Mei Lanfang, the master of Peking Opera art in China, dressed as a woman on the opera stage, with a graceful and luxurious, dignified and elegant appearance, known as "men want to marry, women want to marry." ”
In Japan, there is also a world-class "drag queen" Mei Lun Akihiro, who dressed as a woman in real life and chose a lifestyle beyond gender, and was called "Mei Lanfang" in Japan by netizens.
The reporter asked: "How do you evaluate yourself in 1 word?" ”
Akihiro Miwa smiled and replied, "Youkai." ”
So, what kind of experience turned Akihiro Miwa from 1 person into 1 youkai?
In May 2020, Akihiro Miwa, who celebrated his 85th birthday, is the voice actor of "Princess Mononoke" and "Hal's Moving Castle", as well as a singer and actor, who also hosts talk variety shows and publishes autobiographies of life.
At the age of 10, he experienced an atomic bomb explosion and has been tormented by the aftermath of the atomic bomb.
He suffered from tuberculosis in middle school, suffered from diffuse panbronchiolitis in his 40s, and was told by doctors that "there are only 3 months left in life".
In 2009, when performing on stage, the right hand was crushed and fractured, and the doctor concluded that "the right hand was wasted", but he did not expect to recover after half a year.
He suffered a cerebral infarction in September 2019 and returned to work after only 2 months.
Throughout his life, Mei Lun Minghong has been "fighting" with himself, and he has regained his new life in the continuous "fighting".
He declared to the world, "I am an immortal bird!" It is my responsibility and obligation to always maintain an unyielding posture! ”
<h1 class = "pgc-h-arrow-right" > understand the basic laws of society in the bathhouse</h1>
Born in Nagasaki in 1935, Akihiro Miwa's family runs restaurants, bathhouses, cafes in the Red Light District, near the land of Goulan Washi.
Nagasaki was a cosmopolitan city, and there were many foreigners living here at that time, and he was accustomed to the joys and sorrows of the world, and he was also exposed to the fashion of different countries.
His family's café, which was actually a bar, employed a number of escort girls, some of whom were Russian girls who had fled.
In the bathhouse, the well-dressed gentlemen, once stripped naked, revealed a weak and windy body;
On the contrary, the wandering women who have not bathed for many years and stink as soon as they enter the bathhouse, once naked, show a sculptural bodybuilding.
In the nearby fence Vasheli, the windows are open in the summer, and the love affair between men and women is clearly visible.
He naturally realized that dress is not credible, only the naked are real people; appearance, posture, age, gender, and nationality are only external labels, and a person's heart and character are the most important.
At the same time, he also concluded that a man's paradise is a woman's hell!
<H1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > atomic bombing changed the course of his life</h1>
Opposite Akihiro Miroku's house was a musical instrument and record store, where he listened to almost all musical forms such as classical, jazz, chansons, tango, pop songs, nursery rhymes, etc.
Next door to his house is the theater, where he has mastered the lighting, props, costumes, makeup and other techniques of stage art, laying a good foundation for successful performances such as "Black Lizard" in the future.
Soon after the war began, Akihiro Miwa began to study vocal music and piano, but everything changed in the summer when he was 10 years old.
At 11:02 a.m. on August 9, 1945, an atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki.
Miwa Akihiro was injured, and the family servant escaped with a quilt holding him and his brother.
Because of the atomic bomb, his family also went bankrupt, and he had to drop out of school.
He spent the night in the underground passage of Shinjuku Station, weaving between the various tents of the army, earning daily living expenses by singing, and working in cafes.
Once, the Great Red Man Of the Takarazuka Opera Troupe held a Concert of French Chanson at a café in Waseda, and acquaintances recommended him as an accompaniment singer.
This time, as an accompanist, he was recognized by Hashihito, saying that he did not want his talent to be buried, so he introduced him to "Silver Bari".
So he began to work as a resident singer at the Chanson tea restaurant "Silver Bari" in Ginza, singing the Japanese version of the French chanson, and his reputation was greatly enhanced.
The media was in an uproar, promoting him as "the beautiful boy since Shenwu", and Emperor Shenmu was the legendary first emperor of Japan, in fact, he was praised as a beautiful teenager.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > in Ginza, a purple youkai appeared</h1>
When Akihiro Miwa first sang, she was dressed up as a pure man.
However, foreign fans who come to listen to songs often bring in a variety of magazines.
He saw many models in the magazine dressed up, unable to distinguish between genders.
He wondered, since paris has such a place, can he turn Silver Bari into such a place?
He began to go to the library to look up materials, looking for a suitable dress for himself.
In the book, he learns that Tokugawa Tsunayoshi (Tokugawa Ieyasu's great-grandson) was the side-servant (the highest position of the shogun's close attendant) and his same-sex lover, Yanagisawa Yoshiho, who once gathered beautiful teenagers across the country called the "Yanagisawa Sixteen" and sang and danced in gorgeous costumes.
As a result, Miwa Akihiro changed the costumes of the beautiful teenagers of the Edo period to a modern style and began to wear makeup that transcended gender.
