On June 6, two fashionably dressed strange women walked into Peng Xiaoying's home in Xia'ao Village.
They had prepared carefully: wearing bright sports suits with contrasting colors, thick gold necklaces hanging around their necks, and black baseball caps with the word "BOY" shining in silver on the front.
"Oh! I finally met my idol. We have to dance together today no matter what!" The stranger spoke first - it was half past two in the afternoon, the hottest time of the day in Wenzhou Ruian area, and Peng Xiaoying didn't I have the nerve to refuse.
Since the video of her and her husband dancing "shuffle dance" became a trending news search, her mobile phone receives dozens or hundreds of WeChat friend requests every day, and she also has to deal with countless calls from all over the country. . The couple had never seen such a formation.
Someone came from out of town just to take a photo with her; the boss, who sensed business opportunities, looked for acquaintances to cooperate with her; leaders in the town who had never met before also took the initiative to come to the house and asked her to start a live broadcast to help promote; Reporters from all over the country lined up to interview her; she was even invited to participate in variety talent shows that she had only seen on TV in the past.
They broke into Peng Xiaoying's life suddenly. Just like the strange woman who came here to take photos this afternoon, the dancing venue was changed three times.
First, it was in the living room on the first floor of Peng's house. The backlight was not good. The light in the courtyard at the front door was suitable, but the direction and angle were not good. Then it was moved to a small open space on the left side of the house. It danced for less than 30 seconds. It was too sunny.
In the end, everyone returned to the house and completed a one-minute dance in the room where the debris was piled. The stranger then showed a satisfied expression, smiled and hugged Peng Xiaoying goodbye.
Because of the sudden popularity, this farmer couple fell into the "trouble of Internet celebrities" - some people doubted their identity as farmers; some people also asked Peng Xiaoying's husband who had been in a car accident and suffered from depression 's authenticity; and some people under the video A blunt message: This is team-packing hype.
After the news about the couple dancing became a hot search topic, strangers came to the house almost every day. Photo by Beijing News reporter Du Wenwen
"Life has become complicated, and my mind can't wrap my head around it."
Early on Saturday morning, Peng Xiaoying ran to the drugstore and brought back a bag of medicine in a white plastic bag.
Overnight, her voice became completely mute - just the day before, she and her husband had been interviewed by several TV stations and received 11 people.
According to the original plan, the TV station from Hangzhou had to do an interview that morning, but it was also cancelled. She was so tired that she soaked Pang Dahai with hot water in a pink thermos cup. As soon as she got home, she drank a few big gulps and went upstairs to catch up on her sleep. She didn't wake up until lunch.
The Peng family’s lunch was simple. The eggplants, edamame, water spinach, and green beans served on the table were all grown in their own vegetable plot. There were many guests coming in and out of the house these days, and relatives came over to help with the cooking.
As soon as the dishes were served on the table, the village chief came with the town's propaganda cadres. After a few words of greeting, the other party made it clear that they wanted the couple to help promote local agricultural products and advised them to seize the opportunity - "This is the time to become famous and have fans on the Internet."
In the past few decades , this village located in the western region of Ruian, Wenzhou has never been as popular as it is now. The Mayu Town to which it belongs is famous for its manufacturing of glasses and shoes. Some of the young adults in the village went to other provinces to do business, and some joined local shoe factories.
Affected by the epidemic this year, the cauliflower grown in the village is unsaleable. Peng Xiaoying and her husband Fan Duo have become the hope of others. On the Douyin and Kuaishou platforms, the couple’s several accounts add up to more than 3.144 million followers. , the highest video playback volume is 11.649 million, making him a veritable "Internet celebrity".
Peng Xiaoying is less than 1.6 meters tall. Her hair that reaches her back is dyed reddish brown and is sometimes tied into low-hanging twin tails when dancing. She is a little fat, and when she smiles, she reveals a row of big white teeth, and the wrinkles at the corners of her eyes form deep grooves. As long as the music plays, the hair will jump with the body.
The couple often turn on music and dance in the open space beside the field.Photo by Beijing News reporter Du Wenwen
Fan Duo and Peng Xiaoying are five years apart. They are thin, half a head taller than his wife, and have tanned skin. Most of the time he is the one assisting his wife.
