On December 6, in an office building in Huilongguan, Changping District, Beijing, Song Yan (third from left), a teacher of oil painting at night school, was instructing students to paint. His evening oil painting class was held three times, and 16 students attended the full attendance each time, and many students regained their childhood hobby of painting.
Night school, to put it mildly, can make an ordinary 'migrant worker' raise his head slightly from the exhaustion of life and glimpse a different sky. At best, it offers another possibility for one's life. ”
At about 11 o'clock in the evening on December 4, in an office building in Wangjing, Beijing, the night school drum course, which was originally scheduled to end at 9 o'clock, was "dragged" for more than two hours. Lao Wan is from Yunnan and is a drummer in a rock band and a night school teacher. Two evenings a week, he runs evening classes in his studio.
On a cold winter night in Beijing, while waiting for the bus, student Li Peng asked Lao Wan: "Teacher, we paid for one hour, what are you doing for so long?"Lao Wan said: "Actually, there are no dead rules in this class, and if I have fun chatting with you, I will take a little more." Also, it's my birthday, and we ate cake together. ”
In the past year or two, the trend of night schools has been "revived" in the city, attracting more and more young people. The social function of today's night schools is very different from the traditional night schools of a few decades ago. Song Yan, a painting teacher and the manager of Beijing Zebra Citizen Night School, feels that the teaching direction of the night school has changed from vocational skills to interest development. Young people are exposed to courses in various fields such as art and culture, so that they can broaden their knowledge and meet the needs of spiritual life. At the same time, the evening school also provides them with a social platform to meet like-minded friends. There are a variety of night courses, with an average of tens of yuan per course, which also makes it easy for young people who want to sign up.
As one of the first people in Beijing to pay attention to night schools, Huang Yingsha, who worked as a product manager in an Internet company, immediately thought of doing a business of "resource integration". In October this year, he set up an account on social media platforms, posting information about different types of night schools in various areas of Beijing every day. Every time a class is held, he will also use his "position" to audit and get in touch with new fields.
On December 5th, a night wine tasting class was held in a bar in Beijing's Chaoyang District, taught by an internationally certified sommelier.
On December 4, in an office building in Wangjing, Chaoyang District, Beijing, Lao Wan (left), a night school teacher and drummer of a band, put on a birthday hat. It was his birthday, and the students celebrated him after the evening drum lesson.
On December 5, in a bar in Chaoyang District, Beijing, sommelier Wang Ye (right) continued to communicate with students after a night school wine tasting course.
Sun Mengyu is a civil servant, she found Huang Yingsha on a social platform, and through his recommendation, she came to Lao Wan's studio to take a drum lesson. That day was her second class, as a ** "little white", from reading music to practicing Xi rhythm, she spent 3 hours doing basic skills training. "I grew up following the rules and now I have a lot of aspirations for a different way of life. When talking about the original intention of applying for night school, Sun Mengyu said.
A bar in Chaoyang District has opened a new wine tasting evening class, taught by an internationally certified expert sommelier. Fan Kailin and Chen Yingyue both came to class for the first time and hit it off at first sight. They define themselves as "i-people" who are not good at making friends (introverts – editor's note), "but after drinking, they feel like they can [talk)".
The theme of the day's course was "Tannins", which focused on the structure of the wine. The two of them listened to the lessons, talking about wine and beer, and about the swing dance night school they had been attending recently. After class, they each ordered a glass of their favorite wine at the bar and continued to chat. "Attending a wine tasting night class, you can chat with a stranger who has little intersection in life, the topic is not a**, everyone is random, which is a very interesting thing in itself. Chen Yingyue said.
Shen Wei, a post-80s surgeon, claims to have been a "workaholic" and often works overtime on weekends. Now that she has more free time, she fills herself with a variety of art training classes, including Sunday's pottery evening school. The main content of the course that day was pottery embryo pulling, and when the other students were still struggling to make a qualified embryo shape, Shen Wei, who had excellent kung fu in her hands, had already made a beautiful pottery bowl.
