In Xinjiang this summer, on a bus carrying Taiwan compatriots from Hong Kong who came to visit, the tour guide introduced the late "Western Singer" Wang Luobin to the "distant guests." Unexpectedly, the sentence "The stones of Daban Castle are hard and flat" started, and everyone could continue to sing. The passengers, who were originally dozing off, suddenly sang "The Girl of Dabancheng", "Lift Your Hijab" and "Youth Dance" in unison with high spirits. In the bus, where the singing echoed, Taiwan compatriots and mainland staff members, who were not familiar with each other before, suddenly seemed to have known each other for a long time. Turns out we've all sung his songs!
We have been singing these Xinjiang folk songs since we were young, and our primary school teachers have taught them to them, and we often sing them. Luo Taiqin, president of the International Association of Chinese Entrepreneurs, grew up in a military village in Taiwan, and later went to the United States to study and work, and then went to Hong Kong. She finally experienced the names of Xinjiang mentioned in geography textbooks, and sang Xinjiang folk songs in unison with her compatriots, and was so moved that she was about to cry. "It's an experience that you won't get to the U.S. or Europe. ”
It turns out that Wang Luobin's songs, which are well-known in the mainland, are also widely loved in Taiwan. How did his song cross the strait and strike at people's hearts?In order to open this memory, a reporter from China News Service recently visited Wang Luobin's former residence in Zhuozhou, Hebei Province, and interviewed Wang Luobin's third son, Wang Haicheng, and Yang Zhongheng, a Taiwanese ** who interviewed Wang Luobin when he went to Taiwan in the last century.
"Singer" Wang Luobin
Wang Luobin is one of the most widely sung Chinese singers in the last century, and many reports about him wrote: "Wherever there are Chinese, there are Wang Luobin's songs." ”
Wang Luobin's ancestral home was Zhuozhou, and he was born in Beijing in 1913. Because his father Wang Dezhen died in his 40s, Wang Luobin was taken home by his second uncle Wang Dechang in Zhuozhou to raise him. Wang Dechang's house is now the former residence of Wang Luobin in Zhuozhou. Today, the former residence exhibits Wang Luobin's ** manuscripts, honorary certificates, medals and other historical materials.
Wang Luobin** displayed in the former residence of Wang Luobin in Zhuozhou City, etc. Photo by Li Hanxue.
The honorary certificate displayed in the former residence of Wang Luobin in Zhuozhou City. Photo by Li Hanxue.
In 1931, Wang Luobin entered the ** Department of National Peiping Normal University (now Beijing Normal University) to study and Xi. Later, due to the death of his mother and the difficulties in his family's life, Wang Luobin dropped out of Beijing Normal University and joined the work in advance. After the "Lugou Bridge Incident" in 1937, he went to Shanxi to participate in the Northwest Field Service Corps of the Eighth Route Army, opening an indissoluble bond with the great northwest of the motherland.
In Gansu, Qinghai and Xinjiang, Wang Luobin collected local folk song materials and adapted and sorted out songs such as "In That Distant Place", "Half Moon Climbs Up", "Alam Khan" and other songs, which were later widely sung at home and abroad. In the 90s of the 20th century, Wang Luobin was invited to perform abroad, and he was warmly welcomed in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, the United States and other places, even he did not expect. In 1998, at the Taipei Cross-Century Voice** Conference, American jazz diva Diana Ross (Diana Ross), the world's three major tenors (José Carreras) and Domingo (Placido Domingo), especially sang "In That Distant Place" as the finale. In 1994, the United Nations Headquarters in New York held the "Wang Luobin Works ** Conference", and UNESCO awarded Wang Luobin the "Special Contribution Award for Promoting Cultural Exchanges between the East and the West". Wang Luobin is a well-deserved "singer" who has made the nation spread overseas.
November 13, 2015, "Carreras greetings Tianjin!".The press conference was held at the Shangri-La Hotel, Tianjin. Carreras improvised a song in Chinese of Wang Luobin's "In That Distant Place". Photo by Zhang Daozheng.
In the middle of the last century, audio-visual products and the Internet were not yet popular, but Wang Luobin's songs were able to "cross the ocean and cross the sea", which had a lot to do with the flow of Chinese overseas during that period. As early as the Anti-Japanese War, Wang Luobin participated in the literary and artistic propaganda in the northwest of the motherland, and his songs flowed into the people and into the anti-Japanese army. Wang Haicheng said that his father had told himAfter the end of the Anti-Japanese War, some of the soldiers sent to Southeast Asia stayed in the local area, and some later went to Taiwan with the troops. They and their descendants scattered abroad, and they brought Wang Luobin's songs to the rest of the world.
Furniture once used by Wang Luobin, collected from Xinjiang by the Zhuozhou Municipal Bureau of Culture, Radio, Television and Tourism. Photo by Li Hanxue.
