In this society now, when it comes to love and women, many people will involuntarily ask, what is the sense of security that girls want? So far, there is no definitive answer to this question.
But in fact, there are many answers to this question, but they can only be evaluated in terms of "good and bad", not "right or wrong".
For now, perhaps the best answer is: "A woman's sense of security can only come from herself." ”
This sentence comes from the mouth of Zhou Caiqin, who plays Jia Mu in "Dream of the Red Chamber". All the security she had in this life, as this saying goes, came from herself.
Figure | Zhou Caiqin
"The first 007 Chinese-American bang girl, the first Chinese academician of the Royal Academy of Drama, the first Chinese singer to publish a record in Chinese and English in the United Kingdom, the first Chinese actor to be nominated for the best TELEVISION actor in the United Kingdom", and other titles, are the security that Zhou Caiqin herself has created for herself.
In her life, she has never relied on her parents, and every time she stands on the stage, she has never said that she is the daughter of Zhou Xinfang, a famous actor in Peking Opera. Of course, she has not relied on men, and all the roles she has won abroad are fought by her own strength.
In Zhou Caiqin's view, "the 'easy road' is actually the most difficult to walk." ”
Therefore, she herself chose an extremely bumpy path.
One
"Si Le Pan Shui, Thin Picking Its Celery", Zhou Caiqin's name is derived from this poem, which means to go to school and read. When Zhou Xinfang first gave this name, she wanted her daughter to study well in the future, and not to be like him, suffer from the sin of practicing art, and suffer from the stage.
However, Zhou Caiqin's future did not embark on the road of reading as Zhou Xinfang thought, on the contrary, she also dedicated her life to the stage.
In 1939, Zhou Caiqin was 3 years old, and at this age when she was not yet fully sensible, she determined her future direction - to become an actor.
In 1945, at the age of 9, Zhou Caiqin began to struggle on the road of acting, and this year, she played the leading role in the drama performance of the Monastery Elementary School, playing Cinderella.
In the play, she is Cinderella who is bullied by her stepmother sister; outside the play, she is a little princess who is bullied by her peers.
Because Of Zhou Xinfang's relatively large reputation, he is often used as a talking point, and men, women and children, will mention him. Although Zhou Xinfang has a lot of praise, there are also many black reviews, especially at that time, people still have prejudices against "drama".
Therefore, since she was a child, Zhou Caiqin has often been scolded by her classmates as the "daughter of the drama", and she even started a fight with the other party because of this.
After all, in her heart, her father is the most powerful, the luminous body on the stage. And she also wanted to stand on that dazzling stage like her father.
However, Zhou Caiqin was not so "adapted" to the stage at first.
Figure | Zhou Xinfang family - the second from the right is the lovely Zhou Caiqin
After the end of the War of Resistance Against Japan, the Shanghai Women's Association and Zhou Caiqin's tutors were organizing rehearsals for stage plays, and Zhou Caiqin had just been selected to participate.
Usually in rehearsals, Zhou Caiqin performed a similar look, but on the day of the official performance, she was afraid of the stage and was scared backstage by the audience. Although in the end she was still pushed onto the stage by the teachers, the performance process was not ideal, and a song was completely out of tune.
Fortunately, the audience at the bottom was not too harsh on the small actors, but still applauded.
Surrounded by warm applause, Zhou Caiqin suddenly realized that since she was going to take the road of acting, how could she be so cowering and scaling?
"Drama should be angry", this is what her father Zhou Xinfang often said to her, and her performance at this moment is completely betraying her father's hopes.
Slowly, out of her own love and admiration for her father, Zhou Caiqin began to seriously hone her acting skills. She wants to fight, to let the world know that "drama" is not an inferior existence.
This belief is as strong as her desire to fight for women.
Figure | Childish Zhou Caiqin
As early as the age of 8, Zhou Caiqin knew the humble status of women in her time. At that time, at her grandfather's funeral, she found that she was older than her brothers, but she was still arranged to walk behind them, including her sister, the eldest of the siblings, Zhou Caizao, who was also ranked behind her brother.
