complete one performance task after another.
Actor scheduling, rehearsal schedule, costume and prop design, production expenses and other big and small affairs in the group, I am personally involved. Every performance, every show, whether it is the depth of the work, or the costumes, props, music, dance language, I will strive to present the traditional ethnic customs to the audience in an authentic way.
For example, "Marrying a Flower Waist" is like this. Once when I was struggling with the program planning case, I saw a live photo of a group member holding a wedding in China, and one was a mother wiping her daughter's tears, and I was touched. I thought at the time, if the marriage customs of China's ethnic minorities were brought to the stage in Sydney, would it be eye-catching?
"Marry the Flower Waist" program
After some discussion, we decided to draw on the marriage customs of the Yi Nisu branch about weeping marriage. When the group member returned to Sydney after the wedding, we began the rehearsal of the "Wedding Flower Waist" program, and I chose her as the main role of the show, the bride, and let her play in her true colors, which was very infectious.
Once the show is in shape, the next step is to design the costumes. In order to better restore the style of the Nisu branch, I asked my friends in China to go to the village to find the local Yi elders to sew performance costumes, and the top alone weighed 3 pounds, as well as heavy headdresses. I think it's a wonderful experience to "wear the real history" on your body when performing.
At the 2018 Sydney Lunar New Year Lantern Festival, we performed "Marrying Flower Waist" on the open-air stage. Before the performance began, when we were nervously preparing in the backstage dressing room, a girl knocked on the door, saying that she saw the program list, and was curious to see your "waist flowers", ready to stir-fry or garlic, we laughed heartily, and the nervous emotions instantly disappeared.
After the performance, she came to the dressing room to say goodbye to us, and she said: "Your 'waist flower' is delicious and full of materials, so good to cry, give you praise!" ”
There was also a small situation during the performance, our music suddenly broke after playing for a minute, but the well-trained and tacit members did not stop the dance steps, we continued to perform in the silent beat, and then the audience stood up and clapped for us. The audience's beat inspired all the actors and moved to tears.
At the 2019 Mid-Autumn Festival Consolation Party for Overseas Chinese, when all the actors were finished and everyone was busy taking photos, an overseas Chinese who had been in Australia for decades walked to the stage and said to us: "Your "Hani Song" made me tear up, so moved, thank you for letting me return to my second hometown of Yunnan in those few minutes of the show. The design of the "snatch girl" at the end of the show made me laugh again, and it was really endless. ”
"Hani Song" program
Later, we learned that this overseas Chinese compatriot had spent an unforgettable time in Yunnan, and he had not returned for more than twenty years.
Perhaps, this is the meaning of the members who go to great lengths to participate in community activities. We love to sweat selflessly on the stage and love the passion when the spotlight hits us, but we hope to spread China's national culture to Australia and the world.
We have "Huaxing", like a drop of water melting in the sea, bursting out of the surging power. In the ocean of "Huaxing", there are many "small water droplets" like us, although everyone's performance methods are different, but they all shine with the same light of serving the community.
Hundreds of boats compete for thousands of sails, and it is time to ride the wind and waves. The various performing arts troupes of "Huaxing" work together, wind and rain, and a hundred flowers bloom. With the help of the platform "Huaxing", we hope to spread the charm of Chinese culture all over the world, "with a thousand flowers blooming with their heads held high, and the fragrance floating in the clouds." (Source: China Overseas Chinese Network WeChat public account id: qiaowangzhongguo Author/Editor: Dai Chen)