The following is a summary of the interview
It's never too late
△ Xu Ruyun
Dialogue with Xu Ruyun
Not long ago, Xu Ruyun participated in the recording of the third season of the popular show "Riding the Wind and Waves". After many years of debut, Xu Ruyun broke the sky into a reality show. When she appeared, she gave up her many fame love songs, but insisted on playing her own song "How Good Now".
The impression left by Xu Ruyun to the audience is often a sad love song with soft intestines, words and blood and tears, and "even breathing hurts". But Xu Ruyun in the reality show always laughs heartily. Relaxed and confident, she likes to call herself a "singer-songwriter."
Tagawa: Will the styling in the show be shown to Mr. Tagawa?
Xu Ruyun: Yes, every time I put on makeup and wear clothes, I will show him, and he will tell me where I can adjust.
Tagawa: I think your husband is very different from the big Korean man we think of.
Xu Ruyun: Now because of the epidemic, we can't often travel back and forth between the two countries, so we can only rely on video contact every day. In fact, we haven't seen each other for almost a year, and I think it's a little hard for him, but he is still very supportive of me. He told me that you are not an actor and that it is difficult to present your own life in music. So you're going to go to a reality show and let people know your cute side. I think what he said makes a lot of sense, and I was really persuaded by him to go to the show.
△ Xu Ruyun played and sang the original song "How Good Now"
The stage at the beginning of the third season of "Ride the Wind and Waves"
Tagawa: It feels like you make choices that require a lot of courage in the eyes of outsiders at every important stage of your life, when we feel comfortable.
Xu Ruyun: I also found out later, when I was 19 years old, 29 years old, 39 years old, there were huge cracks, as if 10 years of a turning point. I think people can fight for the life they want at every stage, don't feel that it is too late, it is too late, I think it is never too late. If I had met my husband 10 years earlier, I wouldn't necessarily have liked him because I probably wouldn't have seen him as nice to me at that time. So I'm very encouraging and hopeful that I can pass on this energy to everyone, and happiness is sometimes just around the corner. I also have to be clear about what I want, and I think that's important.
Dialogue with Xu Ruyun
Xu Ruyun grew up in Taipei, with mom and dad, older brothers and sisters. She still feels that her parents' parenting style has shaped her today.
Xu Ruyun: My growth process was quite free, and my parents did not regulate me very much. But maybe from another point of view, they can't regulate me. I think of anything and do it. For example, when I first went to college, there was a senior who took us out to play, I would go to play, no matter what the time was, nine o'clock, ten o'clock, eleven o'clock, everyone would chat together, watch movies, watch MTV...
Then I came home one night, probably at twelve o'clock for the first time. When I went back, I was actually a little scared, so I finished thinking about it, but I thought that my parents should have already slept. As soon as I opened the door, I saw my dad sitting straight over there, very angry and said, "Didn't you say you came home at nine o'clock?" I was scared to death. And then Dad said, you don't tell me when you're coming back, you don't give me a call, do you know how anxious I'm waiting over here? Then he slapped me in the thigh. It was a big deal for me because my dad never beat me. I ran back to my house and cried, and after a while my dad came in and told me that he was actually upset because I didn't come back on time as promised. It's okay to come back late, but tell him, or he won't know where he is and he'll be worried. He said Daddy hit you with his hand and Daddy hurt too.
Tagawa: I think it was Dad's rationality and his way of dealing with it that created your later personality.
Xu Ruyun: Yes.
Dialogue with Xu Ruyun
After graduation, with the mood of part-time work, 18-year-old Xu Ruyun entered the folk song restaurant to sing, and soon after she got the opportunity to sign a record label.
Xu Ruyun: When I just graduated, my classmates invited me to sing in the folk song restaurant. Taiwan's folk song restaurant is a bit like a petty bourgeois version of the live house, where students and office workers eat and listen to you sing, and you can also communicate with them up close. I hit me by mistake and went into that environment. I remember a couple of record companies that wanted to talk to me, and they saw me at the folk song restaurant and said you sang well, and then showed me their contracts. I didn't dare to talk to them, and I took the contract back to read. Some contract periods jump from 10 years, and I don't think about that because the cost of that time is something I can't afford.