After the customer left, the couple was in trouble, "We don't know a few words, and we don't know how to do these (carrying goods)." They have not graduated from elementary school, and they can only understand the comments left by netizens under the video. , it will take some time. Even some of the captions in the video were typed by the couple after consulting their children.
During this period, people who had never met contacted them through phone calls, WeChat, and text messages. Some wanted to cooperate in advertising, and some wanted to join the team to create stars. The couple couldn't understand, so they simply refused.
They never thought that their lives would be changed because of the dancing video. They always feel that these things are "overwhelming" now, and they are worried that they cannot distinguish the true purpose of the strangers, and they are even more afraid of offending each other. For Peng Xiaoying, "life has become complicated."
Just like when she received a call from the TV station at home for the first time half a month ago, she and her husband were so scared that their hands were shaking, "Hey, I thought I made some mistake. Are you not allowed to use Mao Amin 's song "Desire" when dancing? "
The daily life of a peasant family
html The afternoon of June 7th was a rare moment of leisure for the family during this period.When I'm not dancing, there's still a lot of farm work to do. The Peng family's father and daughter were sitting at the door peeling edamame. One by one, the tender beans were squeezed out of the fluffy green shells and jumped into the plastic baskets nearby. For farmers, these crops, fruits and vegetables used to be part of their lives. The highlight.
The blue electric tricycle bought for 3,000 yuan at the door is almost a standard feature in every household. On the main road in the village, which can only accommodate one vehicle, this three-wheeler is the most convenient and fastest way to travel between the fields and home. Hoes, buckets, and rubber shoes can all be stuffed into the back compartment.
When they wanted to dance, the couple put the portable speakers in the back of the car and rode away. Their footprints were left on the edge of the field, in front of the old house, and by the lotus pond in the Cultural Square.
The Peng family has 8 acres of land. In good years, the mature corn, rice, cucumbers and cauliflower can bring the family an income of 30,000 to 40,000 yuan. However, farmers depend on the weather for a living, and the money they receive every year is not fixed.
Peng Xiaoying lives in a two-story building in the village with her husband, children, father, and aunt (the wife her father later found).
The two-story building where Peng Xiaoying and his wife live in Xia'ao Village. Photo by Beijing News reporter Du Wenwen
In the village, the living conditions of the Peng family are considered moderate. Before the Chinese New Year, the house had just been renovated at a cost of 70,000 to 80,000 yuan: the living room was paved with bright ceramic tiles, and the walls were covered with patterned boards. The newly replaced golden door was inlaid with diamond-shaped green glass, and the bedrooms upstairs were replaced. The wooden floors, dining table, sofa, bed, and cabinets in the home have also been refurbished. The money was provided by Peng Xiaoying's brother. In fact, the house belongs to Peng Xiaoying's parents, and the couple just live here.
In order to increase their income, Peng Xiaoying and Fan Duo once wanted to work in a private shoe factory in Ruian, where they could earn about four to five thousand yuan a month. However, this year's epidemic has caused shoe factories that do export business to lose orders. , the workers could not find work.
For more than ten years, Peng Xiaoying and her husband spent their time working outside. The second year after their eldest daughter was born, they went to Kunming, Yunnan, and later to Dongying, Shandong. They only returned to their hometown during the Chinese New Year. . It was only when the second daughter was about to enter third grade that the family moved back to the village, which only took four years.
Peng Xiaoying said that many families in the village actually borrowed foreign debts and their lives were not easy. The couple used to lose money and owe money in the clothing business. Originally, they would live a life similar to most families in the village, growing vegetables, digging bamboo shoots, picking bayberries, and working hard to make money to support their family and pay off their debts.
In the past few years, dancing has become a daily habit for the two of them. In fact, successfully recording a video of the whole family dancing beside the field in the village was not as easy as imagined.
A tricycle passing by suddenly, an acquaintance or neighbor coming from the opposite side to say hello, the volume of the speaker connected to the mobile phone becoming smaller, incorrect dance steps, stones on the ground, or sudden rain, will all be the reasons for interrupting the shooting. Sometimes it is common to repeat a dance more than ten times.
Their dance is the shuffle dance that has become popular in recent years. The first time Peng Xiaoying saw this kind of dance with strong rhythm and rapid changes in foot movements, she was fascinated. At first, I just danced by myself, but later I wanted to take my husband with me, "Let him exercise and relax." Fan Duo was reluctant, "There are no grown men who want to dance. If you don't go, you won't go."
