"It's not a hit." Zhang Fengqin, 68, wears reading glasses and carefully selects heroes. The "League of Legends" "Genting Game" mode on the screen has just finished a round, her ranking has dropped from 4th to 5th, and her tone is a little anxious, "We want Jax, not this Vikz - why don't you come to Jax yet?" ”
What made her even more anxious was that the "flower lady" sitting next to her had already hit the first place. The flower lady is Zhang Peihua, who is also 68 years old, and obviously played quite well today, and after a few rounds of matching, she firmly occupied the first place. But she still did not let her guard down, and analyzed the current situation thoughtfully: "Oh! Opposite Samsung. We also have Samsung, but we can't equip it. "The flower lady decided to quickly upgrade and raise the level of equipment.
Zhang Fengqin was thinking about which enhancement rune to choose
Standing behind them are two young men in their 20s, who are also their "little teachers". When the two grandmothers couldn't see the situation or forgot how to match, they would turn their heads and call to the teachers: "Dou Dou! Do you see this duel master? ”
Hearing the greeting, Dou Dou came up to help them answer. But teachers also have a strict side. When Zhang Fengqin, who had fallen to No. 8, was asked if this was spending money indiscriminately in the early stage again, resulting in insufficient gold coins later, grandma was a little embarrassed: "Hmm... I haven't been coming. ”
The flower lady next to her won the game in 1st place. Everyone applauded her, and Zhang Fengqin couldn't stop praising her. Turning her head, she clicked on the next one, secretly expecting a better result this time.
It was an ordinary afternoon in the nursing home of Fuxing Hospital in Xuchang City, Henan Province.
"Electronic reading room" in nursing homes
Fuxing Courtyard is located in a residential building in a newly built community on the outskirts of Xuchang City, occupying an area of one and a half floors, with a total of more than 1,000 square meters in the middle. This is a pension institution built in a third-tier non-provincial capital city, and the infrastructure is quite good. Each room has a separate bathroom, which is also specially designed according to the needs of the elderly, equipped with a full set of handrails and alarm bells.
The sides of the narrow corridor are planned as event spaces for various uses. There is a painting and calligraphy room with pen, ink and paper, a chess room equipped with a chess robot, and even a small bar decorated in a western style.
Specially designed shower room
The most important of these is its "electronic reading room". Five monitors and a gaming pod are lined up. Coupled with overhead lights and wall decorations, it looks like a small-scale internet café. It's just that the people who usually sit here are not students who have just studied late in the evening, but old people who are nearly 70 years old.
This is the fifth nursing home opened by Lin Yao, a native of Xuchang born in 1997. Whether it's the gaming pod in the electronic reading room, the Switch base in the common rest area, or the media reports hanging half of the nursing home's walls, it's all revealing a message: this is no ordinary nursing home. Related to it is an e-sports pension plan involving keywords such as games, traffic, short videos, etc.
Step into the "e-Reading Room"
The room was filled with reports from various media outlets
"New Fun"
When Zhang Fengqin first came here, she didn't know what "e-sports" was. In September 2022, she brushed Douyin at home and saw a video taken by Lin Yao and the elderly. The content posted by this young man aroused her strong interest. In her 17 years since she retired, she had not seen such a dynamic peer. Watching the old people in the video playing games, jumping Di, and filming jokes together, Zhang Fengqin decided to call this nursing home to try.
Later, she herself became a member of the bungee video
The first time I came was in Furui Garden, another nursing home owned by Lin Yao. It has been in business for more than two years, is mature in decoration and operation, and is also the location of most of the videos at that time. 68-year-old Zhang Fengqin came here with the mentality of taking a look, hoping to find a nursing home with flavor, but reaped unexpected opportunities.
"When people saw me, they said: You still live in a nursing home? It looks so young. Zhang Fengqin recalled the scene, "He said you come and try playing games to see if it works." I quickly said I wouldn't, I didn't. People just say it's okay, you can try it. As soon as I think about it, I can try it. ”
Zhang Fengqin followed the young man in front of him to the Fuxing Courtyard, which had just been renovated and had not yet officially opened, and entered the electronic reading room. Although she was a bank teller before retiring, she had no deep exposure to electronic office during her working years. "As soon as I came up with the mouse, I couldn't find it, and I shook it there." She remembered how it was back then, and thought it was funny. But after two or three days here, she gradually became familiar with using a mouse and also discovered the "new fun" here.