It is reasonable to say that such a small detail, the average child will not notice. But Zhou Caiqin is different, her mind is delicate and sensitive, and she can see that this is because "women are inferior."
For this social situation, Zhou Caiqin is difficult to accept, she does not understand, obviously they are all people, why are men and women unequal? Why do women have to be so humble?
The more she thought about it, the more dissatisfied she became, and Zhou Caiqin went home and wrote a "Fight for Great Women". However, because of her young age, Zhou Caiqin did not know how to express her heart.
"At that time, I only had this concept, but what is great, I don't know."
But even if she didn't write her thoughts with a pen at that time, Zhou Caiqin never forgot her determination to fight for women.
And, years later, she understood what great women look like.
Two
"Since I can remember, the scene that has impressed me the most has been separation. I just remembered what it seemed like to be a part of someone, and then slowly left a fixed point. ...... I always want to leave a fixed point, to be precise, to leave the land that gave birth to me and raised me. ”
As Zhou Caiqin said in her autobiography "Daughter of Shanghai", her life is often linked to "leaving".
In 1936, on the way to Zhou Xinfang's tour, Zhou Caiqin was born. Still in her infancy, she has been running around with her father's drama team ever since.
Although later, Zhou Xinfang and Qiu Lilin gave the children a stable home, but the happy days did not last long.
In 1951, Zhou Caiqin embarked on the road of "leaving".
This year, she was only 15 years old, but she was about to leave her parents' arms and go to school in Hong Kong.
Although, as far as Zhou Caiqin is concerned, her father is the most majestic one in the family, never knowing how to be intimate with her, nor taking the initiative to embrace her. But at the end of the day, that's the person she's been idolizing since she was a child, the person she's chasing. And the mother, in her heart, is a "Jia Mu-like figure".
In 2010, the new version of "Dream of the Red Chamber" was broadcast, and Zhou Caiqin said in an interview: "Dream of the Red Chamber Jia Mu? That's the image of my mother. ”
Figure | Mother Julielyn
Indeed, like Jia Mu, Qiu Lilin's life has also gone through ups and downs. When she was young, she dared to break with her family for Zhou Xinfang and asked for money from the drama team; in middle age, she also understood the changes in the turbulent situation and insisted on sending her children to Britain and the United States.
At the insistence of her mother, Zhou Caiqin applied from Hong Kong to a University in the United Kingdom, and later studied at the Royal Academy of Drama. Perhaps it can be said that part of Zhou Caiqin's dramatic life was realized by Qiu Lilin for her.
However, at that time, she did not understand what Qiu Lilin was doing, and she couldn't figure it out, "How can my mother endure the pain of separation so resolutely?" ”
But in fact, no mother can endure so resolutely, and Julien is the same, but she prefers to suffer herself than the children's sins.
Such a Qiu Lilin is the "great woman" that Zhou Caiqin wanted to say when she was 8 years old. In an interview in her later years, she lamented: "Probably like my mother, there are strong factors hidden in the body to make things happen." The women of our family, more or less, have such personalities. ”
Perhaps because of this, Zhou Caiqin, who inherited her mother's personality, accepted the role of Jia Mu in "Dream of the Red Chamber". Because, my own mother, is such a person.
And she is not inferior.
In 1952, at the age of 16, Zhou Caiqin began to explore Britain. I don't know whether it is because of nationality or other reasons, Zhou Caiqin is not favored by her classmates and teachers in school, she is often ridiculed and looked down upon.
In the eyes of people in the school, Zhou Caiqin is unlikely to get a chance to perform, but this is only the beginning.
Zhou Caiqin, who has just graduated, has indeed not received an invitation to perform. In desperation, she can only play the dragon set in the movie, sometimes as a model, as a radio drama actress. With no more work, she sat at home and wrote cover letters to various producers, hundreds of letters at a time.
Fortunately, opportunities are reserved for those who have the strength, not those who are only busy poking people in the back.