The way my parents and teachers gave me education made me have a relatively free soul from an early age. This will make you naturally follow your instincts at each stage. I don't know why, but when I was younger I had a strange concept of time. I once wrote in my journal that I was going to have a boyfriend at 23, get married at 24, and have kids at 25. In the blink of an eye, none of the planned things happened, and what actually happened were many life journeys that I did not expect. So I didn't mean to look at the contract period, I just wanted to know what the most unaffordable part of me was.
Tagawa: Did you decide on your own when you first signed the agency?
Xu Ruyun: Yes.
Tagawa: So I told my dad about it after I signed the contract.
Xu Ruyun: Yes, because at that time, the legal age for signing a contract in Taiwan was 20 years old, and I was not enough, so I also needed them to add a guardian's signature.
Tagawa: Would you still tell your father if you didn't need a guardian to sign it?
Xu Ruyun: I will still talk to him. Ever since that time my dad beat me, I've told him everything and he'll let me do what I want to do. So later I never lied to him again, told him everything, and he really didn't restrict me too much, and let me do it.
Tagawa: It's very good, the relationship between you is very mature, very big people.
Xu Ruyun: Yes, I think this kind of mutual respect relationship with my family is very important for children.
△ Xu Ruyun's debut album "Please"
Xu Ruyun: My first album, "Please", was probably the worst album that sold in the early days. But my boss at the time didn't say anything, and I didn't ask anything. This record is more ideological, eccentric, wearing some birdcages on the body, and has a lot of petals on the face. It's actually very avant-garde to watch now, and I like that feeling. I'm afraid that when I go back to my album, I don't want to listen to it. But luckily, I've listened back to every song on every album and haven't found anything I don't want to hear.
"My world is almost gray"
Dialogue with Xu Ruyun
Starting from her second album " Sea of Tears " , Xu Ruyun has had two albums per year since then , each of which has sold hundreds of thousands of millions of copies. Xu Ruyun sang one popular song after another, from CD, radio, KTV, singing to people's hearts.
Tagawa: I'm curious about how you, a 20-year-old girl, felt the pain in the song?
Xu Ruyun: First of all, it may be because my voice itself has a fragile quality, and those love songs also have fragile qualities, and there is an incomplete beauty. Then there's the fact that I like to be spontaneous, and I think I can easily get into the context of the lyrics. There is also the fact that I am a little bit not afraid of being hurt, and I am not worried about becoming too sad, too painful, or putting more emotion into it. So when I was a child, I was also a very fond person who fell in love. I think people must knock themselves into the flesh and blood when they are young, so that they can know what they want. When you listen to other people's experiences, it may still not hurt or itch. Only when you actually hit it does you know what it feels like.
△ Xu Ruyun album "Sea of Tears"
Tagawa: Why did you suddenly decide to stop working and go to New York at the age of 29 and when your career was successful?
Xu Ruyun: Probably because my first job was as a singer, after a long time, when you come home one day, especially after returning from a concert with many people, the feeling of emptiness becomes particularly strong. Of course, there are other triggers, I was at the emotional tipping point with my boyfriend of 7 years, decided to break up peacefully, and suddenly felt as if many things would have an end. If my work comes to an end one day, where do I go? At that time, the announcement did not know what he was talking about. Once on Xiaoyan's show, after the end she told me that you can finally relax. Therefore, only people who have experienced like Miss Xiaoyan can see that I have not relaxed at all in the show.
I think it's important for girls to turn 29 to 30, when there will be a lot of crossroads in life, and you have to choose clearly. I was solving it in a pack of messy lines, and I really couldn't solve it for a while, so I had to spend time combing through them one by one.
Dialogue with Xu Ruyun
At the age of 29, the recording contract came to an end. Xu Ruyun said that she did not want to renew her contract. She went to New York, the city furthest from home, and became a student. In the diverse crowds of New York, Xu Ruyun spent an unforgettable year.
Tagawa: When I first went to New York, wouldn't it be more stressful to change to an unfamiliar environment? How can you make yourself more relaxed than in a familiar environment?
Xu Ruyun: For example, I used to wear high heels when I went out in Taiwan. When we got to New York, the road in New York was difficult to walk, with many potholes and twisted roads. One day I went out without high heels, and when I went out, I found that this road was too good to walk. From my home to school, wearing high heels can only choose the most convenient way to go, but wearing cloth shoes I can take this one today and that tomorrow.
