"It was 65 years ago that a Xinmin Evening News completely changed my destiny and closely linked my life to ballet." Accompanying the National Ballet of China to Shanghai this time, there is also Xue Jinghua, the second generation of Qionghua actor of the ballet "Red Detachment of Women".
At the audience meeting held at the Majestic Theater the day before yesterday, Xue Jinghua, who had an outstanding temperament and elegant posture, was surrounded by many dance fans who had specially rushed to the scene and lined up to sign a group photo, and she chatted with them in an old-school Shanghainese dialect, as if she had not seen an old friend for decades, in her hometown, and those memories were also frozen, like old photos printed in her mind.
Pictured: The second generation of "Qionghua" Xue Jinghua Xinmin Evening News reporter Guo Xinyang photographed
My mother took me by name
"If it weren't for my mother seeing the enrollment news on the night newspaper and taking me to register on the spot, I would probably have rubbed shoulders with ballet." After all, I was only 10 years old at the time and dreamed of becoming a doctor. Xue Jinghua's mother is a college graduate and loves art. One day in July 1965, she saw the Beijing Dance School coming to Shanghai to enroll students, and wrote that she would invite Soviet ballet experts to teach, and intuitively felt that this was a good opportunity for her long daughter, and immediately took her to register.
At that time, Xue Jinghua, who had just finished the exam and had been admitted to the junior high school of his choice, knew nothing about ballet: "I saw a clip of one or two minutes in the movie "Lenin in 1918", and I remembered that it was a "Swan Lake", and I only knew that ballet was a dance to tiptoe up. Xue Jinghua still remembers the scene of the exam vividly: "The temporary examination center for admissions is located in the Hongqi Song and Dance Troupe, just at the junction of Shimen 1st Road Nanjing West Road, and now next door to Wang Jiasha - an old bungalow." There were thousands of children who came to the exam, and in the end, 30 were selected, all of whom were Shanghainese, and I was lucky to be one of them. ”
Picture: Xue Jinghua's version of "Red Detachment of Women" network map
It wasn't until the acceptance letter was sent home that Mu Ma realized that she was going to send her daughter away, and she was reluctant to do so. "But I remember my mother sent me to the train, the carriage was full of children the same age as me, and when the train started, a carriage of children cried loudly." The accompanying counselor calmly took out a large watermelon and divided it among us, saying, 'Well, don't cry, come and eat watermelon!' Everybody stopped crying. ”
At that time, the Nanjing Yangtze River Bridge was not built, and it still needed a ferry, and it took three days to drive to Beijing. The climate and eating habits of the north and south regions are hugely different, and when he first arrived, Xiao Xue Jinghua could not adapt: "The north rarely eats rice, there is often wind and sand, the climate is dry, I am very homesick, and when I am particularly sad, I write to my mother." Helplessly, a letter was sent to Shanghai for a week, and when her mother replied to the letter, the little girl had forgotten the previous discomfort and sadness.
It is now based in Shenzhen
The days of learning ballet are bitter and sweet. "At that time, the children were simply obedient, and it was always the teacher who said what we did, but it seemed that everything was wrong. Either the stomach is not tightened, the ass is not tightened, or the knees are not straight, in short, it is practiced over and over again, day and night. Xue Jinghua remembers that the first time she was able to return to Shanghai to dance on the stage to show Mu Ma was in 1965, and she came to Shanghai with the group to perform in the municipal government auditorium at No. 201 Fuzhou Road, performing "Red Women's Army".
Some old dance fans asked Xue Jinghua, since he has also retired now, is it time to return to Shanghai? She was a little sentimental: "Shanghai is the hometown, of course, the soul is haunting, but the parents are gone, and the family is scattered." The current "Qionghua" has become a seed for spreading ballet, and has been teaching for many years. Invited by the older generation of ballet master Shu Qiao, Xue Jinghua now helps train actors in the Hong Kong Dance Troupe, and is usually stationed in Shenzhen for the convenience of work.
But for Shanghai, she misses it very much. Sitting in the quaint hall of Maggie, she got up leisurely and said: "Before, my family lived not far from Maggie, this time I came to Shanghai to stay in a city hotel, pushing open the window is the Scenery of Shanghai, although the change is great, but you can still see the golden signboard of 'Xinmin Evening News', it is really fate." (Xinmin Evening News reporter Zhu Yuan)