In 1959, Zhou Caiqin starred in "The World of Su Si Huang", and became famous for it. Because of this play, Zhou Caiqin's stage name "Tsai Chin" was "hung" on the light box billboard of the Welsh Theatre in London for two years.
It is said that it was because Zhou Caiqin played "Su Si Huang", and many Westerners traveled to Hong Kong at that time to find "the true face of Su Si Huang". Even many British women followed suits.
Figure | Stills from the performance of "The World of Suss Yellow"
Subsequently, the popular Zhou Caiqin participated in the film shooting, one is the 007 series of movies "You Can Only Live Twice", and the other is the film master Anthony Oni's "Spring Break".
These two films are large-scale productions, and being able to star is a recognition of Zhou Caiqin's acting skills. Although Zhou Caiqin plays small roles in these two films and is easy to be ignored by the audience, she still completes her role very seriously.
Soon, Zhou Caiqin changed from a supporting role to a protagonist. She not only played the lead actress in Congreve's play Love for Love, but also participated in the thrilling drama "Two Mrs. Caro".
Among them, people can't help but admire her that the roles played by Zhou Caiqin in these dramas are non-Oriental. She looks like an Oriental and plays a Westerner brilliantly.
I wonder if those who once called her "Oriental Princess" and "Chinese Doll" had the idea of changing their minds when they saw her plays.
Of course, whether there is or not, Zhou Caiqin is still Zhou Caiqin, and it is an uncompromising Chinese.
Three
"Very direct, not sentimental, and bright and lively".
This is the audience's evaluation of Zhou Caiqin, and it is also her own favorite evaluation.
Indeed, she is a straightforward person, whether in the world or in personal feelings.
In the eyes of the children of the Zhou family, the love of parents is the most romantic and happy. The father is single-minded to the mother, the mother is inseparable from the father, and the two have worked together for decades to survive the storm.
This love, in the eyes of these children, is the best and the most enviable for them.
Zhou Caiqin is also one of these children, and she also wants to have such a sincere love. It's just that her life path is bumpy and she has never been able to meet the right person. After two failed marriages, she simply stopped pursuing such feelings.
As she put it: "I'm a free and independent woman and I don't need to get married." I'm a leopard, you see, leopards like to be alone. ”
Indeed, Zhou Caiqin is not a person who can settle down. She was direct, but also impulsive.
Ms. Chow's first marriage was when she first arrived in Hong Kong, when she was not yet 20 years old. The object was a young man she met by chance in Hong Kong, named Hai Guizhang. At that time, although they did not know each other, Zhou Caiqin was particularly fond of him.
Fortunately, when Zhou Caiqin went to England, she met the returnee Zhang again, and soon the two got married and gave birth to a son.
But it is clear that a marriage that begins without sufficient understanding will not have a good ending. Although Zhou Caiqin and Hai Guizhang had the opportunity to meet in two places, they did not have the opportunity to be whiteheaded together.
Because the returnee zhang is too authoritarian and Zhou Caiqin is too egotistical, the two chose to divorce after three years together. However, before the divorce, Zhou Caiqin lived with her second husband Peter.
When the divorce procedures were completed, she went straight to the second marriage.
In this process, the public opinion of the outside world, the criticism of the world, Zhou Caiqin have ignored it. For her, it was her life, so there was no need for outsiders to point out.
However, although Peter is more suitable for Zhou Caiqin than her previous husband, after all, one is an actor and the other is a director, but fate is not biased towards this suitable marriage, its ending is still a failure, and Zhou Caiqin at that time was only 26 years old.
Figure Zhou Caiqin with her second husband Peter Ko
If it is said that the failure of Zhou Caiqin's first marriage is due to the lack of understanding of the two people and the inappropriateness of her personality, then what is the reason for her second marriage?
If it's Peter's fault, it's not quite right. After all, Zhou Caiqin, who is married, does not want to be bound by marriage, she does not want to be someone else's person, she only wants to be herself. She herself has said that she is not a qualified mother and wife, and she cannot "settle down".