He dyed his hair purple, dressed himself in purple all over his body, and walked on the streets of Ginza, where people said, "In Ginza, there was a purple youkai."
Akihiro Miwa became more famous, and the famous Japanese literati became his fans.
For example, Japan's "father of detective mystery novels" Edogawa, Yukio Mishima, who committed suicide because of advocating the spirit of samurai, Yasunari Kawabata, a "Titan-level" figure in the Japanese literary world, Shusaku Endo, who represented the highest level of Japanese literature in the 20th century, Junnosuke Yoshiyuki, a representative writer of the third batch of Japanese post-war newcomer factions, and Taro Okamoto of Japan.
In particular, Akihiro Miwa was praised by Yukio Mishima as a "beauty from the sky", and there was a romantic story of wind and snow between them.
However, Yukio Mishima went to heaven with his boundless love for Akihiro Miwa, and Akihiro Miwa could never forget the bouquet of roses that Yukio Mishima gave him before committing suicide.
He let the fragrance of the bouquet of roses remain forever in the deepest corner of his heart, not to touch it, but to taste it alone in the dead of night.
< h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" > openly acknowledged homosexuality, a turning point in his artistic career</h1>
Akihiro Miwa openly admitted that he was gay when he became the "goddess" of Yukio Mishima when he became popular in Japan for "men dressing as women".
The reporter also kindly reminded him: "Don't say you are gay, this will ruin you!" ”
But he didn't care: "It's okay, you report truthfully, this is not murder and arson, this is the history and culture of Japan since ancient times."
I know that homosexuality is blamed, that if they are exposed, they will be fired by the company, and many people will commit suicide because of it.
I just want to change that and hope that gay people can live in this world with dignity.
Men love women, men love men, and women love women, in God's view, it is just one person loving another. ”
But society does not recognize this, since Mei Lun Minghong came out, everyone is rejected and rejected.
This caused the others to plummet in popularity, and after a long period of silence, he began to think about his past and future.
He remembered that when he went to the coal mines in Kyushu to perform, the coal industry was already in a slump, but the miners still paid to see his performances.
He saw from the stage that the audience's fingernails and wrinkles were all black, all charcoal ash, and he was very ashamed to sing chansons on the stage.
Therefore, he wanted to create songs for the working people and cheer them up, so there were original songs such as "Under the Sky of the Hometown" and "Miracle Song", which praised the mother and child affection of the manual laborers, which were welcomed by the working groups at the bottom, because this was their own song.
This not only made Akihiro Miwa the first original singer in Japan, but also made him popular all over the country again.
He has received many letters from fans, and some people say that the parent-child relationship has improved after listening to "Miracle Song", which makes him very pleased.
Akihiro Miwa said: "My responsibility is to encourage the world and heal people's inner wounds. I understand both the suffering of the patient and the hardships of the poor. Because I've been through all this, I can put myself in the shoes of others. ”
<h1 class = "pgc-h-arrow-right" > from singer to stage actor, he can always do the art to the extreme</h1>
Shuji Terayama, a representative of Japan's avant-garde theater, founded the "Patio Tokishiki" troupe.
The first screenplay written by Shuji Terayama wanted to invite Akihiro Miwa to star.
However, instead of looking for Miwa Akihiro directly, he took a big detour.
Miwa Akihiro now recalls that Shuji Terayama was "bad."
At that time, shochiku film company had an actress named Eiko Kujo, who often went to "Ginbarry" to entertain Akihiro Miwa, and later, she became the wife of Shuji Terayama.
One day, Eiko Kujo came to Ginbarei and said to Akihiro Miwa, "Shuji Terayama wrote a letter from New York, and you read it to me. ”
The letter was roughly to say that Shuji Terayama was tired of the now immutable form of stage performance and wanted to create a more avant-garde troupe.
He wrote a script in which he wanted Akihiro Miwa to star, and said that if Akihiro Miwa agreed, he would admit that Hideko Kujo and Akihiro Miwa were true friends.
After reading the script, Miwa Akihiro was very interested, and he was going to play an old and ugly woman.
But his firm disagreed, saying that he had won public recognition again because of "Song of Miracles", afraid that playing this role would be spurned by everyone, but he insisted on acting, and he did not expect to be popular.
Later, Shuji Terayama and Yukio Mishima successively tailored stage plays such as "Mary of Fur" and "Black Lizard" for him, and Akihiro Miwa also wrote and performed "Hymn of Love" and became an excellent stage actor.
Miwa Akihiro said: "Everyone comes into this world with a mission given by God. My mission is to make everyone feel happy and absorb energy through singing and acting. From now on, I will do my best for this mission! ”
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > if there is an afterlife, he also chooses to be Miwa Akihiro</h1>
Akihiro Miwa, the "immortal bird", has never been afraid of death, in his view, death does not exist, just the disappearance of the flesh.
He also made such an analogy: death is a kind of sadness for the human world, but in the eyes of heaven, it is "you have finally returned from your studies and cultivated to achieve positive results, congratulations"!
Finally, when the reporter asked, "If there were an afterlife, would you still become Akihiro Miwa again?" ”
Mei Lun Akihiro said firmly, "Of course, I believe I am unique!" ”