In the new movie The Spy Next Door that I recently finished filming in America, there was a particular type of sofa in one of the rooms on the set that I really liked a lot. After I finished making the film, I went to the store that sponsored the movie and bought the sofa. I actually ended purchasing many different kinds of sofas because I think that these sofas are very appropriate for young people, and they’re also very suitable for us to use when we’re discussing the script for a movie. These sofas are also versatile; you can put them together in any way you like, for example, side by side in a row, positioned into a square shaped seat, arranged as a bed, or even set up as a large sofa. It just so happens that I have a new house in Beijing and because I like these sofas so much, the owner of the shop arranged to have the furniture shipped to Beijing for me. It just arrived today so I led my group of disciples - my New Seven Little Fortunes - and together we opened the packages, unpacked the boxes, and assembled the sofas, everyone just randomly putting things everywhere. 

When I returned home, I continued to tidy up, neatly arranged everything and did the vacuuming. I think that it’s good how I have a group of disciples to help me now otherwise I wouldn’t have known what should have been done. One thing I have to do with my disciples is to teach them things. Furthermore, they have to help me do the cleaning, Ha ha ha.

Just as I was in high spirits and having such an enjoyable time tidying up my things, someone started calling me to pack away my things and prepare to leave the house because I had a competition to attend. It was a singing competition called the National Pop Music Originality Contest, and I had to perform the song Shēngsǐ Bù Lí.

I’ve never competed in any sort of competitions; not even for martial arts, let alone a singing contest. Additionally, there were a lot of experienced senior music critics judging this competition and among them were many of my friends. A lot of famous singers tend not to participate in this competition. Currently, most of the people who enter this contest are either newcomers to the scene or singers who want to perform some good songs for the audience and judges to listen to. So why did I decide to take part in this contest? And why did I voluntarily fill out an application to compete at this event? A lot of people thought it was strange, even the workers in my company thought it was very strange. Everyone has been asking me why do I want to enter the competition and I said, “Today is the first anniversary of the song Shēngsǐ Bù Lí. One year ago today was the day when this song was born. Shēngsǐ Bù Lí is a song composed of our tears, the tears of the people in China, the tears of Sichuan, and also my tears. The reason why I wanted to compete in this contest wasn’t because I wanted to win an award; I wanted to do it for the disaster victims in Sichuan and the people who lost their lives during the devastating earthquake. I wanted to sing for them.” Ever since the day I sang this song one year ago, I’ve kept their memories alive in my mind every day. I sang this song at the competition because I hoped that we would all remember and commemorate the victims who lost their lives in the disastrous earthquake. At the same time, I also hope that I can make an appeal through my actions and call upon everyone to support originality, support our own creations of original Chinese pop music. Hopefully from now on, more original songs with creativity will emerge. I saw many of my friends on the judge’s panel tonight but of course, I hoped that they wouldn’t give me a very high score; as long as I passed and met the standards then I’d be happy. I also hoped that they wouldn’t give me an award; giving me an award of any kind would be meaningless because I didn’t come here to compete. Naturally, the television station was overjoyed when they knew that I was going to take part in this contest. But when I arrived at the television station and went backstage to prepare for the event, I saw two documentary journalists and they told me that they had just made a bet between themselves to see if I was going to come tonight, ha ha.

I was actually very angry with myself when I finished singing the song. I haven’t sung this song since the time I sang it for the earthquake victims last year and every time I sing this song, memories of the scenes at the time of the disaster start reappearing on my mind. I honestly don’t want to be reminded of those heartbreaking memories. But as the proverb says, practice makes perfect. Before I was about to perform the song today, I thought I could just quickly refresh my memory by listening to the song on my MP3 player. After all, it’s a song that I’m very familiar with already. But as soon as I got into the car, I discovered that my MP3 player didn’t have that song on it anymore because before the May 1st concert at the Bird’s Nest Stadium, my assistant helped me erase all the songs that were previously on my MP3 player and then loaded it with songs that I was going to perform at the concert. While I was backstage, I thought very hard but I just couldn’t remember when my cue was and when I should start singing. At the time I felt so ashamed of myself. Fortunately I’m not a professional singer so I think the judges forgave me. I’d like to take this opportunity and offer a piece of advice to everybody – before you do anything, make sure that you do sufficient preparation work so then you won’t make any mistakes. *sigh* How embarrassing, so disgraceful. I can never let that happen again, ever!

