Vienna sings the song of the mountains
Shenyang Daily reporter Yu Hui
On my desk there is a bottle of water, a bottle of blue Danube water fused with the blue Yellow River water! On July 23, the Shenyang Daily Children's Choir won the gold medal at the 12th World Peace Choir Festival in Vienna. Among our group members was Cui Yunmeng, a Tibetan girl from Linxia, Gansu Province, whose hometown of the Yellow River was blue. During this trip to Vienna, she and I finally fulfilled a common dream: to let the children in the mountains sing from the blue Yellow River to the blue Danube!
Banqin. Data map
This Baima Tibetan girl's name is Banqin, she is studying at Dongba Middle School in Wenxian County, Longnan City, Gansu Province.
A few years ago, I followed the leaders of the China Journalists Association and the Liaoning Journalists Association to Dongba Middle School to donate stationery and sports supplies. It is a school for left-behind children, and the vast majority of children here can only see their parents once a year. In the interview, I asked a child, "Where do your mom and dad work?" and she said blankly, "I don't know." I asked, "When are they coming back to see you?" and she said nonchalantly, "I don't know." ”
An improvised choir almost shouted and sang a song to welcome us. The children's voices are good, but they lack professional training, and they blurt out one sentence: "We will teach!"
In July 2022, the Wenxian Dongba Children's Choir was established. Since then, my colleagues and I have embarked on a journey of more than 2,400 kilometers from the Northeast to the Southwest. Departing from Shenyang at 6 o'clock in the morning, planes, trains, automobiles, and various means of transportation crossed the road that was "difficult to go to the blue sky" as mentioned in Li Bai's "Shu Road Difficulty". The next morning, we could see the children's smiling faces with surprise and longing.
Our rehearsals went from exhalation to part-part chorus, from body to performance, and we tutored this group of zero-based mountain children hand in hand. During the lunch break, I went to the shop in front of the school to buy something, and I happened to see four little boys in the choir. I immediately beckoned to them: "Come here, the head of the group will buy you ice cream!" One of the children hesitated, lowered his head and whispered to me: "The four of us, one ice cream is enough......" I instantly burst into tears, the children are so sensible that it makes people feel distressed!
When these children, who can only shout and sing, can breathe steadily and have a unified voice, they received an invitation to perform from Gansu TV station. On February 27, 2023, the children in the mountains walked out of the cliff for the first time, pulled the banner of "Dongba Children's Choir of Wenxian County, Gansu Province, China", timidly walked onto the starry stage of Gansu TV Station, and sang "Children in the Mountains" that we tailored for them.
The report we wrote about the choir triggered a retweet on the whole network, and also attracted the attention of the whole society to the children.
The choir poses for a group photo in front of the plane flying to the "dream". Data map
In June, the choir received an invitation letter from CCTV's "Big Windmill" column group. On July 2, a plane full of dreams of children in the mountains took off in the sky and flew to Beijing, the capital of their hearts. The children walked into the CCTV recording studio and heard their own singing soothing flow from the top-notch recording equipment, they did a show with Sister Xiaolu, who can only be seen on TV, and they also came to the China Journalists Association and sang the song in their hearts.
In the early morning of July 4, in the light rain, I took my children from my residence to Tiananmen Square to watch the flag-raising ceremony. At 4:51 a.m., just as the national flag was about to be raised, the rain suddenly increased. But the children all took off the hats of their raincoats, carefully took their red scarves out of their raincoats, and smoothed them on their chests. When the national anthem sounded, they raised their right hands in unison and saluted a solemn team salute to the rising five-star red flag.
Looking at their raised right hands, looking at the confident, resolute gaze in their eyes, I couldn't tell whether it was rain or tears on my face. I have experienced first-hand the magic of this group of children from a blank sheet of paper to a professional choir. From thinking about it to doing it, I once wandered, there are thousands of reasons not to go, and there is only one reason to go! At that moment, I felt that all the efforts of all our journalists were worth it!
On July 23rd, when Banqin, as the representative of the Wenxian Dongba Children's Choir, finally stood on the stage of the Vienna Golden Hall, a wave of applause rang out!
The choir performs at the Vienna Musikverein. Data map
Our reports in Vienna were published in various media outlets and read more than 10 million times. I believe that through the dissemination of our journalists, more people will pay attention to the children who live in the mountains like them.
In the past few years, we have helped 142 children in the mountains to realize their dreams of stepping out of the mountains, entering CCTV, and ascending to the highest hall of music in the world. Caring for left-behind children and giving more rural children the opportunity to shine is the dream of our journalists. These two dreams are drawn today as a concentric circle. It is precisely these dreams one after another that have finally condensed into our Chinese dream. Change the lives of children with chorus, hold hands with them, sing a song together, and realize the Chinese dream together.
Producer: Zhao Yonggang
Planner: Zhang Fei
Coordinator: Xu Wenyan
Director: Tian Meng
Reporter: Yu Hui
Camera: Zhang Menglin
Later period: Wu Yun
Acknowledgement: Within the China Journalists Association