I feel like New York is a watershed for me. When I arrived in New York, my friends felt as if I had become someone else. After returning from New York, in addition to taking off my high heels, I can live alone, I can also go to the movies and eat alone... Can do a lot of things alone and the point is that I enjoy it.
△ "Contrast" by Xu Ruyun
Xu Ruyun: When I was in New York, there was a time when I had to change houses, and I looked for a lot of homes and couldn't find one I liked. One day I ran home in heavy rain and found that my phone was lost. At that time, the lease expired with less than 10 days left. I turned on the computer and suddenly popped up a rental message without pictures. I thought it might really be the last step, as if there was no way to go without looking at this house, so I went to see the house.
At that time, it was opened by a girl who felt very comfortable, and her house I liked very much when I looked at it. She said okay, then I'll rent it to you, but can you pay me half a year's rent first, I didn't want to think about it and agreed to her. The next day when I got up, I went to send the money, and when it was ready, I called her and said, Katie, I'm going to go to your side to get the key, is it okay now? She said sorry, I may not be able to let you come over today, can we make an appointment in two days? I was stunned, and at that time, the five thunders in my heart were thundering.
Tagawa: This is cheating, right?
Xu Ruyun: She later said that you will call me later tomorrow, and we will see if it is about tomorrow or the day after tomorrow, and I said yes. I was really anxious when I hung up the phone, so I turned around and went to the convenience store to buy my first pack of cigarettes. When I came out, I sat in front of the convenience store, and when I took my first puff of smoke, I was very dizzy. I feel like heaven is testing my trust in people. Because I'm going to leave home for New York, probably because I have some distrust of people. At that time, the change of record company was also drastically changed emotionally. I thought, if my life is to use such a situation to confirm that "people can not be trusted", I think it is OK, then I will go home, and I will no longer believe in others.
I hardly slept that night and called Katie the next day nervously. I said can I go to you now? She said I just got things done today, come on, I'll give you the keys. Listening to her talk like this, I instantly put down the big stone in my heart, but because I hadn't gotten the key yet, and it wasn't until the last moment, I still couldn't relax.
Tagawa: Did everything go well after I went?
Xu Ruyun: When you see me sitting here happily now, I know what the ending is. Later Katie and I became very good friends and are still in touch to this day. I think it was this incident that made me believe in people again, and I knew that it was right to believe in people. If she had actually run away at the time, maybe my world would have been gray after I was 30.
Tagawa: I went to New York with a lot of questions, did I find myself after a year there?
Xu Ruyun: I think there is, I feel that I have found my original intention. What I value more after returning from New York is the value of the thing itself. I don't look much at the size of the thing, only at its weight.
△ Xu Ruyun album
Dialogue with Xu Ruyun
After returning from New York, Xu Ruyun did a variety of creations, she personally produced music albums, she wrote poetry, photography, participated in movies and dramas, shared health experiences... Whether it is words, notes, or images, she is sincere and frank in her works. On the title page of this book of poems, "Be Careful," she wrote to me as "Protect your girlish heart."
Tagawa: I think with your personality, you will never neglect yourself, especially if you are already 39 years old, you will not get married because you are married.
Xu Ruyun: Yes, I would never do this. When you find someone who can accept your full face, I think that's the right person. Especially like me and my husband grew up in different places, different lives, different languages, this kind of time mutual respect, I think is particularly important.
Tagawa: Do you communicate in English?
Xu Ruyun: Yes, it's all in English.
Tagawa: Is it a quarrel or a quarrel?
Xu Ruyun: There will also be quarrels, but this kind of quarrel will not hurt people so much. Sometimes we speak in our own language, hurting each other and probably not knowing. I think the two people who can finally come together must have the same values in life. Soul alienation is the most terrible, so we say soul mate, that is, there is spiritual fit. I know what you're talking about, and you know what I'm talking about. I think this part requires two people to constantly develop new things in order to keep pace with the times. If one party stands still, it is easy for two people to drift apart. What I tell you, you actually have not understood, I think it is more terrible. I like the feeling of keeping moving forward.
Choreographer: Wang Jie
Edits: 612