Vital Idols

By YUAN YUAN

Vital Idols

By YUAN YUAN

In the 1980s they rocked the cradle, now they’re fending for themselves

On February 8, a gala was shown on the Beijing Television Business Channel giving awards to idols of the post-80s generation. The award winners were selected by netizens on the Internet.

Post-80s generation refers to the group born between 1980 and 1989. In 2010, the generation was stepping into its 30s. The award winners are from different walks of life. Some of them are already successful business people and made a fortune in business, some are still college students and are struggling for achievements in fi elds that are quite new and fresh.

We made it

Wu Sheng, born in 1987, amazed the fans of computer game Defense of the Ancients(commonly known as DotA), by leading his team to win the world’s DotA competition in 2009. He is considered the best DotA player in China.

DotA is one of the most popular mods in gaming history. Since its original release,DotA has become a feature at several worldwide tournaments.

“I want to change people’s prejudice about computer games,” said Wu, who started to play computer games in primary school. “It is not as terrible as many parents and teachers think.”

Wu proved that playing games doesn’t affect studying as long as you control time well.

“I negotiated with my mother about the time distribution between games and homework,” said Wu. “My mother said if I could rank fi rst in my exams, she wouldn’t stop me from playing. I made it.”

In 2005, Wu was accepted by Zhejiang University, one of China’s top higher-learning institutions. In 2009, he found success in the world’s DotA competition. Now, he’s a professional game player and a TV show host featuring computer games.

“I also proved that I can make money out of it,” said Wu.

If computer gaming is considered to be terrible by parents and teachers, Gao Xiaopan’s interest—crosstalk—is oldfashioned to most people. However, Gao not only has made a living on it, but also turned this 100-year-old art into a new trend.

Born in 1985, Gao became a cross-talk apprentice when he was only 8 years old.After graduating from the National Academy of Chinese Theater Arts, Gao held a day job and performed in the evenings. He worked as a department store attendant and a painter in a crafts shop, living on just four steamed loaves of bread a week.

In 2008 Gao gathered more than 10 cross-talk comedians and established Xiha Baofupu (Xiha for short).

“We merge catchwords, news events with traditional performing skills,” said Gao.

At the very beginning, few people knew this group and once there were only two people sitting in the theater for their performance.Each member earned only 27 yuan ($4) every month. Some left.

They began using the Internet for publicity. Gradually, more audiences began following and most are of roughly the same age as the performers. Tickets, priced at a reasonable 20 yuan ($3), sold out a week ahead of the show.

By the end of 2010, Xiha already had four fixed performance venues in Beijing. “It is very hard to negotiate with the theaters since rents are becoming higher and higher and we still want a low price, but we fi nally made it,”said Gao. Now the lowest price for Xiha’s performance is still 20 yuan.

Now, Gao has to be on stage for the crosstalks for four nights each week and he also involves in making TV series.

“I only sleep for three to four hours each night, and sometimes have to give that up if shooting at night,” said Gao, “I am really very tired sometimes and want to reduce the workload. But I know that my presence, which the audience is familiar with, ensures our group’s constant development.”

There is no certain rule

Old Boys, a 42-minute short movie,swirled on the Internet in 2010. It is the story of two Michael Jackson fans. They played music in school, tried to get to know girls and got married. The scenes in the movie recalled many viewers’ memories of growing up.Just within 11 days after it came out, it was streamed 8 million times.

“It is a living memory of our past days,”said Xiao Yang, one of the producers and directors of the movie. Born in 1980, Xiao came to Beijing in 1996 from his hometown in Hebei Province with a dream to get into the high school af fi liated with the China Central Academy of Fine Arts. He shared a small room in a basement with two other students.After being refused the first year, he tried again.

After graduating from high school in 2001, Xiao went to the Beijing Film Academy to learn directing. In 2007, he met Wang Taili, who is 11 years older than Xiao.Together they made a 6-minute comedy movieMemoirs of a Male Geisha, which became very popular on the Internet.

“I made it for fun at fi rst,” said Xiao, who then became a partner with Wang and named themselves “Chopstick Brothers.”

“It is quite Chinese and chopsticks also means we won’t separate.”

Their works were never shown on TV or at cinemas. “I don’t want to follow a certain rule and I don’t want to be controlled by other people,” said Xiao. “Life is hard already, why should we put more burdens on ourselves?”

Wang Maomao’s business started in a more unexpected way.

Wang, whose real name is Wang Liyuan,was born in 1985 and grew up in a singlemother family. When she was a child, she was a very silent girl and liked to draw pictures. “When I became emotional, I really wanted to express it with exaggerated actions,but I didn’t dare. So, I drew it on paper.”

In 2006, as a sophomore student at the Communication University of China in Beijing, Wang created a cartoon rabbit at random in class. She named it Tuzki and sent it to one of her classmates. One week later, she got the same image from another friend, who said it had become popular on the Internet.Within one month, Tuzki became an online phenomenon and some journalists even contacted Wang for interview appointments.

“I never thought that this rabbit would become so popular,” said Wang, who then started to use the rabbit to express her emotions and record her everyday life. “It is like writing a dairy with pictures.”

“It doesn’t matter whether there is one person or 100 persons interested in my work.It means nothing to me, said Wang. “Actually there are only few people who really care about you. I just want my mom to lead a better life.”

In 2007, Motorola Inc. used the Tuzki images to promote its Motorola Q9h smartphone in Asia, touting its Internet and instant messaging capabilities.

In 2009, the bookI, Tuzki, U? , a collection of Wang’s Tuzki cartoon pictures was published. The eyes of the rabbits are two straight lines. “It is impossible to be happy everyday, so why don’t we ignore some unhappy stuff in life and just relax,” said Wang.

Compared to other award winners, Lou Nanshi, who was born in 1985 and went to New Zealand at 16, is not as local and has more international experiences.

At the University of Auckland in New Zealand, Lou experimented with four different businesses, including selling clothes and antiques.

In 2008, with two schoolmates from the university, Lou started up her new business in Hong Kong. With a sharp nose for fashion,especially for scents, Lou sells perfume but she makes it in a special way.

“We found the fragrance industry has a lot of potential in China, and after market research we decided to introduce the Demeter brand fi rst,” she said.

Demeter is a brand that was established by perfumers Christopher Brosius and Christopher Gable in New York in 1993.After getting a Demeter’s distributorship in China, Singapore and Malaysia, the three opened their fi rst store in Beijing’s Sanlitun area in November 2009.

Named Fragrance Library, Lou’s store smells like an old library. There are cabinets containing drawers of trial fragrances, bottles on bookshelves, and each bottle sold to customers is packaged with a gift box resembling a book.

“We contain many kinds of smells in our everyday life, like the smell of tomato, the smell of dust, even the smell of rotten food.Some are not very good, but they all exist in real life,” said Lou. “It is more about evoking emotions and feelings from fragrances than simply selling products to customers.Customers found it very interesting.”

“I know that it is not that easy for three young women to start up a business, and I prepared for the worst result,” said Lou, “But,after all, we are still young, so there is no need to worry about failure.”

“Loving your work is very important,”said Lou, who claimed that entrepreneurs born in China after the 1980s are more open to all kinds of viewpoints because of the country’s growing economy. “We know how to make the best use of the Internet and many of us have studied abroad.”

CFP

CFP

(Left)CROSSTALK IN FASHION:Gao Xiaopan(left) crosstalks on the stage

LOOK AT ME:Xiao Yang (left)and Wang Taili,known as“Chopstick brothers” on a TV show in Shanghai on January 9