The good things never dissipate. People must choose a life and have the courage to persevere. Whether the road ahead is dark or light, now that you have made your choice, you must boldly move forward, even if you encounter cold eyes and ridicule.
The first audience of Gluten Brother Cheng Shulin was a group of pigs.
It was around 2005, and he was working on a pig farm in Yantai, Shandong Province. His daily life is to vaccinate pigs, feed them with water, and deliver babies. It's hard work, but it's not the most important thing. Gluten brother is most afraid of going out, because the bath is clean and there is still a smell on the body. "Most people in the car cover their noses." In winter, the entire pig shed is closed, because the pigs grow best around 20 degrees. So Cheng Shulin began to sing to the pigs.
The lyrics are all inspired by his leisure time to practice words, such as "The sow hums for the piglet" and "The piglet hums for the wash". Then he found that pigs could understand, they could laugh, they could dance, and they were getting healthier. "Do I still have this feature?" Cheng Shulin secretly made up his mind: I will take the road of music in the future.
At that time, Cheng Shulin did not know that it was not an easy task to turn the audience from pigs to people. "This road is too difficult to walk, it is simply difficult to go to the blue sky." Looking back, Cheng Shulin feels that he relies on a lonely courage of "barefoot and not afraid to wear shoes". He grew up poor, had no higher education, married very early, and needed to raise five children. Before the age of thirty he struggled to feed himself, showing no artistic talent, and his life showed no signs of being above life.
The turning point of everything came from the pigs who now have nowhere to go, and all the ups and downs came from then on. In the orderly and fiercely competitive music circle, grassroots like Cheng Shulin rarely have the opportunity to be seen. With thousands of handwritten songs, Cheng Shulin became a wandering singer.
In 2013, he participated in the audition of oriental satellite TV's "Voice of Chinese Dreams" program, stopping in the third round, in an interview video, Cheng Shulin, with long hair and dark skin, sang "Baked Gluten" with passion, frightening other contestants in the background to cover their ears. In February 2018, the video was parodied as a ghost animal video, and Cheng Shulin became popular again, signing a music company, a film and television company, and moving to Beijing in the spring of 2019. On Douyin, Cheng Shulin received nearly 7 million followers and more than 9 million likes.
After nearly fifteen years of pursuing his musical dreams, he was finally seen.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > "want to do something."</h1>
"Have you ever eaten the fragrant taste?" Have you ever tasted the spicy sensation? Have you heard the song of the Internet pop red man? Real baked gluten, it's exciting! Let you eat really affordable, different taste, baked gluten, baked gluten, my baked gluten, let you eat every day happy. As Cheng Shulin's most well-known song, "Baked Gluten" is a must-sing song for his commercial performances. His current commercial performance price is tens of thousands of yuan a show, and when he wrote this song, he was selling a piece of Grilled Gluten with Five-One Strings in Malu Town, Jiading District, Shanghai. It was ten years ago, when Cheng Shulin ran a mobile stall that was often chased by the city management.
Every morning at six o'clock, he wakes up, cuts the noodles, wraps the noodles into a curved shape with chopsticks, cooks them in a saucepan with spices, blisters them in cold water, cuts them into a spiral shape with a knife, and finally wears them with a toothpick. Every day at three or four o'clock in the afternoon, he pedals out of the stall in a small car, and when guests come, he will brush oil, grill skewers, and sprinkle cumin. Standing until ten o'clock in the evening, eleven o'clock in the evening, he can earn a hundred dollars. "Baked Gluten" was created in this context. The lyrics were posted on the mobile stalls, and Cheng Shulin felt that this would attract customers.
Since making up his mind to take the road of music, Cheng Shulin has been writing songs. Born in 1974, he felt early on that "he was too old to learn anything", that he could not play theory, but had a strong creative passion. He wrote on all kinds of paper, cigarette cartons, oil paper, in short, what he could catch on hand. But he didn't sing on any occasion, and the few opportunities he had were "rubbed" to come.
