As we all know, Mr. Hou Baolin is a lover of wine tasting, especially brandy, and likes to add ice cubes to drink in the summer.
Hou Yaowen recalled his father and said: "My father's amount of alcohol is really amazing, a pound of liquor is a piece of cake for him, and he is almost never seen drunk." Still, sometimes the old gentleman would drink a little more because he was happy.
Once, Mr. Hou came home late at night, and he grinned as soon as he entered the door. Hou Yaowen saw at a glance that his father had drunk a little too much. Mr. Hou usually controls his drinking very measuredly, and this rarely happens, so Hou Yaowen couldn't help but ask curiously: "Who did you drink with today?" So happy. ”
Mr. Hou proudly patted his chest and said, "*Ask me to drink!" Moutai! One or two glasses, a total of seventeen cups! As he spoke, he gestured in front of Hou Yaowen.
Seven taels a pound, that's a lot, go back to the house and rest. Hou Yaowen helped his father and prepared to lead him back to the room.
But Mr. Hou was unwilling, his eyes widened, and he waved his hand: "Don't think I'm drunk, I'm still sober, and I brought back half a bottle of Moutai!" As he spoke, he pulled out a bottle from his bosom.
Hou Yaowen saw that it was indeed a bottle of Moutai, and he immediately couldn't cry or laugh.
**The relationship with Mr. Hou Baolin can only be told in its entirety when it goes back to one night in 1949.
The summer of 1949 was a seemingly ordinary day.
In the afternoon, Hou Baolin and his colleagues from the Quyi Troupe suddenly received a notice that the Beijing Municipal Commission of Culture and Culture asked them to perform somewhere, but the specific performance location was not notified in advance.
It was getting late, and a car slowly drove up to pick them up. The driver remained silent, only identified a few people, and then drove them away. Sitting in the car, everyone looked at each other, and no one knew what the intention of the Cultural Affairs Committee was. It wasn't until the car stopped that Hou Baolin realized that they had come to a house in Dongjiaomin Lane.
Backstage, Hou Baolin saw that the host turned out to be Comrade Peng Zhen, and then he suddenly realized that he was going to perform cross talk for ***! Thinking of this, Hou Baolin's mood instantly became nervous, and his palms kept sweating.
Although Hou Baolin also has a certain reputation in the music industry and has experienced many large and small performances, this time it is completely different. Standing in the background, he looked at Ren Bishi and the others who were sitting in the middle of the front row, and felt nervous. He involuntarily rubbed his hand against his pants.
He recalled all the cross talk he had learned, and quickly went through it in his mind. Although the program had already been decided for the afternoon, now that he knew the identity of the audience, he realized that the content of the performance needed to be chosen more carefully to ensure that there were no surprises.
In the end, he and his partner Guo Qiru agreed to perform the cross talk "Marriage and Superstition".
When Hou Baolin took the stage, he said to the people around him with a smile: "This is Hou Baolin, this talent, I have long wanted to listen to his cross talk!" ”
The performance was a great success, the actors were highly skilled, and the material for the show was also meaningful, involving the discrimination and insults against women in the old society, aiming to expose the superstitions of feudal society and criticize the decay of feudal society and marriage customs.
Hou Baolin vividly interpreted the multiple roles in the work, mastered the rhythm of the jokes, threw the stalks just right, and at the same time was flexible and improvisational in the performance, which made the leaders in the audience laugh.
** Constantly praised: "This Hou Baolin is really a master of language." ”
Hou Baolin never imagined that from that day on, his acting career would undergo earth-shaking changes. As an art form originating from the folk, cross talk will also embark on a new trajectory.
Since then, Hou Baolin has become a personal performance artist, and often invites Hou Baolin to Zhongnanhai to taste cross talk together after work. **I found that whether you are tired from work or irritable, listening to Hou Baolin's cross talk can change your mood. In Mr. Hou's cross talk, you can also learn a lot of cross talk knowledge and understand the social situation at that time.
Sometimes after listening to a cross talk, ** feels that it is not enough, so he will applaud and signal: "Mr. Hou, let's have another one!" ”
As time went on, Hou began to feel a little anxious. The old cross talk is limited, and I already feel a little difficult to talk about it one by one. He is reluctant to let *** hear the repetitive program, because even if the work is good, it will lose its charm if it is repeated too often.