I took a lot of art courses, and when I found that these things were all common, I wanted to learn them all. Every Saturday night, Shen Wei and her 7-year-old daughter learn to draw comics together, and on Sundays, she learns calligraphy and seal carving during the day and delves into pottery at night. She felt that she had "almost no childhood", and although she liked art, she could only study medicine under the persuasion of her parents. "When I was a child, I was embarrassed to play some hobbies, but now that I am learning Xi art, it is like being a child, trying to absorb water like a sponge, and my brain is alive and my heart is alive. ”
Song Yan's oil painting class has been held 3 times, and 16 students have attended full attendance every time. In the class that day, they learned to copy a landscape Xi, and Song Yan sometimes called all the students together to guide them, and sometimes walked to a student's seat to help adjust the brushstrokes on the canvas.
He enjoys teaching and interacting.
On December 3, at the Cultural Center of Dongcheng District, Beijing, at the classical dance public welfare training class, Zhang Shenrui (left), a student born in the 90s, followed the teacher of the Cultural Center, Shi Yuan, to learn Xi technical movements. In the past, most of the students here were post-60s and post-70s, but now young faces are gradually emerging. There are a total of 20 students in Zhang Shenrui's class, and 4 of them are post-90s.
On December 6, in an office building in Guomao, Chaoyang District, Beijing, night school students and teachers interacted enthusiastically in a night school psychology class with the theme of intimacy.
On December 3, on the top floor of a building materials city in Chaoyang District, Beijing, Chai Xinjie (fourth from right), a teacher of the pottery class of the night school, was teaching.
In September this year, seeing the success of the night school in Shanghai, Song Yan, who had always wanted to build a first-class comprehensive Xi space, immediately began to plan. As a painting teacher who has been in the industry for more than ten years, his single one-on-one lesson is nearly 1,000 yuan, and in the evening, the night class of 16 people is 500 yuan for 12 times. He said that doing night school is not too much consideration for profit, but as a social good. "When we got here, everyone put aside the utilitarian heart and was a sincere exchange. ”
Song Yan's night school has launched 3 courses, including painting, dance, calligraphy, etc. He believes that although night school is an introductory class for interest, "the more you get started, the more you need a good teacher to teach", and you can't do a "one-shot deal".
Liu Guojie, another founder of the night school, has the same original intention: "In this era, people in the workplace are too tired and too 'rolly', and I want to provide such a place for everyone to release their stress and emotions through hobbies." Many people say that young people nowadays are 'Buddhist' and 'lying flat', but they will definitely follow what they love. Her evening school has opened more than ten courses, and the single fee is 500 yuan for 12 classes, and thousands of students have come to Xi, and some students have even become teachers of new classes. A lawyer once came to learn the art of Xi tea, and he found that the young people in his class had a weak sense of law, so he proposed to Liu Guojie to set up a public welfare class to popularize marriage law and labor law for young people.
Wang Xinyue, a student in the oil painting class, said that she grew up according to the "route set by her parents", and in order to leave no regrets, she decided to regain her former art hobby through night school. "Although the process was hard, the moment I looked back and saw the 'fruit' was satisfying. The most regrettable thing is that you could have done it and didn't do it. ”
At 10 o'clock in the evening of December 6th, the one-and-a-half-hour night school oil painting class ended on time, Bian Liang signed his name on the side of the drawing board, and was the last to leave the classroom. During the day, he is a programmer in a major Internet company, and usually leaves work at 90 o'clock at night. But every Wednesday, he would deliberately leave a little early, take an hour's subway ride, and come to Song Yan's Citizen Night School to learn Xi oil painting. He has been fond of painting since he was a child, and when he was in school, he wanted to get into a good school, and there were relatively few art courses in his hometown at that time, so now he finds time to come and study every week.
It's nice to be able to focus on what you like and not feel tired. Bian Liang said.
At the request of the interviewee, Li Peng, Sun Mengyu, and Huang Yingsha are pseudonyms in the article).
Tian Jiashuo Photo Report **China Youth Daily.
*: China Youth Daily.