Dictation | Zhang Xiaohou
Anchor | Zhang Yuliang
Produced by | Materialism FM
Zhang Xiaohou, Chinese mainland male singer, good sister member
The place in my hometown is called Siyang County, which used to belong to Huaiyin City, and later changed its name to Huai'an City. So, my grandmother was an old lady in the countryside of Huai'an. I live in another county town, so we live a typical life in the county and countryside of northern Jiangsu.
In my impression, my grandmother's home is typical of the rural areas of northern Jiangsu, with a small river at the door, reeds in summer, and snow in winter. When I was a child, I spent the winter and summer vacations in my hometown in the countryside, either at my grandparents' house or at my grandparents' house. So, my country life was basically spent in their company, and those precious memories of pastoral life were fragments of life with them.
The memories of life in the rural areas of northern Jiangsu have always remained in Zhang Xiaohou's heart
My grandmother was a very ordinary rural old lady, nothing special. I've always felt that the word ordinary is particularly apt to describe her. She doesn't have any legendary stories, and she doesn't have any particularly powerful deeds, but she has a very calm attitude towards life. In fact, I think to a certain extent, I am greatly influenced by my mother, and my mother is also influenced by my grandmother in many ways. Maybe we all have the same trait, that is, a relatively optimistic attitude towards life.
I have always been a relatively optimistic person, and when I encounter things, I always think of the good side or the positive side. When I encounter difficulties, I always give myself a psychological hint, that is, although there are many problems, there will be many ways to solve the problems than the problems themselves, but I have not yet found them.
There are many more ways than the problem itself, but I haven't found it yet
As I listened to my mother tell me stories about her childhood, I found some empathy for me. For example, my mother used to go to a primary school after graduating from normal school. According to the government's work assignment, the primary school where she goes to teach is relatively remote, so she has to face a lot of commuting pressure every time she goes to work, plus she has to take care of children, and she is very young, so sometimes she feels overwhelmed. She felt that she should have lived a happy life as a young person, but soon because she had formed a family, the burden of those families made her feel that there was a lot of bitterness in her youth.
When she came home, she would occasionally complain to her mother about it. I think this is a very normal thing, like I just graduated in my 20s and started working, if my mother calls me, I sometimes under the pressure of work, I don't know why I will suddenly lose control of my emotions in the clanging of my relatives, crying bitterly, and tell her that in fact, my pressure is still quite large. Because from school to society is a stage of changing the runway, it requires a psychological adaptation process.
From school to society, it is a stage of changing the runway
When my mother and my grandmother talked about these things, my grandmother would often use some more concise, but very powerful words to convey her point of view, that is, the road of life was chosen by herself. If you choose a family, you have to bear the responsibilities of the family and the burden you bring, but don't cry and cry, and let others feel that they are a wronged person. You choose to face life with grievances, and life will bring you more grievances after all. I think this mentality is quite Tough, quite rock' and roll. Her attitude towards life was very positive and gave my mother a lot of positive energy. When my mom told me these stories, I suddenly realized that maybe some of the natural optimism in my personality came from her.
When I started working, I usually saw my grandmother twice a year, and I saw her on holidays. When I was working in Wuxi, I went back to my hometown to see my grandmother, and the topic she talked to me was naturally more concerned about how my life was, and she would "gossip" about your love situation and so on. I think it's possible that they don't know what else to talk to us about, so it's one of their fixed topics. It was at that stage that I noticed that she slowly became sensitive, became dependent, like a child, and slowly began to exude a desire to be noticed. I think people may really need more attention and care when they get old.
When I changed from the state of an office worker to the state of a musician, in fact, I experienced a period of wandering, struggling and self-confusion for about a year. That phase happened to be the time my grandmother left me. So I think that was a very important period for myself.
In 2010, Qin Hao and I set up a good sister in order to participate in the singing competition, and after that, he and I both entered an unemployed state, wanting to try it out for ourselves whether there were other possibilities in life. In that state, we were both quite confused and didn't know what tomorrow would be like. So when we decided to make a record in 2012, Qin Hao gathered some other friends in Beijing, so we formed a team of four people. We want to leave a souvenir for the youth, send out a record, publish some of the songs we have sung in the past few years, and leave a CD.