It may be said that the circulation of Wang Luobin's songs has always carried the wanderer's nostalgia for his homeland. In the beautiful melody, the simple Chinese lyrics sing softly about the crooked moon, the slippery running horse, the red face, and the dream-like hometown, how is it not the "trace of the past" pursued by the wanderer?Perhaps, this is one of the reasons why his songs are so popular with overseas Chinese
The song crosses the strait
When we were kids, almost everyone in Taiwan — and I'm not exaggerating — sang these songs. "Kangding Love Song" and "Youth Dance" ......Especially "In That Far Away Place". The ** classes and TV broadcasts in primary schools all have these songs. But not many people know that it was written by Wang Luobin. He once interviewed Wang Luobin as a reporter for Taiwan's "China Times" and Yang Zhongheng, the artistic director of the current "** Times Theater", said.
In 1993, when Wang Luobin (first from left) held a press conference in Taiwan, Yang Zhongheng (first from right) interviewed Wang Luobin. Photo courtesy of Yang Zhongheng.
I don't know the song but I don't know the person, why is that?
In Taiwan, the songs adapted by Wang Luobin were selected as primary and secondary school textbooks in the sixties and seventies of the last century. According to Wang Haicheng, this has a lot to do with Chou Huiying, a friend that Wang Luobin met in Qinghai in his early years. Chou Huiying later became a "legislator" in Taiwan, and when she heard that the northwest folk songs introduced to the island had been changed to a confused extent (for example, "The Girl of Dabancheng" became "The Girl of Hangzhou"), she compiled and published the "Northwest Folk Song Collection" at her own expense, so that there was an accurate version of the folk songs such as "Youth Dance". These songs can be selected as teaching materials, and the songbook has contributed a lot.
However, in the early days, there was no awareness of today's "copyright", and in the troubled times of war, even in the mainland, the song was spread, but the public did not know the author. Many of the songs adapted and arranged by Wang Luobin are all signed by the author of "Northwest Folk Songs" and "Uygur Folk Songs".
What made the Taiwanese people know Wang Luobin for the first time was the Taiwanese artist Ling Feng. In 1987, Ling Feng took the film crew to break through the restrictions of the Taiwan authorities and came to the mainland to shoot the documentary "Eight Thousand Miles of Clouds and Moon". They photographed the splendid mountains and rivers and folk customs in various places in the north and south of the river, bringing the familiar and fresh scenery of their homeland to the people of Taiwan. The film interviewed a number of celebrities in the mainland literary and artistic circles, one of which is the western singer Wang Luobin. In 1989, Hong Kong female writer Xia Jie published an article about Wang Luobin in a Taiwan newspaper. It was these life stories that moved Sanmao and led to the later interaction between Sanmao and Wang Luobin.
Ling Feng revisits the historical images that recorded Wang Luobin's visit to Taiwan. Photo by Liu Shuangshuang.
Wang Luobin's collection of Sanmao's photos. Photo by Li Hanxue.
Wang Luobin was really known to the broad masses of Taiwanese people in March 1993, when Wang Luobin went to Taiwan at the invitation of the Taiwan Association for the Promotion of Chinese Culture chaired by Ling Feng. He was one of the first mainland celebrities to go to Taiwan after the opening up of cross-strait exchanges. Warmly welcomed by the people of Taiwan, Wang Luobin stayed for three months, setting off a sensational "Wang Luobin fever".
"Hello, in that faraway place!”
Yang Zhongheng still remembers that at the press conference when Wang Luobin first came to Taiwan, the black crows surrounded several people. Wang Luobin sat in the middle with a serious expression, because most of the ** questions were all related to Sanmao. Wang Luobin not only responded with silence, but also saw that he was a little angry, and his eyes often threw into the distance, which made the reporters a little embarrassed. didn't pick up the focus of the theme, and everyone suddenly found that they really had limited knowledge of this mysterious ** family. ”
Yang Zhongheng, who began to collect information on the works of Chinese ** very early, was still a fledgling "rookie" reporter at the time, but he was given the opportunity to squeeze to the front and ask questions about the background of Wang Luobin's songwriting. When he heard the question about **, he became excited and danced. ”
The next day, Yang Zhongheng introduced Wang Luobin's report as "outstanding", and many people realized that Wang Luobin was such an important family. With the development of the following art activities, "Wang Luobin's follow-up in Taiwan can be described by the phrase 'popularity' commonly used in modern times." ”
The manuscript of Wang Luobin** and the song sheet of "In That Distant Place" displayed in the former residence of Wang Luobin in Zhuozhou City (copy). Photo by Li Hanxue.
On April 25, 1993, "In That Distant Place - The Song of Wang Luobin"** will be held in Taipei. The theme song "In That Distant Place" was sung four times, performed by the alumni choir of National Chengchi University, singer Tengger, Wang Luobin himself, and Taiwanese singer Yin Zhengyang. The atmosphere at the scene was high, and Wang Luobin was also very excited. Subsequently, a number of TV stations and schools vied to invite Wang Luobin to be interviewed, lectured, and performed, and Cui Yupan, the founder of the Youth **Family Culture and Education** Association, also proposed to raise funds to produce a set of audio memoirs including Wang Luobin's self-narration and self-singing, and a manuscript songbook. Due to the large number of invitations, the original one-month visit was greatly extended. "The audience in Taiwan is as hot as the weather here," Wang said. ”
The frequent screen appearances have made the Taiwanese people familiar with the face and iconic cowboy hat of this "Western Singer". It is said that when Wang Luobin's car was sitting side by side with other vehicles, someone would pull down the window and say hello loudly: "Hello, in that distant place!".Eating in the restaurant, I saw that the dishes kept on the floor, the host felt strange, and the waiter explained: "You didn't order, it was given to Mr. Wang by our manager!."”