The new fun comes from a game called League of Legends. In the past few days since she came to Fuxing Courtyard, Zhang Fengqin has been learning a game called "Genting Game" every day, and she is taught by two young people in their 20s. After all, he is old and completely unfamiliar with the field, Zhang Fengqin learned very hard at first, and everything was "a mess" to listen to. But she wants to be strong, and she feels that she can't just leave it at that. "I said it wouldn't work, I said I couldn't remember, so I just took a notebook and wrote it down."
On this black leather book, Zhang Fengqin remembered the game knowledge he had learned. From hero names to matching equipment, to interface operations, how to distribute front and rear rows, everything is available, and some have drawn diagrams. What the young teacher said, she wrote it down one by one, and she returned home to read it slowly. I bring it every time I come to training, and I can turn it at any time if I forget it. When showing this book to others, Zhang Fengqin looked a little shy: "I don't remember well, and I didn't hit the word." ”
Zhang Fengqin's game notes
Zhang Fengqin is accompanied by his wife every day. My wife drove her here, she learned games, and my wife played Landlord on the computer next to her. The little teachers also persuaded him to study together, and his wife said that he was not interested every time. But while fighting the landlord, his eyes always looked at his wife's screen from time to time, happy that she won or lost.
With the company of his wife, the encouragement of the little teacher and the book full of memory, Zhang Fengqin was able to start operating independently in less than a month. Although many heroes still can't recognize everything, the speed of operation is always unable to keep up, and often has to ask the teacher next to her for help, she is still very happy, she can be regarded as learning this new thing: "At the beginning, I thought I would learn success!" ”
After learning new things and finding new fun, Zhang Fengqin's mood improved. She has not been in good health since retirement, and she had just given birth to a big illness when she came here last year. After coming here to study for half a month, she felt that she had clearly changed. "The mood is different, and the look is different. Much stronger than the shelving family, his face was yellow at that time. The neighbors all said, why are you so happy in this paragraph? ”
After the CCTV interview was broadcast, many people were impressed by her cheerful smile
"Flower Lady"
Zhang Peihua came two months earlier than Zhang Fengqin. In Henanese, "mother" is used to refer to older women who are older than their mother's generation and younger than their grandmother's generation. Came to Fuxing Courtyard, played games with young people, and Zhang Peihua, who was called grandma outside, also became a "flower lady".
Hua Niang was the first person to enter the electronic reading room, and she came here in a similar situation to Zhang Fengqin. In July last year, Zhang Peihua saw a video of Lin Jiao playing with the old man on Douyin. "Oh, I said this nursing home still has this activity, I have to go and see it." After asking, and being able to teach games, Zhang Peihua decided to stay.
Hua Niang was born in the same year as Zhang Fengqin, but her life's experience was more bumpy. In her early years, she worked as a projectionist in the cinema, but in the 90s, the unit went bankrupt, and she and 5 companions came out to do business in partnership, which also disbanded after a few years. Her wife died early, Zhang Peihua usually lived alone, and her son and granddaughter sometimes came back to see her. In addition to square dancing and playing mahjong, her hobby is traveling. But the sudden epidemic interrupted her plans for her later years, and she could not go anywhere, so she had to wait at home. Zhang Peihua was very anxious: "In two more years, we will not be able to go out by ourselves, travel agencies over 70 years old have a policy, and no one will bring it without family members." ”
On such days, she met Lin Yao and his nursing home. At the beginning of learning "Genting", Zhang Peihua looked at the electronic screen and made it difficult. As a result, after a few days of study, she found these small characters and equipment on the screen quite interesting. What's more, it's much happier to come here and play with others than to be at home alone. Speaking of the two little teachers, she was full of praise: "They are patient, and they are not bothered to teach." The two of us (she and Zhang Fengqin) have a machine on one side and a machine on the other side, and he runs around and asks what to answer, which is very good. It's fun to play with you young people. ”
Grandmas often have to ask questions to both teachers
After recognizing the characters and familiarizing herself with the equipment, within two weeks, the flower lady was gradually able to get started, which far exceeded her previous imagination of herself. This is also related to her own good attitude: "Just forget and remember over and over again." Anyway, I feel that the equipment is worn incorrectly, and it doesn't matter, it's not a thing. ”
Saying this, the flower girl's winning and losing heart is actually not weak at all, and she has a lot of experience in analyzing the game. "It turned out that we were playing astral dragons, and now we are playing fighters. This is the new version. She talks about her experience, "Playing games also requires luck. Because of what? What hero you use has to look at what is given below (store), sometimes you are in a hurry to get out of the characters. ”
Zhang Fengqin next to him chimed in: "It's just like playing mahjong." It doesn't come to cards, what can you do. The two nodded yes. But it's still hard to play. After playing the game, I felt that this mahjong was simple. This game is still exercising people. Zhang Fengqin sighed.