Peng Xiaoying Still insisting, "If you don't want to dance, then you can watch me dance." After watching it for several days, Fan Duo also tried. Peng Xiaoying still remembers that when she got home that night, her husband told her, "I sweated from dancing and felt quite comfortable."
The couple went there every day for two months, dancing in the morning and at night, and her husband quickly lost weight. , the two of them were worried and went to the hospital to check their blood pressure and heart function. The doctor told him, "Everything is normal for you two."
Fan Duo and his wife danced with their second daughter and youngest son, and their eldest daughter and other relatives and friends helped them take photos. Photo by Beijing News reporter Du Wenwen
"At that time, there was no light in his eyes"
If you don't stare at Fan Duo's face carefully, it is difficult to find that there is a faint "figure 7" between his lower lip and chin. The long white line is the trace left by a car accident more than ten years ago.
At that time, he and his wife went to Kunming, Yunnan from their hometown to work. Peng Xiaoying worked in a shoe store opened by a fellow villager. Peng Xiaoying still remembers that one day around six o'clock in the afternoon, she received a phone call, "Asking me if I was free, saying that my husband was 'a little unwell' and had been sent to the hospital. Let me go."
When she arrived at the hospital, Only then was the doctor told her that she needed to sign for surgery. The situation was much worse than she imagined: Fan Duo's three lower front teeth were all shattered, and a large gash was cut in her mouth, which was filled with blood.
"At that time, my legs felt 'paralyzed' and I couldn't stand." Peng Xiaoying said that her husband and three other friends were driving a small car and were hit by a large truck from the car body. The person sitting in the back seat of the driver Fan Duo became one of the two most seriously injured.
Less than a year after the operation, Peng Xiaoying noticed something was wrong with her husband.
He lost hearing in his left ear after a car accident. He always felt that there was a "whining" sound in his ear, both when eating and sleeping, 24 hours a day.
This blurry photo was taken two years after her husband’s car accident. The couple went to the temple to pray for blessings. Picture provided by the interviewee
Her husband was originally a talkative and laughing person, and was often silent during that period. Peng Xiaoying found him sitting and talking to himself many times, "When the ears ring, the car is coming, when the ears ring, the car is coming."
The irritability caused by long-term insomnia made Fan Duo feel that he was "going crazy. He wanted to jump into a well or a building several times." Sometimes his family really didn't know what to do and had to call 120 for help.
The night when she felt the most wrong, Peng Xiaoying woke up in the middle of the night and found that her husband was not in bed. She hurriedly called for relatives and friends to look for him separately. At nearly two o'clock in the morning, the family found Fan Duo squatting next to a flower bed in a square.
His wife took him to the hospital again, where he was admitted to the psychiatry department. The doctor reminded her that she should see a psychiatrist. At Ruian People's Hospital, Fan Duo was diagnosed with depression. His family took him to hospitals in Shandong and as far away as Beijing, and the diagnosis results were similar.
I still have some unfinished pill boxes left at home. These drugs, named "Paxetine Hydrochloride Tablets ( Serote )" and " Olanzapine Tablets (Zyprexa)", are indicated for: depression, obsessive-compulsive neurosis, panic disorder , social phobia, schizophrenia , moderate to severe manic episodes, etc.
There are still some outer boxes of medicines that Fan Duo took during his depression at home. Photo by Beijing News reporter Du Wenwen
For Peng Xiaoying, it was the most painful period in her life.
The 23-year-old eldest daughter Dandan remembers that her mother was always in a very low mood during that time. Afraid of the pressure caused by other people's comments, whether it was a car accident or illness, Peng Xiaoying only informed a few close relatives in the family. Many relatives only found out that the couple had experienced this after seeing the news recently. .
Two years after the car accident, Peng Xiaoying took her husband to a temple near Mayu Town to worship Buddha. The couple had someone help them take a photo together. The photo is blurry. Her husband is holding her shoulders and looking straight ahead. The woman is smiling and raising her right hand in a "yeah" sign.
"Look, there was no light in his eyes at that time," Peng Xiaoying said, sitting on a small wooden stool and looking at the photos on her phone. "He is the head of the family. If something happens to the breadwinner of the family, what will happen to me and the children?" What to do?”
After Fan Duo’s car accident, Peng Xiaoying’s WeChat nickname was changed to “Smile to others no matter how troubled you are.” Later, during an interview with the media, he learned the meaning of his wife's words: Smile to everyone who comes to visit, so that the husband cannot see the sadness on his face.