At that time, he was working as a water delivery worker in Shanghai, and one day he saw a performance in the courtyard of a factory open to migrant workers. Acrobatics, crosstalk, singing, everything. Cheng Shulin did not dare to find a professional singer to "touch the porcelain", so he found a cross-talk actor and said: "Wait a while to go up and give you flowers." He grabbed a few wildflowers on the side of the road, took off his shoes, and went to the stage barefoot. He greeted the audience and said he wanted to sing the song he had written, and as soon as he sang three sentences, he heard applause.
"My feelings should be in place, and I feel that the effect is good." Recalling the first public performance, Cheng Shulin said. He didn't worry about ridicule, and he described himself as an "ignorant child." "Newborn calves are not afraid of tigers." His only regret was that he didn't record the scene. "If only someone could record it for me." Now TikTok is on it. ”
The unexpected performance gave Cheng Shulin the confidence to make music, but before another accident came, this confidence remained within the scope of interest. Six months after doing the baked gluten business, Cheng Shulin encountered a theft. When he came home from the stall that day, he was so tired that he fell asleep without closing the doors and windows, only to wake up the next day to find that the stall, money, and clothes had been stolen. He lay in bed for two days, trying to find a friend to rub food and embarrassed, thinking that he could not starve to death, so he decided to go out and walk around. It is the September temple fair, and the streets are very lively. Cheng Shulin noticed a blind master who was selling songs, and decided to turn his hobbies into jobs at that moment. The two ganged up, and Cheng Shulin stepped on the three-wheeled car every day to sell and sing.
On December 11, Tian Tian Ge Cheng Shulin shared his story with music and vibrato
In cheng Shulin's view at that time, being a wandering singer was equivalent to asking for food, and for a month or two, he was very disapproving of his identity and situation. "How can I pull down this face?" The master led him through the door, and he was grateful, but on the other hand he thought that he was fundamentally different from the master.
"He's purely for survival, I'm for art. I love the industry after all. "Cheng Shulin said that although he was treated as a person who wanted food, he had actually been writing songs." No one else will understand my heart, only I know it, I still want to be famous, I want to do something! ”
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > "you're on fire."</h1>
Cheng Shulin has been a wandering singer for nearly a decade. He has been to many places, as close as Shanghai and Hangzhou, as far as Xinjiang. He often lives with a group of disabled singers, bathes them and takes them out. When he made a little money, he went to the recording studio to make his own songs. "Money and hard work are all used for this." Writing songs is Cheng Shulin's happiest thing, and after writing a word, he can immerse himself in a state of self-intoxication for a long time. "The next day I still have the manuscript in my hand, and I will continue to appreciate it back and forth, as if I am closer than my own child."
Cheng Shulin has five children, four sons and a daughter, and his wife divorced him in 2009 and took her with her. In the eyes of his parents, brothers and other old family members in Xinyang, Henan, Cheng Shulin is a "second-rate son" who does not do his job. "Say I can't make money, I can't protect my family."
In 2013, Cheng Shulin experienced a feeling of "being famous", but that brief popularity did not bring actual benefits. In the first round of the "Voice of Chinese Dreams" in the Hangzhou area, Cheng Shulin sang a song originally sung by Guan Shuyi, "The Night is Cool as Water", but it was not over. Cheng Shulin guessed that it was a question of age. "This show is an idol, and I'm close to forty years old."
It wasn't long before he was called back and sang "Baked Gluten" in the second round, which had the potential to become popular. The male director said, "You're on fire." Cheng Shulin said: "It is better to be able to fire." "But there was no fire either. Half a month after being on TV, Cheng Shulin would be recognized when he walked on the road. After the gust of wind passed, he returned to his original track.
In 2013, Cheng Shulin participated in "The Voice of Chinese Dreams"
Before the emergence of self-media such as short videos, the network life of grassroots singers was very short. They do not have a channel to continuously export their works, and the creation of personal brands basically depends on the first consumption of netizens. The rise of short video platforms such as Douyin has changed this ecology, they have lowered the threshold of music dissemination, and also made it possible for grassroots musicians such as gluten brothers to have career continuity.
