preface
The 2006 "Walk of Fame" was held in full swing.
This stage dedicated to realizing the dreams of civilians, broadcast for two years, has successfully won many grassroots singers.
Like the 2004 annual champion Ah Bao, he appeared on the stage of the Spring Festival Gala that year and became popular overnight.
In 2006, Li Yugang wore women's clothes and stepped onto the stage of the Avenue of Stars.
A song "Buried Heart" has a beautiful body, a charming dance posture, and an eye wave, which instantly detonates the whole audience.
Many people can't believe that this bright and moving woman on the stage is actually a boy's body.
And the later song "New Noble Concubine Drunk" made him stunned four and became famous in one fell swoop.
If it were not for Yang Guang who attracted more attention because he was blind, the champion of that year was none other than Li Yugang.
However, after becoming popular, why did he choose to quit the stage and take refuge in Buddhism?
Why did the Peking Opera master Mei Baojiu angrily say that he was a "joker who laughed", and why did Li Shi angrily call him a "fake".
01 Poor families
Li Yugang was born in 1978 in Gongzhuling City, Changchun, Jilin Province, although his family was poor, his parents were honest farmers.
But because Li Yugang is the youngest child and has older brothers and sisters on it, Li Yugang has lived carefree since he was a child.
His parents and older siblings work in the fields every day, and Li Yugang likes to dance with his friends to get a stick, watch Jet Li's movies, and teach himself martial arts.
Li Yugang has shown his advantages in stature since he was a child, and he has played every move and style.
Although the family's life is poor, it is also happy.
Until Li Yugang went to elementary school, the situation at home was not optimistic.
The harvest was not good that year, and the family had to provide for three children to go to school, which was too stressful.
The older brothers and sisters were sensible, and they offered to drop out of school and go out to work, so that their younger brother could go to school well.
The parents said yes with tears, but what else can be done?
After Li Yugang went to school, his grades have been very good, and his parents have greater expectations of him.
I want him to go to school in the city and get a better education.
But it cost a lot of money, and the parents worked harder.
The older brother and sister also saved money and sent money back, and the family's hopes were pinned on Li Yugang.
Li Yugang, who was finally able to go to school in the city, did not dare to slacken off, studied hard day and night, and always achieved excellent results in school.
In his spare time, he likes to sing, and his voice is particularly beautiful.
When the boys reached the voice change period, the other students became rough and powerful, only Li Yugang, who had always had a thin voice.
This caused him to be bullied a lot at school, and many boys laughed at him as "feminine among women".
Li Yugang had to talk less and stop singing.
After several years of hard study, Li Yugang was finally admitted to the Jilin Provincial Art College and was the first college student in their village.
His parents were overjoyed, and his brother and sister came back to celebrate him.
The family felt that the hard days were finally coming, the good days were coming, and the younger brother would definitely be a child with a good life in the future.
But the problem also came, Li Yugang had been studying for all these years, and he had emptied his home.
College faces higher tuition fees, which is unaffordable for the family.
Li Yugang's father gritted his teeth and said, "Yugang, you don't have to worry, I just borrowed this money for you." ”
But Li Yugang knew in his heart that it was too difficult to borrow so much money in the countryside, and that once he went to college, it was 4 years, which would crush his family.
If you can't tell your parents directly, your parents will definitely not agree.
Thinking about it, Li Yugang made a decision, he secretly left a note for his family and left with 200 yuan.
He said: "Mom and Dad, I went to work, don't blame me, I don't want you to work so hard, wait until I make money to come back to see you." ”
When Dad saw this note, he was so angry that he tore it to pieces, "How can this child be like this?"
We worked hard to provide him with a hard time to get into college, and if he didn't say it, he wouldn't go up, and he wouldn't be filial piety! ”
Mom cried and said, "If it weren't for the fact that my family was poor, who wouldn't want to go out to work in college?"