The two sat at the mahjong table discussing the game
What troubled the two even more was the version update problem. Each size update means different levels of challenge for them, and many things have to be relearned. "This is just familiar enough to operate, and suddenly there is an update, and I don't know which character wears what and what equipment to give him." When it came to this, the flower lady was a little dissatisfied. Her style in the game is more radical and daring than Zhang Fengqin on the side, and she often takes the initiative to think to the little teachers: "Aren't we combined with this big sword and teardrops?" "As soon as the version was updated, she had to rethink a lot of things.
No matter what, Hua Niang and Zhang Fengqin have learned new things and found new fun. During that time last year, both of them were particularly addicted to games and came almost every day. The flower lady described her state at that time: "The whole person was involved. I want to play tomorrow after playing today, and I want to play another game after playing for hours. Speaking of this, she couldn't help but laugh.
"In the end, they all said that they also want to compete with this young man, and they will play competitions and challenge him in the future!"
"Hayashi Burn"
Fan Jinlin, born in 1997, is less than 26 years old this year and has become the head of five nursing homes and has a Douyin account with more than 2 million followers. After becoming popular with a famous "pomegranate fried wine" video, he explained to the media that came to explain the origin of the name of his account "Lin Yao": "Burn yourself like wood and illuminate the road to retirement." Let the old man have light in his eyes and love in his heart. ”
The road to retirement in Lin Zao's mouth is a long-term plan that includes keywords such as short videos, traffic, games, and e-sports. Now, the plan has come to its crucial step.
Fan Jinlin's father was one of the earliest people engaged in elderly care services in Xuchang City, and his experience also became an opportunity for Fan Jinlin to join the industry. With such an opportunity for front-line observation, Fan Jinlin, after 95, has a deeper understanding of the pension industry than the vast majority of his peers. In 2019, Fan Jinlin graduated from university and began to prepare for the construction of his own nursing home.
With the support of his father's financial and experience, coupled with his own certificate, he also obtained a pension certificate during college, and his first nursing home independently designed, decorated and operated by himself opened in October 2020. After several years of operation, he has accumulated a lot of experience. At the beginning of 2022, he took over two publicly built private homes for the elderly, and took over the nursing home where he previously worked after his father retired. Coupled with Fuxing Hospital, which takes e-sports as an innovation point, Fan Jinlin currently manages 5 elderly care institutions.
When it was dinner time, the nurses went from room to room to deliver meals to the elderly
As the first step in the plan, 25-year-old Fan Jinlin already has enough room to put his ideas into practice. In his carefully designed nursing home, he wanted to do something different from the previous nursing services.
The first thing that comes to mind is short video. Unlike many accounts that have been operating silently for a long time and suddenly exploded, Fan Jinlin's shooting has a good flow at the beginning, and the fifth work has received more than 300,000 likes. This is thanks to his accurate grasp of the current Internet content production. With a major in broadcasting and hosting, and experience in operating a 10,000-fan Weibo account, Fan Jinlin has a keen sense of what people want to see in short videos.
It just so happens that he has another batch of "actors" who are very suitable. As the person in charge of the nursing home, the last thing Fan Jinlin lacks around is the old people, and the lonely old people do not lack enthusiasm and time. With just a suitable script and a little simple explanation, the old people appeared in the short video with the most natural acting skills. Bungee, playing cards, quarrelling, drinking milk tea, eating hot pot, the old people in the video seem to live as energetic as young people.