We were imagining that 20 or 30 years later, we would have reached the state of a middle-aged man, and suddenly turned over this CD, and at that time maybe the CD would not have been a music carrier for a long time, but we got this antique thing and said, "This is an album that we released when we were younger." "It sounds pretty cool. It was with such a small intention that I did it.
Zhang Xiaohou and Qin Hao formed a good sister
But while working in Beijing, I found that every day I was arguing about something particularly meaningless, such as what were the plans for future releases? Which record label should I talk to? Later, it even slowly evolved into some meaningless topics that were very detailed. For example, if we go on tour, what should we wear? What kind of car should we make? What kind of hotel do we want to stay in when we arrive? Whether to live in a single room or a standard room and so on.
In fact, at that time, I was in charge of more of a captain-type work, coordinating the relationship between each member. One day I suddenly realized that what I came to Beijing was not music-related work at all, but became an artist coordinator for a record company. I don't think this thing means much to me. That's when I got a call from my mom telling me that my grandma wasn't doing it. I was in a state of entanglement and pain, but I received such bad news.
Under the entanglement and pain, I received bad news from home
It just so happened that we were in Beijing and decided to do a concert, which was going to be a four- or five-hour show from the afternoon to the evening, facing an audience of two or three hundred people. When I got the news, I didn't think about going back after Singing. I can't change anything when I go back, but I feel like I have to go back. No matter how important the performance is to me, it is not as important as the departure of a loved one. So I told Qin Hao about this very firmly, and I said, "My grandmother may be dying, and I have to go home." Qin Hao said, "Okay. In this way, he had to face the five-hour performance himself.
I started buying tickets to go home, and suddenly I realized that after two or three months in Beijing, I didn't have any savings. It was a very frustrating time for my loved ones to leave and I couldn't even pay for the ticket home. At that time, a friend helped me to buy a ticket home. After returning home, what I saw was a spiritual hall, a typical spiritual hall in the rural areas of northern Jiangsu. Of course, you will see a lot of black cloth, a lot of wreaths, and a lot of ceremonial supplies for funerals.
With the help of a friend, Zhang Xiaohou bought a ticket home
In fact, I have not felt much during the funeral, and I still vaguely remember that when I was very young, my grandmother died, and I didn't feel anything. When I was a little older and needed the person, it seemed that I realized that she could not appear again, and I felt that there was an empty corner in my heart, which was a very real feeling.
Of course, my mother was also devastated by my grandmother's death, and she cried all the time. The way she cried reminded me of when my grandmother died when I was a child, and my father cried in front of me and said, "I don't have a mother." I was very impressed with that look, and that picture has always been remembered in my mind. Your father, who is very great in your heart, wept bitterly in front of your face one day, and told you very wrongfully, "I have no mother." It's a picture I've never forgotten.
When you realize that your loved ones can no longer appear, you will feel that there is an empty corner in your heart
In the process of holding a funeral, everything is carried out according to the ceremony that the funeral should have. This process actually coincided with the process of the beijing performance in time, so I actually secretly used my mobile phone to go to the Internet and listened to the live audio broadcast. It was a very conflicting picture, I was in front of a very heavy picture, and what I heard in the headphones was laughter. Both worlds are worlds that I am experiencing, and it is torn apart and parallel.
I thought that my grandmother had been advising my mother and me to be optimistic and positive. Therefore, the death of a loved one seems to have cleared a layer of fog from the chaotic state of my life, or blown through a gust of wind. Such a powerful thing made my state of affairs take a turn, and I suddenly realized that I was actually quite young, and I didn't need to be addicted to such a struggling state for too long or trapped in it, in fact, I could make a lot of decisions, and I could choose to give up. Sometimes I feel that giving up is a better separation and can prompt you to choose a new route to start with. So, the winter when my grandmother died gave me a lot of courage to make a cut between me and the chaotic and dissatisfied state of life at that time.
At that time, my mother had not been very supportive of my album in Beijing, and she always thought it was too much of a joke. How can you, a student of architecture and engineering, make a music album? My mom still teaches music, and she has a lot of students who study vocal music, and even then, they all have to go back to being music teachers or doing other unrelated jobs, so why would you want to be a singer? This matter seems particularly untenable to her, so she has not been particularly supportive of me.
But after my grandmother died, my mother gave me a small sum of money, and she helped me buy a ticket back to Beijing, instead of telling me not to leave at home. At that time, I was no longer as overwhelmed as before, but returned to Beijing with a bit of determination.
