I was born in 1985, and most of my classmates before college were born in the Year of the Rat. I went to primary school in my village, and there were fifty-four students in a class. Now in my thirties, I look back at my friends from back then and find that some of them are very talented in art.
In junior high school, the number of more than fifty people began to decrease gradually. In high school, there are only a dozen or so left in our village, and almost the same number of students are admitted to college. There are people who are studying for PhDs and postgraduate degrees, but none of them are studying art or sports.
My younger brother is two years younger than me, and students at their level began to study art and physical education, initially for high school entrance exams. Along the way, they are now developing well. One of them went to Handu Yishe as soon as he graduated and is a veteran employee. A man entered the fitness industry, caught up with the craze of national fitness, and opened a gym with people in cities where he is studying in college and in our small counties. One of my cousins ??also studied art and physical education, both of which were streamed in high school. My cousin got into a good university and went on to graduate school. Now he has bought a house in Chengdu, got married, and is working as a teacher in a university. He is doing well.
Arts and sports are still rare. Some other graduate students at the Chinese Academy of Sciences also study abroad. But none of these people make a living from music.
If I had to look for her, it could only be a girl a few years older than me. When I was in junior high school, she came to school to teach music. Her father is good at playing suona in our village, so she knows the musical instrument. By chance, she studied music. But after so many years, our village did not produce any musical talents. Although I have heard of a certain child who is very good at singing and has a very good sense of music. He can sing any song with perfect accuracy after listening to it only once.
They later disappeared into the vast sea of ??people. These skills did not become their means of making a living.
Why after so many years, there are all art and sports students, but no music students? The decline of money and rural culture may be a reason. In the past, musical instruments in rural areas were relied on for funerals, but now the customs have changed and playing is not allowed. Coupled with the impact of the market, people who can play this instrument have become extinct very early. As for musical instruments such as pianos and violins, it is even more impossible. First, they are expensive.
Compared with the current prices of wheat, corn, and apples, I calculated an account for my folks. We have a mountain to the north and it is a small village at the foot of the mountain. There is not much arable land per capita, with 6 centimeters of wheat fields and 7 centimeters of mountainous land for growing fruit trees. For a family of four, each family has about one acre of wheat fields and one acre of mountainous land. You can harvest one season of wheat and one season of corn in a year, and you can harvest apples, poplar trees or old peach rows in the mountains.
The current yield of corn per mu is about 1,200 kilograms, which is 0.85 yuan per kilogram, or 1,020 yuan. One thousand kilograms of wheat costs 1.5 yuan per kilogram, about 1,500 yuan. 10,000 kilograms of apples cost 1.4 yuan per kilogram, about 14,000 yuan. The whole calculation comes to 16,520 yuan. This is completely without accounting for costs, without considering risk and the highest probability. If you don’t go out to work, what can you do with the money? The minimum standard for a high school student is about 2,000 yuan a year, not including living expenses, and the minimum standard for a college student is about 6,000 yuan. It should still be enough. What if you study music or art?
Second, there are no teachers. The only possible musical instrument may be the harmonica. My parents bought me two, but no one taught me and I couldn't play it.
Art and sports can exist because the cost of learning is low. You don’t need many additional things to draw. If you are good at it, a pen will do. When I was a kid in art class, the teacher often taught us to write big characters. In fact, I have two aunts who are extremely talented in this area. They are eight or nine years older than me. They live in rural areas and have no one to teach them. But one of the aunt's paintings of beautiful ladies can be fake. The same is true for sports. Rural children spend all day climbing mountains and playing around, and their bodies tend to be stronger.
I am suddenly talking about these things because there are two recent questions related to rural areas. One is Giuliano, who came from the Italian countryside. He is the author of many picture books in Duku. He was born in the 1960s and is the same generation as my father. He grew up listening to his grandfather telling various stories in the mountain village. In addition to his mother being a tailor, his family was barely related to art. , no one is engaged in the art industry. But the closest place to him is Raphael's hometown, where he studied. He lives very close to Bologna and went to this illustration exhibition when he was studying. The artistic atmosphere and talent allow the world to see his paintings step by step. But my extremely talented classmates who are the same age as me don’t have this opportunity at all.
Of course, it is not possible for everyone to become a picture book master, and it is impossible to achieve it. There may be only one Mozart for thousands of years. The talents of many of the children I mentioned are not particularly great, they are just more outstanding than others, and they are unlikely to become masters. But if there is such a soil, they can settle down and settle down based on their favorite path or advantages.
My elementary school classmate who was very good at art later went to high school and studied pharmacy at an unknown university. He disappeared after college and was said to have started a pyramid scheme.
Yesterday I was having dinner with my friends and chatting about life. I said that sometimes I feel that rural life is already very good, so why do everyone have to work so hard in the city. He mentioned an argument he had with a friend of Kuaishou. Friends of Kuaishou believe that Kuaishou provides a platform, and a disabled person may earn four to five thousand through videos. Without Kuaishou, he may have to go to the streets to beg. A friend quarreled with his friend. Finally he said that he had figured something out. Tianqiao busking and Mei Lanfang singing are both busking, but there are still differences in which selling method he chooses.
There is no superiority or inferiority between the two, both should exist.
What I am thinking about is, if a performer on the bridge had a voice like Mei Lanfang, would it be possible for him to earn a good living through singing? It is this possibility of circulation that is most precious. As an individual, perhaps no matter what career you engage in or what lifestyle you choose, you should always maintain an open mind and be a little creative.
In the end, I have to lament that Huang Renyu’s words are correct.