But if it is Zhou Caiqin's fault, it is even more incorrect. As she put it in her autobiography The Daughter of Shanghai:
"To this day I still don't understand why a man would naively think that a divorced woman is easy to conquer and think that it is a favor for her. Misunderstandings between men and women are always difficult to explain. ...... In my eyes, the Western man's practice of wanting to openly show masculinity everywhere is really clumsy. ”
In fact, it is enough to see that Peter also made mistakes in this marriage.
At the end of the day, the success of a marriage is not just about one person.
However, Zhou Caiqin no longer pursues marriage. She is an independent woman who never insists on becoming a wife. She once said: "I have to admit that men are very important in my life, they are arranged in order, father, son, friend, lover and husband, but I never need them to provide for them." 」 ”
From beginning to end, Zhou Caiqin is not a "vase" for people to see. Perhaps part of the reason for the failure of her marriage is also due to her sense of independent womanhood.
"Intellectuals know how to appreciate women and make them feel valuable, while machismo reckless men treat women like children, only for viewing, not listening."
What she needs is to be appreciated, not to be viewed.
Four
When she is away from home and has a successful career, the only thing she cares about is her home. But her home and her career were destroyed together in a dynasty.
In the 1960s, Zhou Xinfang and Qiu Lilin were experiencing "a decade of turmoil", and information about them was blocked. None of the Zhou family's children abroad know their parents' recent situation.
It is said that no news is the best news. But Zhou Caiqin did not feel that since losing contact with her family, she lived helplessly every day, wanting to go home, but unable to go home.
Out of concern for her family, Zhou Caiqin lives like a walking dead every day, not knowing what she is doing. In a trance, she ushered in the most difficult stage of her life.
Under the sweep of the economic crisis, zhou Caiqin's four properties purchased by borrowing loans were all taken away by the bank, and she had no money and no house to face a reality - bankruptcy.
The failure of her career and the loss of her family made Zhou Caiqin exhausted. At that time, she was in the same year of her life, but she could hardly see the hope of life, and sometimes even wanted to commit suicide.
Just after a suicide attempt, Zhou Caiqin was sent to the psychiatric department by her friends. At that time, she could never have imagined that she would actually face such an embarrassing situation, she was very normal, not sick, but she could not get out of the painful emotions.
Fortunately, as a child of the Zhou family and an independent woman, Zhou Caiqin did not allow herself to be so weak in her heart, and she began to persuade herself to continue to live.
However, after the bankruptcy, she can no longer return to her previous peak, and she can only start over.
In order to make a living, Zhou Caiqin had to work in the restaurant of her second brother Zhou Yinghua. Because Zhou Yinghua's restaurant is located in a luxurious shopping area, Zhou Caiqin has to endure humiliation every day to entertain her former colleagues, some famous actors, and her former acquaintances.
This is undoubtedly a kind of torment for her pride. She once said: "I seem to want to seal up life in England, freeze it, and keep everything as it is." If I have any feelings, it is guilt, the most undesirable feeling. My brain went numb and I felt like I had failed all..."
But what pained her most was the death of her mother. When she was young, she did not understand why her mother sent herself away, but now that she has grown up, she also understands her mother's hard work.
But now it is too late to understand.
However, although Zhou Caiqin's mood was not good, she always knew what she should do in her heart.
"I didn't ask for help. I had to go through this path of self-reflection on my own. The determination to survive and the courage to regenerate must come from the heart of the self. ”
Slowly, Zhou Caiqin stepped out of her sad mood and picked up the theoretical books on drama again. Before, she relied on her instincts to act, and now she has begun to want to "explore the essence of acting."
"Regenerating", she remembered what Zhou Xinfang said about "the drama should be contended", and remembered the "great women" who were difficult to write at that time. However, unlike the previous blind pursuit behind Zhou Xinfang, this time, Zhou Caiqin had to return to herself.
To this end, Zhou Caiqin will rehearse dramas every day after part-time work, and later began to apply for admission to Tufts University, she plans to pursue a master's degree in drama and receive professional training to hone her acting skills.