In order to avoid letting *** hear the repetitive program, Hou Baolin began to cooperate with his partner and set out to create a new cross talk program. However, it is not easy to create a favorite cross talk, and it must be full of knowledge, depth and meaning. This prompted Hou Baolin to read a lot of ancient books for inspiration and reference.
In order to buy a joke book from the Ming Dynasty, he went to all the bookstores in Beijing, but he couldn't find it. Later, he heard that the Beijing Library had a rich collection of books, so he decided to try his luck.
Sure enough, in the Beijing Library, Hou Baolin found the book he had been dreaming of. He loved the book, but couldn't take it home with him. Suddenly, Hou Baolin thought of an idea, he could copy a copy back.
So, even in the cold weather of the middle of winter, Hou Baolin braved the wind and snow to go to the library early every day, sat there and concentrated on "copying books", and did not leave until the library closed in the evening. After 18 days of continuous efforts, he finally transcribed the book of more than 100,000 words in its entirety.
This is a book lover"Master scribe"In fact, I only went to school for a few months, which is really unexpected.
Hou Baolin often said self-deprecatingly: "I should be a Tianjin native." "This has puzzled a lot of people, how can anyone not even know where they were born? But this is exactly what happened.
Hou Baolin not only does not know where he was born, but also does not know who his biological parents are. When he was four years old, his uncle stuffed him with half a pound of fried chestnuts, put on a small fur hat, and carried him on a train.
The train slowly departed, and he finished eating the chestnuts on the train, and then fell asleep peacefully. When he woke up, he found that he had arrived in Beijing. After getting out of the car, someone took him to the home of a man surnamed Hou, and since then, he has become a member of the Hou family. Due to his young ignorance, he didn't even know his surname, let alone his family history. Even if you are from your hometown, you can only guess based on the time on the train.
His adoptive father's family was poor, and Hou Baolin had to drop out of school after three months of school. His family was so poor that he couldn't even raise money to buy groceries, so he had to go to the relief food distribution point to receive gruel to fill his stomach.
Despite living in poverty, this environment cultivated his humorous character and quick eloquence. When he and other poor children saw the unfair treatment of the workers at the relief food distribution point, they imitated the tone and expression of the Peking Opera harlequin, and recited sarcastic lines endlessly.
His adoptive parents thought he had artistic talent and decided to send him to study Peking Opera. Although the process of learning drama is difficult, at least you can ensure that you have something to eat.
Therefore, at the age of 12, Hou Baolin began to study Peking Opera with his master at the Beijing Drum Tower Market. Located in the open space between the north of the Drum Tower and the south of the Bell Tower, this old Beijing Drum Tower Market gathers many folk artists, including storytellers, singers, cross talkers, and so on. From the last years of the Qing Dynasty until the liberation of Beijing, it was the main entertainment venue for nearby residents for decades.
In addition to singing, Hou Baolin likes to wander around various places. At that time, he liked to listen to cross talk the most, and it was a whole day when he listened to it. After listening, he will secretly imitate other people's movements and quietly read lines in his heart. Hou Baolin has a flexible mind and strong learning ability, no matter what he learns, he is very fast, and he can remember it after listening to it once.
Once, there was only one person in the field, and there was no partner to open the game, and that person was so anxious that he paced back and forth in place.
Hou Baolin took the initiative to walk over and asked, "What should you do alone?" I can do you a favor. He thought that he had to show some ability to impress the other party, but he didn't expect the other party to accept it very happily. Maybe that person really has nothing to do, he just wants to find someone to talk to next to him, and he can deal with it casually.
That was Hou Baolin's first attempt to speak cross talk, and he still remembers it vividly, recalling with a smile: "That day it was "Drama Miscellaneous", although it was not called "Miscellaneous" at that time, but "Miscellaneous". I was a little nervous, but I felt like I was doing well, at least nothing went wrong. But I didn't get paid much, because everyone knew that I was singing, and it didn't seem cost-effective to spend money to listen to me talk about cross talk. ”
He was wearing a robe and talking about Guankou, Hou Baolin did not expect that as an "extra", a performance on stage would change his life.
From that day on, Hou Baolin replanned the direction of his life and devoted his life to it. He worshipped Mr. Zhu Kuoquan as his teacher and concentrated on learning to speak cross talk. Zhu Kuoquan told Hou Baolin: "Ordinary people in China are too hard, and only cross talk can bring happiness to everyone." ”
On the flyover, Hou Baolin often wears a gray-blue long-sleeved horse coat with the cuffs rolled up to reveal a white lining. He walked through all the abandoned fields in Beijing one by one, and talked about every corner.