Blame us for not having the ability, this child can only rely on himself, Yugang, mother sorry for you."
02 Bumpy part-time work experience
Li Yugang, who had just come out of society, was ambitious and wanted to do something big, but reality gave him a loud mouth.
Just after getting off the train, the crooks swindled away the only bit of money they had.
Li Yugang was unaccompanied in Changchun, did not even have a place to live, could not eat food, and slept on a park bench for a few days.
He had to work as a waiter in a restaurant, at least to eat and live, and not to wander anymore.
Later, Li Yugang was introduced by a friend and went to work as a waiter in a dance hall.
At that time, the dance hall industry in the northeast was very hot, and many singers came out of the "cave".
Li Yugang listened to others singing on the stage, and the heart in his heart that wanted to sing was awakened again.
Often because of the obsession with listening to the people on the stage singing, and forgot to serve customers, once a guest slapped over, beating Li Yugang full of Venus.
Later, a performance team on the stage recruited people, And Li Yugang took the initiative to join, quit his job and followed the team to start performing everywhere.
Those years were very hard, and the performance team did not always have a job, often eating and not eating.
And often encounter people making trouble, the situation is also very dangerous.
In that decade, he had a lot of knife scars on his body.
But even so, Li Yugang is still happy in it, as long as he can make him sing, it doesn't matter how much he is hurt.
However, soon after, the performance team was shut down because it did not have a performance license.
Li Yugang's heart was like ashes, and he remembered that he had suffered all these years since he was 19 years old, just to realize his dreams.
But why is the reality so cruel, not giving him any life at all.
He felt faceless in front of his family, and he also lost hope in the future, and he walked to the Liao River in despair, wanting to jump down to end all this.
Facing the cold and bone-chilling river, Li Yugang jumped down as soon as he closed his eyes.
Maybe he didn't deserve to die, just when a group of beggars passed by the river, they saw someone jumping into the river and rushed over to rescue him.
Although the man was alive, his heart was dead, and the beggars asked him where his home was and he would not speak.
The beggars had to change him into dry beggar clothes and take him everywhere to beg for food.
After following the beggars on the street for a month, Li Yugang seemed to have seen through the real opportunities of life.
I am not afraid of death, I am not afraid of being a beggar, so what else do I have to fear?
Why not try again? So he regrouped, packed his bags and boarded the train to Beijing.
This time, he vowed not to break out of the hall of fame and never to come back to see his father and elder.
03 Differentiated positioning
After going to Beijing, Li Yugang worked in a video store during the day and sang in a dance hall at night.
There was no money to live in a damp and dark basement, but Li Yugang was very happy.
During the day, he can take advantage of the convenience of listening to many, many popular songs for free and learning their singing style.
At night, he returned to his small stage, and he was content with such a life.
But one day there was a sudden trouble, and before he could play, the manager ran over in a panic and said, "It's broken, the female singer who sang with you tonight can't come." ”
Li Yugang listened to the bang in his head, what can be done, tonight is to sing the song "For Whom", without the female singer he himself can not sing.
Seeing the prelude ringing, Li Yugang suddenly had an idea, he said to the manager: "I have a way", and then went on stage.
The manager didn't know what he was going to do, and he watched from the stage in a hurry, in fact, Li Yugang's heart did not have a score.
I just suddenly remembered that I had sung a lot of sweet girls' songs when I was in school, and many classmates said that he was like a woman and made fun of him.
This time he sang men and women alone, and that was it.
Unexpectedly, Li Yugang's anti-string brought unexpected effects.
When Li Yugang's female voice came out, the applause from the audience was thunderous, and everyone did not expect that a young man singing a female voice was so similar.
The huge contrast brought a shocking effect, and Li Yugang became famous in the song hall.
His performance fees rose and he soon became a full-time performing singer, and everywhere he went, his wonderful backstrings could bring a full house of color.