On February 27, 1994, Mr. Wang Luobin held the first meeting of "The Dream of Innocence - Wang Luobin's Selected Works" at Wangfujing Xinhua Bookstore (former site) in Beijing. With his iconic face and attire, the western singer is known to the world. Photo by Han Shiyuan.
In Taiwan, Wang Luobin also met many old friends, such as Chou Huiying, who helped him publish a collection of folk songs, an alumnus of Beijing Normal University, and a teacher ...... in his youthOne day when he was walking in a park in Taipei, he met a white-haired old man, and when chatting, he found that the other party was a veteran of the anti-Japanese war on the front line in Shanxi, and he was wounded in the abdomen in the battle, and returned to Tongguan from Fenglingdu to treat his injuries. At that time, Wang Luobin happened to be transporting wounded soldiers in Fenglingdu, and when he heard about the other party's experience, he said excitedly: "Maybe I still have your back!."”
The two old men talked enthusiastically, and Wang Luobin wrote a poem for this - "Both Sides of the Strait". "Clenched his hands, silently, and suddenly in his heart, there was nothing on both sides of the strait!”
The manuscript of "Two Sides of the Strait" by Wang Luobin. Photo by Li Hanxue.
During Wang Luobin's stay in Taiwan, Yang Zhongheng also had many opportunities to interview him. Yang Zhongheng recalled, "When interviewing, he often had a bit of a sad seriousness, but after getting acquainted, he became like an old naughty boy. With his romantic personality, I dare to speculate that if he lived to be 100 years old, he might still be in love. ”
In 1994, Yang Zhongheng and his partners founded the "** Times" magazine, and asked Zhao Shimin, a special writer in Beijing, to continue to write special articles, so that the Taiwanese people would know about Wang Luobin's situation after returning to the mainland. Until 1996, Wang Luobin passed away.
No matter how brilliant the Chinese music scene will be in the future, people like him, the stories of the times he has experienced, and even the depth of humanity and feelings in his works, I am afraid that they will never return. Yang Zhongheng sighed.
In the song, we are never far from our homeland
In 2016, Wang Luobin's biographical book "Lift Your Hijab: Wang Luobin's Eternal Youth Dance", written by a Taiwanese author, was published with the support of a number of art institutions in Taiwan. According to reports, writing this book is also the wish of Mr. Cui Yupan, who made an audio memoir for Wang Luobin back then. Wang Luobin has been gone for many years, but the touch he brought has never dissipated.
Fang Qiuyun, the founding president of the Cross-Strait (Hong Kong) Cultural and Creative Tourism Association who went to Xinjiang to visit, talked with reporters about her memories of Wang Luobin, and showed a ** of her childhood Xinjiang dance. When she was in the fifth or sixth grade of primary school, she and her classmates were selected to dance Xinjiang dance, wearing a Xinjiang flower hat and combing two long braids to "twist their necks", and they also went out to participate in the competition with Xinjiang dance. This time I came to Xinjiang to sing Wang Luobin's ballads, which is really full of memories.
Fang Qiuyun danced Xinjiang dance when he was a child. Photo courtesy of Fang Qiuyun.
Taiwan compatriots said that Xinjiang has never been far away. In the school's geography class and the ballad of Wang Luobin, which he has sung since he was a child, the terroir and human feelings here have long been "familiar reverie". When you finally set foot on this land, you can't be dissatisfied with happiness and emotion.
As Taiwanese compatriot Luo Taiqin said, this is an intimate experience that will never be had when going to a foreign country. The reason why the homeland is different from other places is precisely because of the memories, emotions, familiar fathers and villagers and living traditions that are immersed in it. Wang Luobin recorded the life of the compatriots in the northwest with **, and the Chinese sons and daughters who listened to the song were either those who experienced that kind of life, or they yearned for and loved the motherland more. The ethnic minority compatriots in Xinjiang should be as enthusiastic and hearty as the song says, right?When the Taiwan compatriots came to the local area, they found that this was indeed the case!The Great Northwest has never been far away, and they have known each other for many years in the song, so it is like a home at first sight.
Wang Luobin in his later years**. Photo by Li Hanxue.
Before Wang Luobin died, he once inscribed on the sickbed, "I wish to bring people beautiful enjoyment through songs". These are the words left to the world by this old man who has always been uplifted, and it is also his lifelong pursuit. Between the two sides of the strait and in various places in the world where there are Chinese, Wang Luobin's songs have undoubtedly brought the beauty of the motherland and hometown to the audience through time and space, and no matter how far they go, they will never fade.
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