Suffering can test a person's character, and difficult experiences can reveal extraordinary integrity.
In reality, Hou Baolin is like a piece of dough that is constantly beaten, forging his skills in frustration. He can speak anytime, anywhere, as long as there is someone.
After receiving the teaching of many masters and secretly learning, Hou Baolin's basic skills in cross talk have become extremely solid. Coupled with his creative skills and flexible mind, his performance has reached a very mature level after continuous stage experience.
However, just when Hou Baolin was gradually emerging to prominence, the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression broke out in China, and everything changed dramatically.
The Japanese invasion trampled on the land of China, and the barbaric acts of the invaders aroused the righteous indignation of the entire Chinese people. People of insight in the opera industry have devoted themselves to the nation's anti-Japanese salvation movement, and they have done their best to create many excellent works, either calling for national unity, or inspiring patriotic enthusiasm, or praising anti-Japanese heroes. The artists gave passionate performances on the stage, and the audience was deeply moved and filled with righteous indignation.
Cross talk, as a performance form that has always been regarded as a "lower ninth rate", is quite embarrassing.
Hou Baolin realized that cross talk should not stay in the original vulgar and simple state, but should keep pace with the times, strive to remove the old dross in cross talk, and inject new vitality into cross talk in combination with the trend of the times.
coincided with the fact that *** held a literary symposium in Yan'an and delivered an important speech, which was reported by major newspapers.
Hou Baolin bought the newspaper, studied it carefully, and found a new direction of creation from ***'s thoughts. He transformed and innovated a large number of cross talk jokes, and finally gave cross talk a new style of civilization, health, humor and lightness, and was committed to speaking and serving the public.
After a major reform, the form of cross talk is very popular with the public, and people prefer these cross talk jokes that can reflect real problems without losing vulgarity and low level.
When these cross talk works gradually walked out of the teahouse, the community, and entered the army, ** also realized the value of cross talk art: "The art of cross talk is very meaningful, it can bring happiness to people, can make people get inspiration from it, and at the same time can stimulate people's revolutionary spirit, which is of great benefit to doing a good job!" ”
For this reason, ** likes to watch cross talk in his spare time from work, especially ** Hou Baolin's performance. After the founding of the People's Republic of China, Hou Baolin would go to Zhongnanhai every week to perform cross talk for the chairman, arranged on Wednesday and Saturday.
In order to ensure that the chairman can enjoy a wonderful performance every time, Hou Baolin constantly improves the passages in his cross talk. He will not only present popular cross talk programs to the chairman, but also carefully choreograph some new programs and perform wonderful performances in front of the chairman.
Sometimes, Hou Baolin and his partner will have a whim and temporarily rearrange the show. The tacit understanding and artistic level of the cross talk partners have put forward extremely high requirements, but every time Hou Baolin can accurately present the program to the chairman and other audiences.
** is not just to appreciate cross talk for fun, he pays more attention to the content and reform progress reflected in cross talk, through cross talk you can understand folk customs and feel folk emotions. He encouraged Hou Baolin to pay attention to current affairs, integrate real life into his creation, and lead the team to develop a healthy and positive cross talk art career that serves the people.
Under the guidance of ***, Hou Baolin constantly pursues innovation in the creation of cross talk, and tries to study the creation of cross talk in depth from a theoretical perspective. He not only established a cross talk improvement group in Beijing, but also published articles such as "Cross Talk and Language" and "The Structure of Cross Talk" in 1956. After seeing it, he smiled and said to Hou Baolin: "Are you going to study for a doctorate?" ”
With the encouragement and support of ***, as well as the unremitting efforts of Hou Baolin and others, cross talk, an art that almost disappeared during the war years, has been reborn and continues to develop to a higher level.
In 1975, **'s body was getting weaker and weaker, and it was difficult to get out of bed. At this time, the people around him began to think that perhaps by listening to Hou Baolin's cross talk, the chairman could soothe his mood and relieve his pain.
After receiving the task, Hou Baolin immediately rushed to the recording studio to prepare to record cross talk. He needs to record 10 large segments and 2 small segments. Despite his advanced age, Hou Baolin still went all out and did his best to ensure that the recorded program was in the most perfect condition.
In his lifetime, he performed more than 150 cross talks for ***.
This unforgettable experience of performing cross talk for *** has become one of Mr. Hou Baolin's precious memories. List of high-quality authors