In order to enrich the form of performance, he also went to learn the figure and expression of Peking Opera Hua Dan, choreographed his own dance, and Li Yugang, who wore opera women's clothing, was even more astonished.
His brilliant performance attracted the attention of an art troupe, who extended an olive branch to him and drew him under his wing.
Li Yugang specially did anti-string art performances, and even performed abroad, shocking friends abroad.
04 Overnight hit
In 2006, under the influence of his friend Ah Bao, Li Yugang also signed up for the "Walk of Fame" competition.
He walked all the way to the stage of the finals, but At this time, Li Yugang was not happy.
Because he had been hiding this thing from his family, his parents did not know that he was dressed as a woman.
When he returned home, he did not dare to take his luggage home, and it was stored at the train station.
It is the fear that his parents will see him and feel that he is humiliated. After all, in the public's concept at that time, it was still unacceptable for men to dress as women.
But this is about to be the finals, and even if the parents don't watch it, the people in the village will know that there may be a lot of gossip at that time.
Thinking about it, Li Yugang made up his mind and told his sister about this matter, hoping that her sister would relay it to her parents and do their ideological work.
On the day of the finals, Li Yugang performed on stage, and her sister took her mother to watch at home.
My sister suddenly asked her mother, "Mom, do you think this person on the stage is familiar?" ”
Mom was stunned by her questioning, rubbed her eyes for a long time, shook her head, and said, "I don't know, who is this?" ”
My sister said, "This is our family Yugang, he sings the anti-string, our family Yugang has just come out, famous."
"What? Is this Yugang? Isn't that a woman? ”
"Mom, this is Yugang, he has been learning to reverse the string for so many years, he just doesn't dare to tell you, for fear that you can't accept it."
Mom was stunned, it took a long time to react, and then silently shed tears.
She thought to herself, this child has never learned to sing and dance, how much suffering he has to suffer to be able to practice like this.
Facts have proved that parents love their children far more than children imagine, even if the whole world does not understand you, parents will definitely stand firmly with you.
With the support of his parents, the big stone in Li Yugang's heart finally let go and embarked on the peak moment of his life.
Suddenly, the slogan "There is Mei Lanfang in front of me, and Li Yugang in the back" flew all over the sky, and Li Yugang's fans held this banner everywhere they went.
This caused dissatisfaction from Mei Lanfang's son, Mr. Mei Baojiu.
Originally, he still appreciated Li Yugang's borrowing of some elements from Peking Opera, plus singing, dancing, and performance.
But I didn't expect Li Yugang and his fans to compare him with Mei Lanfang, which was really too dramatic.
Who is Mei Lanfang? Mei Baojiu, a master of mei pai art, has studied hard for so many years, and still feels that his father's height is unattainable.
And Li Yugang just touched the edge, he compared himself to Mei Lanfang, I don't know if the depth is too much.
The liangzi of the two people was considered to be married, and later Li Yugang did something, which made Mr. Mei Baojiu even angrier.
05 And the Peking Opera master a word to tie the beam
Once, Li Yugang attended a party on CCTV, and Mr. Mei Baojiu was also offstage, when the program team knew that there was a festival between them and intended to ease up.
So he said to Li Yugang privately: "Mr. Mei Baojiu is sitting under the stage today, you must express it well."
Li Yugang was nervous in his heart, thinking about what he should say.
After the delay in introducing him, he stepped on the stage and sincerely said: "On behalf of the profound Meipai art, I would like to express my heartfelt greetings to the national audience."
Mr. Mei Baojiu, who was originally sitting at the round table and laughing, after hearing this sentence, his face changed greatly and he left angrily.
Some people say that Li Yugang is confused by the enthusiasm of fans, thinking that he can really compete with Mei Lanfang.
But in fact, Li Yugang regretted it, he originally thought that Mr. Mei would be happy to say so.
Later, he wanted to understand, is this not the sore spot that poked Mr. Mei? How can he represent Meipai art?
