In March 2005, after four months of study, Zhang Huimei was about to graduate from boston university language school.
According to the convention, each student must find his or her own teacher for a one-on-one final exam before graduation, some students let the teacher score by using oral chat, and some students write a report or survey to turn in.
Zhang Huimei had a sudden idea and decided to take an unprecedented form as her final exam: to open a small concert of fifty people.
After the news spread, Zhang Huimei was invited to the office by the principal.
The headmaster said, "I just want to find out, who the hell are you?" Ever since the news of your concert got out, the phones in the school office have been non-stop every day, and the email has been full. Everyone is asking where to buy tickets for Zhang Huimei's concert. ”
Zhang Huimei smiled embarrassedly and told the principal that she was actually a singer.
When she was a child, Zhang Huimei would force children to listen to her singing offstage.
She forced people to go home and get a flashlight, and then sat down in rows.
When she comes on stage, the audience turns on the flashlight to create the effect of stage lighting.
As she sang, several flashlights had to shine on her face, and others had to turn against the ceiling.
At a young age, she planned a concert for herself.
In high school, Zhang Huimei spent two months teaching 100 of her peers to sing and dance, and then took them to Taitung City to participate in the Harvest Festival, a performance that amazed everyone on the scene.
But Xiao Zhang Huimei has not dreamed of stardom, she only thinks that singing and dancing is something in the life of an aboriginal.
In 1992, Zhang Huimei was 20 years old, which was a turning point in her life.
At that time, Zhang Huimei's father was hospitalized due to illness, and Zhang's father liked to watch the "Five Lights Award" singing competition in the hospital. The "Five Lights Award" singing competition is similar to the later "Super Girl" competition in the mainland, and it is also the winner who is finally left after countless eliminations.
Because Dad said, "I think you're better than any of the contestants in there, and I hope you can participate." ”
Zhang Huimei went, originally she thought that as long as she sang a few times to make her father happy, who knew that all the way through the barrier.
Every time she went to the northern competition, Zhang Huimei had to take an eight-hour train ride, and every time she passed, there were inexplicably many people outside their house who set off firecrackers to celebrate her glory for the tribe.
Coupled with the fact that her sister had to learn three to six songs a week to cope with the competition, she felt more and more stressed, and for the first time she felt that singing was so painful.
When the game reached the fifth level of the fourth round, Zhang Huimei forgot her words under the double attack of cold and psychological pressure, and failed to continue to successfully defend the title.
She squatted there and cried: "How do I go back to face my countrymen and fathers?" After this, Zhang Huimei was not even willing to sing.
After half a year, her father encouraged her to challenge again, and she watched her father, who was getting more and more ill, and once again participated in the "Five Lights Award".
After 6 months of competition, Zhang Huimei finally won the championship and became the master of the five-degree five-level ring.
Unfortunately, when I came back with the trophy, my father had passed away.
The sad Zhang Huimei once again did not want to sing, and her mother told her that her father was gone, but he was still watching you.
Against the aura of the champion, Zhang Huimei's star path was not smooth, the first record was unsuccessful, and she returned to her ordinary life and went to work in the hotel opened by her sister in Taipei.
Soon the female lead singer in the cousin's orchestra suddenly left, so the cousin thought of Zhang Huimei.
In the Taiwanese bar in the 1990s, most of the songs were sung in English, which was a big problem for Zhang Huimei, who did not know anything about English, in order to seize an opportunity, Zhang Huimei learned ten English songs in a week.
On the day of the performance, Zhang Huimei stood on the stage and looked at the guests below, who ate, drank, and punched, and no one stood on the stage.
She was very nervous, what if she sang and no one watched? She thought, "Make sure you get people to notice me in the first sentence." ”
After calming down, she began to sing "I will ALWAYS LOVE YOU", singing to the second sentence, the scene was quiet, and some guests began to look back at her.
In a week's time, Zhang Huimei's band became very famous, and the business of which bar their band went to would be particularly good.
The famous musician Zhang Yusheng heard the sound and was touched by this high-pitched and loud female voice, bringing Zhang Huimei into the music scene.
In March 1996, after singing in a bar for seven months, Zhang Huimei signed a contract with Fenghua Records.
When signing the contract, those senior musicians asked Zhang Huimei why she wanted to be a singer, and Zhang Huimei said: "I want to have a concert, a large-scale concert." They all thought this girl had such a big breath.
Unexpectedly, this girl with a big tone opened up as soon as she entered the career of the music world.
In December of the same year, Zhang Yusheng's first solo album "Sisters" tailor-made for Zhang Huimei was born.
The new album sold 300,000 copies in the first week of release, setting a record for the first place in sales for nine consecutive weeks since the opening of ifPI in Taiwan, and the sales volume in Taiwan exceeded one million, breaking the sales record of local singers in Taiwan in 1996.
Zhang Huimei, who became popular overnight, in her first interview, looked at the camera with her face shaking, the microphone in front of her, and a room full of reporters, and she cried with fright.
Zhang Xiaoyan, the director of the company, told her that you should learn the kung fu of others for ten years in two years.
Driven by the great wave of her career, Zhang Huimei quickly adapted to the great changes and expectations in her life, that is, passively and actively.
In 1997, Zhang Huimei released her second album "BAD BOY", which won the IFPI sales champion for 9 consecutive weeks, with a cumulative sales of 1.35 million, breaking the sales record of Taiwanese female singers in 1997.
In 1998, the 26-year-old Zhang Huimei's dream came true and she held her first concert in Taipei, the "Sisterhood of Strength" solo concert.
This concert set a record for the fastest ticket sales in Taiwan in the past decade, the most amazing fullness, and the craziest audience in the audience.
The stadium, which was originally expected to accommodate 20,000 people, poured in more than 30,000 people that night.