"Compared with the most miserable and sad days, what are these now?"
Dancing brought them unexpected happiness: After Fan Duo danced for several years, his body became better and his mood became better. , although he did not go to the hospital for re-examination and diagnosis, he was completely different from the state of depression. He became cheerful and talkative, and he did not need to rely on drugs to fall asleep.
In the first two years of
, the couple became famous for dancing in the square. Many people wanted to learn from them, and each person was given a symbolic hard work fee of 300 yuan a year. Later, when there were occasional performances that required dancing, they would come to their door. A "snack fee" is paid per person for each performance, 50 yuan per person.
At the beginning, there were some gossips in the village, "If you have time to dance, you will be exhausted, so you might as well rest at home." The couple ignored these voices and continued dancing.
In fact, dancing does not cost much for Peng Xiaoying and his wife. In addition to the two external speakers purchased online that can be dragged around, the only preparation you need to make before dancing is to fill a thermos cup with a pot of water in advance.
The elderly in the family are still in good health, and the eldest daughter is sensible. After becoming a dance teacher, the couple has never had to worry about it. The second and third children only have living expenses to go to school, which is less than 1,000 yuan a month. The whole family can basically be self-sufficient in food and drink, with no additional material expenses.
Peng Xiaoying often goes to the village to dig some wild vegetables and brings them home, frying them on the dining table. Photo by Beijing News reporter Du Wenwen
As early as two years ago, Peng Xiaoying had been posting dancing videos online one after another. Sometimes they are together as a couple, and sometimes they are together with their second daughter and youngest son. The dancing location keeps changing, from the park to the neighborhood where relatives live, from the square during the day to under the bridge at night.
Until early April this year, the two of them were bored during the epidemic and wrote and danced a song "Desire" by Mao Amin. The background was in front of Fan Duo's old house. The husband was wearing blue clothes that were often worn by old men in the 1970s. jacket, green liberation shoes on her feet, and a bamboo hat on her head. The night after
's video was posted, their accounts kept showing 99+ new messages, and their number of fans continued to increase. To this day, the couple still don't fully understand why that video became popular. They only remember that they were excitedly looking at their mobile phones until three o'clock in the evening. "It has never been like this before. It was like a sudden heavy rain."
风多多I can only understand some simple words, and some netizens’ comments need to be relayed by the children. “After reading the comments, I am getting happier and more motivated, and I feel that I am in a good mood.”
But what followed was Doubts. In those dancing videos, the two of them moved freely and widely, and their bodies swayed to the rhythm of the beat, without any trace of restraint or shyness. This made them look very different from the traditional farmers. This is also Many netizens thought they were "fake farmers" and suspected that their true identities were "dance teachers."When
danced in the early days, they often wore trendy-looking sportswear suits. The whole family was uniformly colored black, red, white or green, and the logos of the sneakers on their feet were also well-known sports brands. After these pictures became popular, they became one of the evidences for netizens to question their true identities and to promote themselves.
"My eldest daughter bought these clothes for us. She encouraged us to dance and said that we would look young and look good in this way." Fan Duo felt aggrieved. "A pair of 45, do you think it is true?" The eldest daughter Dandan is in Ruian. Working as a jazz dance teacher at a dance studio in the city, she helped her parents register a video account.
Some netizens said that their clothes after changing their style were deliberately dressed up. Fan Duo did not deny that the clothes were specially dug out from the wardrobe for dancing. "In rural areas, no one has a few old clothes. Although they have been worn for many years, they are kept there until they are worn out. Where do I need to go?" Buy it outside."
Under the comments of those "fake couples", Peng Xiaoying said that she was not angry. She pointed to the coffee table in the middle and replied, "It's like this table is between you and me. If they are happy, let him say, it's okay."
Peng Xiaoying still remembers that in order to make her husband feel better, she danced with him and jumped to her feet. Her head was injured. When she woke up one morning, she was so swollen and painful that she could not move. Every step from the bedroom on the second floor to the living room on the first floor, she sat on the stairs and moved down step by step.
"So, compared with the most miserable and sad days, what are these now?" Peng Xiaoying advised herself.
Text | Beijing News reporter Du Wenwen
Editor | Chen Xiaoshu Proofreading | Wu Xingfa