This "representative" remark completely angered Mr. Mei Baojiu.
Mr. Old, who has always been gentle, said bluntly: "I strongly protest those acts in the name of Mr. Mei Lanfang. Male Dan is originally a very pure art, but it is vulgarized to please the audience and become a joker. ”
And Li Yugang's anti-string art is not only questioned by Mr. Mei Lao.
Li Shi once ruthlessly complained about him in the program: "Singing is not Peking Opera at all, it is a fake." ”
Li Shi said: "The thing that Teacher Li Yugang sang is not Peking Opera at all, a fake, I will describe it to everyone like this, as if it is a "Qingming River Map" from a distance.
If you look closely, it is drawn with 2B pencil, and if you look at it more carefully, it is not a matter of the Song Dynasty, it is a traffic jam in Beijing.
Of course, if you take this thing to Africa, Africans will still clap their hands and say, wow, traditional Chinese culture."
"So why Li Yugang can catch fire is actually because most of us now have a level of understanding of traditional Chinese culture and that of our African brothers."
Some people questioned his orientation, but in fact, Li Yugang once had 3 relationships.
One is with Princess Fan Xiaoning of the saxophone, and the other is with outsiders, but none of them ended.
06 Family change
Li Yugang's acting career has been accompanied by various voices of doubt, and Li Yugang's heart is exhausted.
In 2017, Li Yugang was exposed to being ordained at a temple in Taipei and converted to Buddhism.
When everyone was questioning, Fang Wenshan, a famous lyricist in Taiwan, blessed him with "refuge in the Three Treasures" on Weibo, which confirmed this revelation from the side.
But then Li Yugang came out to clarify that he had not become a monk, and that taking refuge in Buddhism was a long time ago.
He immersed himself in the study of Buddhism, that is, he felt that the entertainment industry was too complicated and complicated.
Later, Li Yugang rarely appeared in the entertainment industry, but took more time to spend with his family, because in 2018, their family suffered a huge blow.
In this year, his father and sister died one after another, and when his father fell ill, Li Yugang stopped working and devoted himself to accompanying him at the bedside, but he failed to keep his father.
When Li Yugang had a birthday, his father came out of the hospital to bring him a cake, and his biggest wish was to "hope that his son's career will stop at the right time and start a family as soon as possible."
Li Yugang's biggest guilt is that he did not let his father see the day he started a family.
And her sister Li Hong has always been Li Yugang's closest person, and her few appearances in the media are for her brother.
After Li Yugang became famous, he bought a big house for his sister in the city, but his sister did not live because she felt that her brother was too hard and it was not easy to make money.
The sister worked for her family all her life, and she left at a young age, losing two family members within a year, and Li Yugang was in pain.
But looking at his old mother, he still wiped away his tears strongly, and he knew that he was going to support this family.
When there was no performance, he returned to his hometown in the countryside to accompany his mother and take his sister's children as his own.
Since Li Yugang's debut, rumors about him have been boiling over, because of his unique way of becoming famous, so that no matter what he does, he can be interpreted with a different taste.
Some people say that he stepped on Master Mei Lanfang in order to be famous, and some people said that he was good at hype and did not hesitate to do anything for fame and fortune.
But in fact, he joined the Chinese Song and Dance Troupe early, and did not attach himself to the impetuous entertainment circle, but followed the troupe to perform everywhere and spread traditional Chinese culture.
In particular, his original large-scale song and dance drama "Four Beautiful Pictures" has toured more than 30 times around the world.
"Zhaojun Out of the Jam" was staged at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre in Canada.
Before the performance, I received a letter from the Prime Minister of Canada, wishing the performance a complete success, and expressing my heartfelt thanks to Li Yugang and the cast and crew.
In any case, Li Yugang did make his own contribution to the dissemination of traditional Chinese culture.
He uses colorful forms to attract everyone to watch, is this not a kind of ability? Why can't we be tolerant?