Taiwanese media called the concert the most densely populated concert in Taiwan besides the "Michael Jackson" concert.
Zhang Huimei's uninhibited stage charm shocked the traditional concept.
Before her, Taiwanese pop music was dominated by soft lyric songs.
In the 1980s, Su Rui appeared, and Su Rui's voice represented a kind of female emotion that did not suppress herself, but when it came to Zhang Huimei, she even released her limbs together.
A dancer who entered the career burnout period regained his enthusiasm for the stage under the infection of Zhang Huimei.
Later, she became a long-term partner of Zhang Huimei.
In June 1999, the fifth album "Can I Hold You?" was released. The album topped the IfPI sales chart in Taiwan for 11 weeks, breaking the record of 9 weeks set by her own "Bad Boy" album.
In 2002, Zhang Huimei was featured on the cover of Time magazine in the United States, which listed her as one of the most influential people in Asia in 2002.
The speed and height of Zhang Huimei's fame are unimaginable and unattainable, and even she herself has not adapted to it.
At the height of her life, outside of work, she isolated herself and locked herself in her room every day, even her family did not want to see her. She walked through the mirror to see herself and felt that the people in the mirror were annoying.
It took her a year or two to realize she couldn't do that, so she started to seek help from a doctor.
In 2004, Zhang Huimei made a decision that surprised her family and the company, and left her job to go to Boston to start a simple student life.
Before going to Boston, she asked many people where it was good to study abroad, and almost everyone warned her not to go to Boston because the city was boring.
She heard the word "boring" and thought to herself, "That's where I'm going." ”
Student life in Boston gave Zhang Huimei a rare relaxation, she can wear a face and wear a comfortable sweatshirt.
The simple life gave Zhang Huimei the enthusiasm to stand on the stage again.
When the principal learned that Zhang Huimei was a singer, he offered to provide a venue of three thousand people to Zhang Huimei, and Zhang Huimei and the principal bargained, and finally set it at 800 people.
On the day of the concert, Zhang Huimei wore a special cheongsam, and all the foreign students were frightened: "You are not like this usually." ”
Probably a good regret for not chasing her.
After finishing her studies, Zhang Huimei returned to Taiwan.
One day in the studio after singing "Hostage", she was hurt, and her mood has not been calm.
At three o'clock in the morning, she called Wu Yukang, and cried and talked on the phone for more than an hour.
After saying that, she was comfortable and said to Wu Yukang on the other end, "I'm sorry, I'm tired, I want to sleep." ”
Just hang up the phone.
Wu Yukang was disturbed by Zhang Huimei's drowsiness, and the next day he gave Zhang Huimei a song called "I Want to Be Happy".
Zhang Huimei read the lyrics, did not say a word, looked at Wu Yukang and nodded.
Wu Yukang saw tears in her eyes.
Probably after that, Zhang Huimei had the idea of making "Amit", "Amit" Zhang Huimei's Real Name of the Beinan Tribe.
But at that time, colleagues disagreed, they felt that even if Zhang Huimei appeared as Amit, everyone still knew that she was Zhang Huimei.
Until 2009, Zhang Huimei did not want to compromise anymore and insisted on using Amit's identity to make an album.
And with a new partner, she feels that the new person can look at her differently.
This album Zhang Huimei speaks freely through Amit's identity, and there are many sensitive topics, including broken backs, death, and feminism.
The album has a heavier rock style, quoting the ancient tunes of the aborigines, and there are also English foul language.
In the same year, Zhang Huimei began to sing songs in the styles of "Zhang Huimei" and "Amit", as well as musical theater performances.
Students of the Institute of Musicology of National Taiwan University also made a special paper on Zhang Huimei's transformation to discuss Ah Mei's bravery to break the framework, and the conclusion of the paper praised Zhang Huimei's works that were not entirely commercial considerations to elevate Amit's creative heights.
From the spring of 2015 to the winter of 2017, Zhang Huimei opened 104 "Utopia World Tour", which is second only to jacky Cheung, the god of song in the Chinese music scene.
At the concert, Zhang Huimei put all the fast songs together and sang for more than half an hour.
A musician commented: "Very few people have this, I think this is what she is challenging herself." ”
One year on New Year's Eve, many streets in Taiwan implemented traffic restrictions, and Zhang Huimei finished performing, changed into civilian clothes, wore hats and masks into a surging crowd, and prepared to walk back through tens of thousands of people.
She and her colleagues bought fireworks and danced in the crowded square with lit fireworks, and no one recognized her, and people thought the girl was crazy.
When she was about to return home, Zhang Huimei saw many people resting on the side of the road, she walked to a person, suddenly took off her hat, pulled down her mask and said to the person: "Happy New Year." ”
When she finished, she ran, and the group recognized her and chased after her.
Along the road, Zhang Huimei saw that there were couples taking pictures, and she rushed over to them and shouted: "Happy New Year." ”
Zhang Huimei said, in fact, I am a village farmer in Tai'an Village, Beinan Township, Taitung County.
Still at the graduation concert in Boston, Zhang Huimei sang and danced on the stage, and when she saw the Chinese friends on the stage, everyone's face was full of pride.
She was shaking nervously on stage, as if she was still a newcomer and wanted everyone to get to know her.
She got a high score on her final exam, and her teacher wrote to her: Let all foreign friends recognize Asia.
A reporter asked her what she wanted to say to the little girl who had dreamed of stardom?
Zhang Huimei replied: "I have not lived up to my own talent, and I feel that I am worthy of myself." ”
Lu Kaitong, who committed suicide at the age of 32: You have represented the world in pain, and I can only age on your behalf
After his status in Hong Kong surpassed Huang Xia, why did he not cooperate after the song won the red Andy Lau?