Lang Jia Ziyu's works with his own image as the theme of creation
The work "Towel Lady"
Lang Jia Ziyu at work
Work "Higami" Roukako 彧
Age: 26 years old
Status: The third generation inheritor of the national intangible cultural heritage Beijing "Mian Ren Lang" and the representative inheritor of Haidian District
His story
Express traditional Chinese culture in your own way in the era of new media
The third generation of "Mian Ren Lang", the founder of Chunxi Studio, the "Treasure Boy" of Peking University, the popular player of "The Strongest Brain"... This is the multiple identities of "post-95" Lang Jiaziyu. The big boy, who was evaluated by fans as "man and rigid" and with a height of 1.9 meters, is a young craftsman who has made a career in the national intangible cultural heritage craft inherited by the family "Mian RenLang" and expressed traditional Chinese culture in his own way in the era of new media.
Live demonstration
The ice pier surface is popular with people
Foreign guests ask him to "ask"
"Can you still make another face man ice pier?" I have twin children, if I only take one back..." During this year's Winter Olympics, Prince Albert II of Monaco wanted a pair of short videos of "ice piers" when he was experiencing face sculpture at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing. The person who made the ice pier for the Prince of Monaco was Lang Jia Ziyu.
During the Winter Olympics, there were a total of 6 intangible cultural heritage booths in the east exhibition hall of the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, and "Mian Ren Lang" was one of them. For more than an hour, Lang Jiaziyu pinched more than a dozen ice piers for the heads of state of various countries, and the ice pier faces became a big "darling" of the booth.
IOC President Bach also became interested in Lang Jia Ziyu's teaching of noodles, and shared a story of an ice pier with Lang Jia Ziyu in the process of learning to knead noodles. "Bach told me that usually the mascot meeting takes a long time, it takes 40 minutes to 1 hour, but as soon as the ice pier is brought in, everyone decides that it is in 2 minutes, and they all like it." Lang Jia Ziyu said.
"The ice piers are still relatively simple, and you can pinch one in a few minutes, because it is just a few geometric figures." Lang Jia ziyu, who began to learn to knead noodles from the age of 4, displayed his skilled craftsmanship through the Platform of the Winter Olympics, and even had foreign guests let him "ask for a price". "The Grand Duke of Belgium came to my stall in a very hurry and said to me, 'I'm going up to a meeting soon, but I especially want you to make three ice piers, and I'll come down and get them later.'" Can you tell me how much to pay'. Lang Jia ziyu recalled.
What is it like to be so popular in the Winter Olympics? "To be honest, I don't really care so much about how much foreign heads of state love people, and I hope our countrymen like it." I don't want people to see the traditional Chinese crafts 'even foreigners like' before we like them ourselves. The young non-hereditary person has his own personality opinion on many things: "I don't like the saying 'you see, even foreigners like it', our own traditional crafts, we must first love." 」 ”
In fact, pinching the Olympic mascot is not the first time Lang Jiaziyu has experienced it. At the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, he made a set of sensational Olympic Fuwa face sculptures, which caused a lot of attention.
"Post-95s", "Peking University graduates", "national non-hereditary people" and "strongest brain players" these elements are gathered in Lang Jiaziyu, who uses his own way to do non-genetic inheritance, reinterpreting and expressing this traditional craft. "You may think that I am a kind of 'conflict', in a very traditional industry, but I am a very young person doing it, and then I have a relatively high education, which is a break with stereotypes." Lang Jia Ziyu said.
Career planning
Walk through the darkest hours
Transform your own "life track"
After the Spring Festival last year, Lang Jia Ziyu set up the Chunxi Studio that inherited the business of "Mian Ren Lang", and then two of his classmates joined, and the three big boys worked while "playing" every day, thinking of ideas in "playing" and enjoying the fun of "playing" at work. Everyone is doing the inheritance work of "Face Man Lang" and doing new media work. As the founder, Lang Jia Ziyu not only pinches the dough but also records Vlogs, frequently runs cooperative activities and develops cultural and creative products. In less than a year, the studio has been relatively successful and has gained a lot.