In February 2018, when Cheng Shulin's video from five years ago suddenly went viral, he was wandering to Kunming, Yunnan Province, to sing. A friend said to him, "You're on fire! "Cheng Shulin is confused." I really don't know. Then the company contacted Cheng Shulin and began to promote him.
For his popularity in the way of being spoofed, Cheng Shulin said that he did not mind: "Everyone liked my style at that time, shaking my hair, shaking my head, squeezing my eyebrows and staring, and some made memes, in fact, everyone was a fun mentality." Besides, it looks cute, doesn't it? No matter what form it takes, singing or ghost animals, I am happy to see everyone happy. ”
Similar to the widely circulated "Baked Gluten" video, Cheng Shulin's videos on Douyin are also mostly exaggerated and simple singing. Regardless of pitch, he can always be fully committed. He said that this is not a deliberate gimmick to attract the audience, but a temperament that comes with it in his bones. "I entered the play relatively quickly, I came out faster, I had nothing to do with others, and I may not even understand why."
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > "Music for All"</h1>
After becoming famous, Cheng Shulin's life was very busy. The good thing is that the income has increased, the daughter taken by his ex-wife when he was a wandering singer was sent back, and Cheng Shulin also received a call from his 17-year-old young son during the interview. His son wanted to buy shoes, and Cheng Shulin told him: "You go to see it first, and then you will talk about it." His life circumstances and social recognition have changed with the unexpected popularity.
One of Mr. Cheng's most impressive commercial performances was in an ancient town near Beijing in early October last year. After singing several famous songs such as "Baked Gluten", "All Poor Me", "I Fell in Love with a Girl", many fans poured in for a group photo. The security guard was afraid of an accident, took Cheng Shulin's hand and went directly to the second floor lounge, waiting for half an hour, and there were still many fans blocked downstairs.
Cheng Shulin said that he has not regarded himself as a star so far, nor has he positioned himself as an artist, and he has been writing songs with a passion from beginning to end - he used to help pigs "entertain" in pig farms, and now he is affirmed by the audience that he wholeheartedly helps people to engage in entertainment.
"My dream is to eat well, sleep well, and make everyone happy." In Cheng Shulin's view, music serves everyone, and he is actually engaged in the service industry. Music is the sustenance of the soul for himself, just like others will like to play basketball and poker, it is a condiment to make life less boring. For the average listener, music is more like consolation.
On Douyin, Cheng Shulin's "All Poor Me" was used as background music by more than 30,000 videos. "On a wandering night, I was on the road, the headlights of the car shook my eyes, and when I couldn't see the road ahead, how far I could go, how much repeated steps were staggered, how hard the stones were assholes. I simply didn't have the strength to look at the sky or be in the mood to experience it. I wanted to cut myself to pieces, and I wanted to finish my life once, but I didn't have the courage or strength to watch my soul slowly dissipate. The song was written after the gluten stall and money were stolen, and the lyrics were straightforward and dark and desperate, but they inadvertently inspired many listeners. Someone told Cheng Shulin through a message on Douyin that the song gave them a reason to be strong.
"When I hear this song when I live a negative life and feel unfair, I will find that people who were once so miserable can now live so well and so happily, and the audience will think why can't I get out of the predicament?" 」 Cheng Shulin said. Douyin brings him greater traffic and more timely feedback, and will also change his creative mode. "In the future, we will do our best to get close to the Douyin platform and the people."
Inevitably, Cheng Shulin also encountered some criticism. Many people on the Internet say that he will only cry wolf and sing badly, and in reality he will noisy neighbors because of his too loud singing. Cheng Shulin admits that he has no singing skills, and the only recognizable is his unique voice and funny singing style. He didn't mind being ridiculed and used as a negative teaching material, and he was more concerned about whether people who had troubles in life could have a happy smile after watching the video.
"Have you ever thought about what to do after one day it's not so red?"
For this question, Gluten Brother Cheng Shulin already had the answer. "I still have to live if I'm not so red, as long as I don't die, I have to live, go to the street to ask for food, go home and farm, I can do it." The question is whether my children can get married and have children, whether I can hug my grandchildren, accompany them to the park, go to the chess, teach them to write, dance, this is life, right? ”