One of the most popular is naturally the protagonist of "Pomegranate Frying Wine", Fan Jinlin's own grandmother, 85-year-old An Fengying. She lives in her grandson's nursing home. After being a teacher all her life, Grandma An is still logical and clear in her 80s. In July 2021, the video taken by Fan Jinlin for her became a hit on Douyin during that time. In the video, she is seriously calculating a first-grade math problem, but she is caught in an endless loop: "16-9, 6-9 is not enough, borrow 1, equal 16-9..." As soon as the video came out, it immediately went viral, and the contrasting picture produced a strong comedic effect. The Henan dialect "16-9" is also nicknamed "pomegranate fried wine", which has become the account's most famous meme.
The never-ending "pomegranate fried wine"
In Hayashi's comment section, the most common question that comes up is: "How did you convince them to make these videos?" "After years of baptism, the audience seems to have become familiar with the operation of self-media, and it is clear that all this is just the result of editing, directing and acting. But for why the old "actors" come from, most people's imagination can only stay on "free eggs". Love to be greedy and cheap, in order to spend a few pennies to participate in all kinds of unreliable activities - this seems to have become the standard image of the old man in people's minds. Thinking of this, the freshness that Lin Yao shot in the video seemed to disappear again.
No one could have imagined that for Lin Yao or the grandmothers, there was something more important and attractive than free eggs.
In the room, Grandma Ann was watching TV alone
Esports retirement plan
Not long after shooting the short video, Fan Jinlin found that the game was a good theme. Among the various activities that highlight the sense of contrast, playing games can best reflect the characteristics of young people. A 70-year-old man playing games overnight also sounds more reasonable than bouncing all night. It is not difficult to write the lines in advance and let some experienced old "actors" hold tablets in their hands and perform a black scene. "Why are you bothering vegetables? Weren't you the king of the wild? Just you, what about your sister? "The old people acted quite gratically.
In addition, the rich game culture also provides a steady stream of shooting ideas. Sticking the hero to the mahjong card becomes a game of mahjong. Print skills on cards and turn them into game cards. During the most popular period of "Sheep and a Sheep", Fan Jinlin shot a few videos with simple props, allowing his grandparents to play entertainment with mahjong with the "Sheep and Sheep" icon, and the response was good. At the end of the video, just like real players, Grandma also discovers that the few remaining cards cannot be eliminated at all, and angrily says that she will not play.
"When 'Sheep Got a Sheep' to a nursing home"
Shooting such a video, Fan Jinlin himself was also thinking, can the old people really play games?
He felt that this might not be empty talk. Fan Jinlin's father is a veteran World of Warcraft enthusiast. When Fan Jinlin was a child, he once saw his father as a conductor and lead dozens of people to vigorously make copies. At that time, my father was nearly middle-aged, and he didn't know much about gaming. With such a family, in Fan Jinlin's impression, games are by no means only for so-called young people.
On the other hand, his previous experience of shooting short videos also made him see a unique opportunity in the traffic era. Since people love to watch the elderly play games so much, can they use the traffic income obtained by short videos and live broadcast platforms to feed back their pension career, make up for the gap between ideal planning and actual income, and let ordinary old people also enjoy a wonderful old age?
His plan had a new idea. This time, the key word is "game".
Props used by Fan Jinlin to shoot the video
In February 2022, he began to implement the idea. The newly designed nursing home organized in Jian'an District, Xuchang City, was prepared in the direction of "Internet celebrity" at the beginning. The core part of this is the electronic reading room and the e-sports equipment in it. In Fan Jinlin's vision, this plan will not stop at letting the old man play the game itself. Teaching the elderly to play games, cultivating their gaming skills, and even forming a senior esports team and holding professional senior esports competitions - this is his longer-term plan.
And the arrival of Zhang Fengqin and Hua Niang made him see the hope of this plan.
puzzle
During the Spring Festival in 2023, CCTV news channels broadcast an interview with Fan Jinlin, featuring his "new nursing home". Grandma An, Zhang Fengqin and Hua Niang were all on TV. On February 5, CCTV News released a report video on Weibo, and "post-95 opened a nursing home that young people are hungry" quickly appeared on the hot search. In addition to the classic "pomegranate fried wine", the scene of Zhang Fengqin and Hua Niang playing a game has attracted more people's attention. Many people asked in comments and retweets: "I am 24 years old this year, how much can I stay?" ”
Flower lady on TV
Contrary to what most people think, according to Fan Jinlin's plan, e-sports nursing homes will be operated for free. By participating in training and cooperating with filming, the fee is waived, or even all free stays, which is an agreement reached between Fan Jinlin and her grandmothers. In his future planning, he is also ready to implement this idea: use video traffic revenue to solve the cost problem, so that grandmothers can live a fun life without spending a lot of money.