Today's "glamorous" is completely two situations for Lang Jiaziyu 4 years ago and for him who has just graduated from college and is facing future choices. "When I graduated from my undergraduate school in 2017, I thought about either becoming a civil servant or going to graduate school at my university (the School of International Relations). As a result, they were not admitted to the graduate school, and the civil servants were eliminated. This experience hit me hard. I was originally a big man in school, but when I graduated, I was really miserable, neither studying nor working. Recalling this "dark time", Lang Jia Ziyu can now be said as a joke.
Originally planned to return to his alma mater for graduate school, but at the moment when he reopened the review materials, Lang Jiaziyu decided to change his "life track", "I don't think I want to learn." I thought about the things I was most interested in and loved most, or kneading dough people and studying traditional Chinese crafts. It took me half an hour to check which universities could accept traditional craft majors, and I decided to enter the Peking University School of Arts. Lang Jiaziyu recalled that all this happened in that dormitory, that afternoon, "quite dramatic, I was never a bully, and I never considered going to Peking University, but at that moment I really thought about what I was interested in." ”
Spend three months reading 7 books for art majors, get up at 7 o'clock every morning, read until more than 1 o'clock at night, and make extraordinary efforts. At first it was a bit painful to see, aesthetics, psychology of the professional vocabulary is a little difficult, but the more you look at it, the more interesting it is, is really like.
"I think I still belong to this matter, even if I didn't get in [Peking University Art College]." I thought at the time, I just want to do the job (face people) and start a business, no matter what difficulties I encounter in the middle, it doesn't matter. If anything delayed my business, I would take a break from school. Fortunately, Lang Jiaziyu was admitted to peking university graduate school, and then got more and more support, so that he slowly walked out of the dark period and constantly identified with himself, "People are still easy to fall into the direction or temptation of choosing the choice of most people." Now that I think about it, that dark period was also very good, because I was studying for the university's communication studies and being a civil servant, and these things were not what I explicitly wanted. ”
Looking back on the adversity of undergraduate graduation, Lang Jiaziyu is still very emotional, "That period was a particularly dark period for me. But this dark period also brought a lot of inspiration to the creation of his face. One of the works that makes Lang Jia Ziyu most satisfied today is also the work of the Dark Ages, and he pinched a "three heads" of his own. Why pinch yourself three times? "Because at that time I realized that I had emotional problems, failed exams, lost love, and so on. In this image, the middle one is 'peaceful', the left one is 'sad', the right one is 'very happy', and I want to find a state of coexistence with my emotions. Lang Jia Ziyu said: "Sometimes emotions are also powerful. ”
Because he has experienced a dark period, Lang Jiaziyu, who now has more than 900,000 fans, is very concerned about young people asking for help from his emotions. "I know now that some people say 'they're going to break down' and that's true. So, as soon as I see someone say they're depressed, whether it's true or not, I'll reply to every one. Lang Jia Ziyu said.
Pass on the taste
The profession of "non-hereditary human"
More attention is needed
Before opening the studio, Lang Jia Ziyu also had many attempts, opened his own public account, and at the same time gave lessons to schools and institutions. After the public account that did not catch fire stopped for more than half a year, Lang Jia Ziyu participated in the variety show "The Strongest Brain", and overnight it caught fire, and the number of public number fans rose to more than 20,000, and the number of Weibo fans also changed from more than 2,000 to more than 200,000. This flow also laid the foundation for the successful operation of his FaceMan Studio.
What was the original intention of this show? "I want to understand that doing the job of 'passing on' actually needs a lot of attention, I hope everyone will see me, and then convert the traffic of the private domain into a good one." So I'm willing to try a lot, but after these attempts, I have to review it to see how it works, and if it doesn't bring good results and feedback, I have to rethink its direction. Lang Jia Ziyu said.
In the era of new media, does the use of new media forms to disseminate intangible cultural heritage mean that you must become famous and must first make yourself a traffic "IP"?