In the evening during dinner, an artist walked over to me and he drew me a picture on the spot. I didn’t know who he was. He just had a pen in his hand and then drew me a picture. At the time while I was watching him I thought, “I really wish I could be an artist as well.”

The following day I had nothing planned to do so I went back home and tidied up some more things because I knew that a batch of audio equipment had just arrived, and I thought that I may as well check on the artistic creations that my disciples did yesterday – the completed sofa arrangements.

Let’s pick up all the cardboard boxes together:

Text and photos © 2009 The JC Group

All Rights Reserved

May 14 （星期四）

          在我新拍完的美国的电影《我的邻居是特务》里，剧情房间中摆放的那种沙发，我非常的喜欢，拍完戏我就到赞助商的店里去买。我采购了大量的各种不同的沙发，因为我觉得这个很适合年轻人，也适合我们聊剧本用，因为它的随意性，可以随便拼摆，长条、方条、摆成床、沙发都可以。刚好我北京有了新房子，因为我喜欢这个沙发，所以老板特意帮我运来北京。今天刚好收到，我就带领我的新七小福的徒弟们一起，拆箱、开封、装套……所有人摆放东西都是乱摆的，我回到家继续收拾，摆列好，吸尘。还好现在又一帮徒弟帮我忙，不然我都不知道该怎么办。徒弟们我一是要教他们东西，再有就是帮我清洁，哈哈哈哈~

          当我弄的正兴高采烈的时候，旁边已经有人叫我，要收拾一下准备出门了，因为今天有一个比赛，一个歌唱比赛——全国原创流行歌曲大赛，我要去演唱《生死不离》。

          我是从来不参加比赛的，武术比赛呀什么的，更不要说歌唱比赛。而且这个比赛呢，是有很多资深的乐评人做评委的，而他们中有很多都是我的朋友。有很多大牌的歌星都不会参加这个比赛的，现在参加的呢都是一些新人，或者是想唱一些好歌给观众和评判听。那为什么我要参加这个比赛，而且我还是自动报名去参加的。很多人都很奇怪，包括我自己公司的员工都很奇怪，大家都问我为什么要去，我说： 今天是《生死不离》这首歌一周年的纪念，去年的今天就是生死不离这首歌诞生的日子，因为这首歌是我们中国人的眼泪、是四川的眼泪、也是我的眼泪。我这次参加不是为了拿奖，我只是为四川地震中逝去的人和受灾的，我唱给他们听的，自从一年前我唱了这首歌后，我每天都在心里祭奠他们，我今天唱这首歌，就是希望我们所有人一起来缅怀在地震中遇难的人们。同时我也想通过我的行动，来呼吁大家一起支持原创，支持我们中国自己的原创流行歌曲，希望我们今后能有更多的原创歌曲诞生。当然今晚的很多评判都是我的朋友，我希望他们不要给我太高的分，合格就可以了，也不要给我任何奖项，给我任何奖项都没有意义，因为我来的参加的目的不是为比赛。当然我参加的话电视台是很喜出望外的，不过当我到了电视台在后台备场的时候，有两个拍摄纪录片的记者告诉我，他们刚刚还在为我是否今晚会来打赌呢，哈哈。

          不过演唱完我非常的生气，因为自从去年地震唱完就一直没有唱过这首歌，每次唱脑海里都会浮现当时的画面，真不想勾起那段回忆。但是俗话说的好，曲不离口拳不离手。今天要演出之前，我以为自己在MP3里听听就可以了，毕竟是这么熟的一首歌曲，但是一上车，发现MP3里没有这首歌了，因为五一鸟巢演唱会之前，助手帮我洗掉了，换了全部是当时演唱会的歌曲。到了后台我也想不到几时进，几时开始唱，当时真的很丢脸，好在自己不是歌星，所有的评判也都原谅我……所以在这里奉劝所有的朋友们，做任何事情都要在之前做足功夫，才不会失误。哎，丢脸，丢死人了，以后绝对不能再出现这种事情！

 

          晚上吃饭的时候，有个画家走进来，我也不认识他，他当场画了一幅画给我，他除了拿笔就是用卫生纸在画画，当时看的我真想自己也能是个画家。

          第二天没事，又回到家里去收拾东西，因为来了一批音箱，顺便验收昨天徒弟们的作品，完成的沙发。

 

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