But trying to actually build an old esports team has more problems than you think. Like every esports club, the most important thing is talent. How to find suitable old people like Zhang Fengqin and Hua Niang is the primary problem.
The e-sports cabin sponsored by the manufacturer arrived, and Fan Jinlin wanted to take a video with his grandmother
Fan Jinlin told me that many elderly people have come to him on their own initiative. Some of their children have all immigrated to Canada, and some are university professors who have been hired for many years, all of whom said that they are not poor in money, so they want to live here and shoot videos together. But Fan Jinlin did not immediately agree. "It's not about money." He told me, "What we want to record is the most ordinary and simple ordinary people. It may not take a lot of money, and they can find happiness here. In the end, under Fan Jinlin's warm persuasion, several elderly people who were in an urgent mood agreed to line up in the order of registration and temporarily wait at home for notice.
There are also many difficulties in the training process. The choice of "Genting Game" mode of "League of Legends" as the main game of grandma is also the result of Fan Jinlin's thinking. Born in 2019, "Genting Game" adopts self-propelled chess gameplay, which has a low test of operation and reaction speed, and is much simpler than the classic gameplay of MOBA games, and the main test is the idea of lineup matching and weapon matching. For the elderly who have almost no operating foundation, "Genting Game" is an easy-to-understand and accessible choice.
Station B netizens also mentioned the experience of teaching their father to learn "Genting Game"
The little teacher in Zhang Fengqin and Hua Niang's mouth is actually Fan Jinlin's two assistants, Li Xiang and Dou Peiyuan, the latter affectionately known as "Dou Dou" by her grandmothers. As peers, their daily work is to assist Fan Jinlin in shooting short videos and running media, and teaching grandmas to play games by the way. Under the enthusiasm, Zhang Fengqin and Hua Niang learned quite well, but when it came to building a professional team, Fan Jinlin and his companions knew very well that their level was not enough to serve as a coach, and they had to hire professional talents. In addition, for the elderly team, a suitable team doctor is particularly important. These are all issues that need to be solved one by one in the future.
A team plus substitutes requires at least seven or eight people. At present, including Zhang Fengqin and Hua Niang, Fan Jinlin has only 3 mature players here. He wanted to leave the remaining places for the old people outside Xu Chang. The first senior esports team, he hopes to make it national. Inviting grandparents from all over the world to the e-sports nursing home he personally designed and built, living together, training together, holding an e-sports event for the elderly that everyone is excited about, and then using the income to support the elderly cause and truly improve the quality of life of the elderly - this is not only his wish, but also the wish of the grandmothers. When it comes to competing with young people, the flower lady's eyes always flash a little excited and slightly shy.
She looks forward to sharing her victory with more people
The question of "why are they willing to appear without sending eggs" was also answered at this time - the short video may be fake, but the time spent together is real. Learning to play a game that young people play with older sisters of the same age makes their already lonely lives more interesting. They value the joy of the game more than a free egg.
Get together
Just a few days after the New Year, Fan Jinlin came to Fuxing Hospital, an Internet celebrity nursing home. The upstairs of the gaming room leaked, and he was busy negotiating with the property to solve it. Fortunately, the nursing home that has not yet officially opened is currently unoccupied, and all the new facilities are still waiting for the arrival of the elderly. After the peak of the epidemic in November last year, according to Xuchang's local epidemic prevention policy, the e-sports nursing home that was ready to open was temporarily suspended, and the grandmothers' e-sports training had to be temporarily suspended.
This stop lasted for almost 4 months, from winter to spring. Since learning the game, Zhang Fengqin has never been separated from the game for so long. Staying at home, she flipped through her notebook from time to time, recalling what it felt like to hold her mouse.
On September 9, 2022, Zhang Fengqin wrote down the new knowledge she wanted to learn on a page
In the fields where the land of the Central Plains is gradually turning green, Zhang Fengqin and Hua Niang are looking forward to meeting again in the "Yunding Game". They miss the "Astral Dragon" very much, and they miss each other. For the grandmothers, they have just had a long, long winter, and everything should have a new beginning.