After returning to Beijing, the friends finished the performance together, and everyone will continue to discuss the album. I suddenly felt a little more courage, and after a rehearsal I said to the team at the time, "I quit." If all of you want to continue, I will not participate. "When I said this, I was still quite depressed, I felt that I had escaped from the battle, and I was also a little sorry for my little friend, especially Qin Hao.
I would feel like I left him behind. When I looked at him, his face showed a smile that was not easily detected by others, but I was very familiar with it. There is a lot of information in that smile, a surprise that people make the same decision when they are in tune with each other, the tacit understanding of "you know me best", and so on. So when I saw that evil laugh, I vaguely felt that the story would continue, but we didn't know what kind of way it would be.
So when I said this decision, Qin Hao also quickly reconsidered, he said, "I don't really want to do it either." "Then we disbanded in place. At the moment of disbandment, the two young people were still quite frustrated, and before they wanted to take a record to leave a commemorative book for the youth, this dream was done for half a year, and suddenly it was broken, how to be very depressed. I don't think I need to stay in Beijing anymore, I can go home, so I think we can walk around Beijing together before we leave.
Take the subway to say goodbye to Beijing
I remember very clearly that we bought a subway ticket at Sihui Subway Station. At that time, the Beijing subway was still two yuan to commute the whole city. Faced with the big decision they had just made, two young men with a little frustration sat on the Beijing subway for two or three hours. When we pass by some places, we will remember which of our friends in Beijing are working nearby, and we will send them messages to say goodbye.
We thought, this matter will end here, say goodbye to everyone, and I will leave. Suddenly a friend sent us a text message because he also happened to be a music industry practitioner, an agent of a singer, a very good friend of ours, and it helped us a lot at that time. He said: "Don't just say give up, you have all achieved this step now, the difference is not far away, it is a foot in the door." You do a lot of work and you do it, and that's it. ”
I am a person who gives up so easily, and his sentence not to give up lightly made me realize that persistence at a certain point in time may be a little more important than hard work. So the encouragement we get in the subway makes us feel that in fact, if there is no help from others, back to the state of our original two people, can this thing be tried? It was as if I had suddenly returned to the time when we used to live together in Wuxi, and everyone could do a lot of crazy things.
Going back to when we used to live together, there were a lot of crazy things to do
Why can't the two of us make a record? I didn't say that there had to be a record company to make records, and then I coded my own resources, thinking that I could find someone to rub the studio, I could find who rubbed the arrangement, and who rubbed the mix. The two of us could finish recording this record when we went to Nanjing, and we did it anyway.
When this was said, the train traveled from the underground of Line 5 to the ground, just like the picture of the movie, the dim space brushed the ground into daytime, there was a lot of light spilled into the carriage, and the two young people with plans, with blood, from a depressed state, quickly entered a state of hope for themselves. Then, the two of us bought high-speed rail tickets to Nanjing the next day.
On the train to Nanjing, Qin Hao wrote a song from our first album:
You fly to the other side of the city, you fly so far,
Fly over the gray horizon, fly over our yesterday.
That song fully expresses our hope for the future. We can feel at ease, hoping that we can always say goodbye to the dark side of the past and welcome a future that we do not know.
"You Fly to the Other Side of the City" is a song from Good Sister's debut album
I have always felt that the death of my grandmother has given me a lot of determination to face life, and she has always been an old lady who does not drag mud and water. She has actually lived a very decisive and positive life in this life. So when she left me, I realized that I had always had such a life mentor around me. When she faces difficulties, she does not complain, does not complain, she is optimistic about those things, and I should learn these qualities from her.
Learning to say no in the adult world is a difficult thing to do. Maybe my grandmother gave me a little more courage in the memory of saying no to others in the adult world now. So we went from a team of several people at that time, and finally changed back to the team of me and Qin Hao, which I think is related to my grandmother's influence to a certain extent.
The high-speed train to Nanjing, passing through my hometown
On another level, on our way to Nanjing, the high-speed train would pass through my hometown, and when two of us confused young people went south and passed through the village where my grandmother lived, I suddenly felt as if these were two parallel worlds. I was dreaming about music in my youth, but the old lady had only lived her ordinary and ordinary life in the countryside of northern Jiangsu. We don't have any intersection, the only intersection is that these two parallel but not intersecting lives are suddenly connected on the train to Nanjing at this point in time.