"I think it's always been like this, from the time I learned the craft as a child, I remembered the situation: 'There's only you and a child in the room, can you conquer him?'" Whatever method you use, you can keep him staying'. My father was such a person. Every time he makes something (a dough kneader), I can watch from the side, and when I'm three or four years old, I can watch it for two or three hours. It's all about attracting you, grabbing you, making you think his craft is great, he's an attractive person. If this can be done, all the problems of traditional culture (inheritance) will be solved. Because everything that the inheritors do is actually an expression of the identity of the artist. ”
"I think I can do it." A performance in the first picture of the sophomore year made Lang Jia Ziyu firm up this confidence: "At that time, many children came to see, twenty or thirty children surrounded me, and the children were close enough to make their breathing make the hair on my hands move, too close, squeezing my hands have been a little unable to move." But I'm glad the kids like it so much. I was doing this thing so fast and skillfully, and a kid in the back said, 'Mom, look, it's magic,' and there's a kid in the front row who's very serious, 'Shhh, don't talk.'" This conversation, which I always remember, is a very important moment for me. Because I'm afraid of falling into my own paranoia, that is, whether this thing is really attractive and interested in everyone. The scene gave me a firm answer. ”
In the eyes of Feng Zhenjia, a partner in the studio and also a high school classmate, Lang Jiaziyu's biggest charm is that he is much calmer and more mature than his peers, "I will ask him a lot of things." ”
At the same time, in the face of "not relying on their own works, but relying on variety shows to become popular" and "just learning a fur, and the first and second generations are far apart" such evaluations, Lang Jiaziyu's response is very frank: "I think some of them are very right, I need more support from all sides, continue to create in this industry, this is also my goal." ”
I want to make young people feel intangible
It's a very trendy and cool thing
Although the "Mian Ren Lang" has the descendants of the "post-95s" such as Lang Jia Ziyu, in fact, non-genetic inheritance is facing a serious problem of "broken generations". According to the survey, at present, the average age of representative inheritors of intangible cultural heritage at or above the Beijing municipal level is more than 60 years old, and the overall inheritance population shows an aging trend.
Because of her father, Lang Jia Ziyu also knows many non-hereditary people who are as old as her father. "Most people's state is that they have nothing to say about their skills, and everyone has been honing themselves for decades, but their lives are not very good. I think that's the biggest problem with non-genetic inheritance. In his view, when the intangible cultural heritage and traditional crafts are turned into a profession that supports itself and flourishes, many problems can be solved.
For the non-genetic inheritance and expression of the new media era, Lang Jiaziyu has a lot of his own thoughts and attempts, such as the production of Vlogs by face shooters, cooperation with idol traffic IP, variety shows, doing "national tide" cultural and creative products, etc. "I hope that what we do can make young people feel that intangible cultural heritage is a very trendy and cool thing, rather than a very old and very stereotypical thing." ”
In his view, the non-genetic inheritance in the new era needs to combine traditional culture and mainstream culture, integrate local culture and youth culture, and choose some things that young people are interested in from the theme.
dialogue
The challenges are a lot like athletes having to cross a dozen hurdles
Beiqing Daily: How do you see your own creative level?
Lang Jia Ziyu: In terms of creation, I still have a long way to go, if I want to reach the level of the world's top artists. But if you look at the folk craft industry, I think I am the best, from the Chinese of all the living noodle makers at present.
Beiqing Daily: You said before that "non-hereditary people" are a new profession, how to understand this "new"?
Lang Jia Ziyu: The identity of "non-hereditary person" has existed for a long time, but taking "non-hereditary person" as a profession is actually a matter of these years, this group is currently very small, so I think it is a new profession, like my father only has this identity, but does not take it as a profession.
Just kidding, isn't it cool that this profession has me! I think that the people who are doing this profession now are not the kind of opportunists, not the kind of people who fall to wherever the wind suddenly comes, but people who have a vision and feel that cultural undertakings are very important in our lives.
Beiqing Daily: In your opinion, what is the current development trend of this industry?
Lang Jia Ziyu: Everyone faces a lot of challenges, just like playing a game, it is not just a 20 meters to give you a small railing you step over, it is a dozen consecutive railings, you don't know where you may stay there. That's what I'm facing right now.
Beiqing Daily: Which of these railings can you cross? Do you think you'll be left behind in which railing as well?
Lang Jia ziyu: I am now facing this state of (hurdles), and it is still very difficult to always maintain the state of learning and maintain a clear understanding at all times. I should not be staying in any railing at the moment, and one day I may not be able to learn, so I will stay there.
Beiqing Daily: How do you evaluate yourself?
Lang Jia Ziyu: I hope that I can become a reassuring stone when others encounter urgent and unexpected things, and I hope to be able to become such a role.
This edition / reporter Lin Yan
Courtesy of this territory/respondent