Relying on the pursuit of her favorite acting career in one breath, Zhou Caiqin successfully survived, and under the day-to-day work and study, she ushered in the second spring of her career.
And this "spring" has not yet ended.
Five
"You have to always remember that you are a Chinese."
This was the last sentence that Zhou Xinfang said to her in Zhou Caiqin's memory. It is also because of this sentence that she has been wandering in a foreign country for many years and returned to her motherland at the peak of her second career.
In 1981, Zhou Caiqin set foot on the land of China again. Looking at the motherland that she has not seen for 30 years, Zhou Caiqin does not have any negative emotions, she has no complaints about her parents' affairs, on the contrary, she is only full of enthusiasm and wants to dedicate her strength as soon as possible to make the country better.
She once said: "My personal tragedy is insignificant compared to the misery of human destiny." ”
Therefore, Zhou Caiqin accepted the invitation of the Central Academy of Drama and taught there for five months.
Figure | Zhou Caiqin after middle age
As for why not teach for a long time, but for a short term? This answer is very simple and obvious, that is, because Zhou Caiqin still has an actor's dream in her heart, she still wants to continue to live in front of the camera and continue to engage in the acting career she loves.
In 1993, the 57-year-old Zhou Caiqin returned to Hollywood to play the role of Aunt Lin Duo in "Happy Luck Club"; in 1996, the 60-year-old Zhou Caiqin starred in Wu Shanzhuo's mother in "Grey's Second Season of Anatomy"; in 2005, the 69-year-old Zhou Caiqin starred in The Antie in "Memoirs of a Geisha", playing on the same stage with Gong Li and Zhang Ziyi.
It is said that at that time, Zhou Caiqin was still talking to Gong Li and said, "I am your ancestral teacher, because my students are your teachers." ”
Of course, Zhou Caiqin's words did not have any intention of playing a big card and elevating herself. She has also come to the present step by step, and she is very aware of the difficulties of Chinese actresses abroad.
If you really want to look at it carefully, today's Chinese actresses also have to thank Zhou Caiqin, after all, she is the first female rebel.
"I was the first real oriental woman in a Hollywood movie, and that's no exaggeration. Previously, Chinese women had only two roles, servants or women of three or four virtues. Men are either weak or rogue. Oriental actors have long been oppressed. I am a rebel, and although the price is great, I think it is worth it. ”
And Zhou Caiqin's courage to dare to resist comes from Qiu Lilin, who once said: "When I went out at the age of 17, my mother told me that you have to fight for Chinese, you have to fight for the actor, you have to fight for women!" Now that I'm almost 80 years old, I'm going to fight for the elderly, so I haven't retired until now. ”
To this day, at the age of 84, she is still struggling on the road of acting. Although as early as 2001, Zhou Caiqin was awarded the American Emmy Award for Lifetime Achievement, she still insisted on the love in her heart.
Last year, the documentary film "Daughter of Shanghai" was released, and Zhou Caiqin herself also participated in the performance. The film not only tells the world about her difficult life, but also conveys her noble pursuit of performance to all the audiences present.
Presumably watching Zhou Caiqin, who was born in Shanghai, drift all the way up, fall from the peak to the bottom, and then get up from the bottom of the valley and return to the peak, many people will be amazed by this and have a lot of respect for her.
But in fact, to put it simply, Zhou Caiqin is also an ordinary person, but she lives harder than ordinary people. She had been to the most prosperous part of the world, but she had also experienced the most humble situations; she had had the most dazzling aura, but she had also felt the most bleak loneliness.
However, in the face of such a bumpy fate, she only said: "The so-called "easy" path is set for us by men. ”
And she is not willing to follow the path set by men. After all, she is an independent female Zhou Caiqin! No matter how difficult the road is, you must rely on yourself to persevere. As for fate, as she said, "I have not yet taught myself to believe in destiny."
Life has its own ups and downs, even after great ups and downs, she does not believe in fate, only believes in her own hands to work hard.
Text | A thousand picks