In November 1963, Yang Jun was born in a not wealthy family in Dangtu County, Ma'anshan City, Anhui Province. His father is a cadre of the county agriculture and forestry bureau, and his mother is a forest ranger at the local Qingshan Forest Farm. There is also an older brother and two older sisters in the family, and the younger sister Yang Lin is disabled in her lower limbs due to polio.
Although both parents are employed, they have to treat their disabled daughter's leg disease and support their blind grandmother, so they don't have a good life.
At a young age, Yang Jun learned to help her parents with household chores, cutting wood to feed chickens and herding pigs and cattle. Every day, she would carry her young sister Yang Lin to school and become her sister's legs.
This experience has allowed her to develop a strong and independent character, and it has also cultivated her love of life and sensitivity to art.
In 1970, Yang Jun quickly showed his talent for theatrical performances after he went to school. As long as there is a competition in the school, the teacher will let her participate. Yang Jun never disappointed his teachers, and won more than 10 certificates and trophies in total.
Her voice is clear and her performances are vivid, and she always makes people see hope in the haze of poverty.
In 1975, when Yang Jun was 12 years old, the opportunity came. Anhui Provincial Art School enrolled students in Dangtu, and she stood out among thousands of candidates by singing the two songs "I am a small commune member" and "Red Star Follows Me to Fight".
When returning home with the acceptance letter, the whole family was ecstatic, as if they saw a bright future.
In the Huangmei Opera Troupe of the Provincial Art School, Yang Jun met his future "sisters" - Ma Lan, Wu Qiong, Yuan Mei and Wu Yaling. They practiced their basic skills hard, and Yang Jun became a model in the art department and a curtain announcer in the music department because of his outstanding image.
In 1980, after graduating from the Provincial Art School with the first place in the class, Yang Jun was successfully admitted to the Provincial Huangmei Drama Troupe. However, as a newcomer to the workplace, she faced the dilemma of being marginalized for a time until a Hong Kong performance in 1982.
In that performance, she played the "third sister" in "Tianxian Pei", and played the maid "Xiao Chunhong" in "The Female Concubine", although the role is not important, her excellent performance has attracted the attention of the famous director Li Hanxiang.
During this trip to Hong Kong, Yang Jun and four other sisters were known as the "Five Golden Flowers of Huangmei Opera". Yang Jun stood on the stage, her eyes were full of expectations for the future, and a confident smile appeared on the corner of her mouth, as if she had foreseen that her life was about to bloom.
However, no one could have imagined what kind of life choices this bright golden flower would face in the future.
In 1985, Yang Jun ushered in an important turning point in his career. Shanghai Film Studio decided to put Huangmei Opera "Meng Jiangnu" on the screen, and director Sha Zhou took a fancy to Yang Junjun's handsome appearance, but was worried about her singing skills, and originally planned to let Wu Qiong dub her.
This decision put Yang Jun in a difficult situation, and also made her relationship with Wu Qiong strained for a while.
Yang Jun did not back down, and after facing this major challenge, she internalized and studied the script, studied the singing passages, practiced repeatedly, and never relaxed on the road of pursuing the performing arts.
Wu Qiong finally let go of her mustard for Yang Jun, and handed over the full tape of her stage play "Meng Jiangnu" to Yang Jun At this moment, Yang Jun's eyes were red, and his heart was full of gratitude and determination.
After two months of hard work, Yang Jun's singing skills have improved suddenly, and finally successfully completed the filming of the movie "Meng Jiangnu". When the film was released for the first time in China, Yang Jun's performance was widely praised by experts and audiences, and it also ushered in an important milestone in her artistic career - the first peak of her artistic career.
However, Yang Jun was not satisfied. She longs for more room for development and is not satisfied with playing a supporting role all the time. In the fall of 1988, an opportunity arose again. When visiting Huanggang, Hubei Province with the crew of "Journey to the West", the local leaders threw an olive branch to Yang Jun, hoping that she could come to Huanggang to develop the Huangmei Opera career.
Faced with this opportunity, Yang Jun's heart was full of contradictions. His familiar surroundings are a thing of the past, but now he has to start over. But his love for art and his desire to succeed eventually overcame his hesitation.
On a rainy night in January 1989, Yang Jun and his partner Zhang Hui quietly left Hefei and stepped on a train to Huanggang.
After coming to Huanggang, Yang Jun was faced with a situation of almost starting from scratch. The troupe was formerly a bankrupt song and dance troupe, with no costumes, no props, and everything needed to be reorganized.
Yang Jun was not intimidated by the difficulties, she led the team to purchase equipment, recruit actors, rehearse the show, and was very busy.
Half a year later, the Huanggang Huangmei Drama Troupe was officially established, and "Tianxian Pei" starring Yang Jun also premiered successfully. Her eyes moistened as she stood in the center of the stage and listened to the applause.
At this moment, she understood that all the hard work was worth it.
This decision not only changed the trajectory of Yang Jun's career development, but also brought new challenges and opportunities to her life. However, behind this aura of success, there are many difficult choices that few people can truly understand.
In Huanggang, Yang Jun's artistic career is in full swing, but her personal life has made her make difficult choices. In 1989, the rehearsal of "Tianxian Pei" entered a critical period, but Yang Jun found out that he was pregnant.
As the heroine of the play "Seven Fairies", if she gives birth, the hard work of the entire crew may be in vain.
Faced with this accident, Yang Jun fell into a deep entanglement, and after repeated discussions with her husband Li Shiheng, she finally made a difficult decision: to give up the child. Yang Jun said to her husband in a choked tone: "It's not the right time for the baby to come, let's be parents in the future, okay?" Although Li Shiheng was very painful in his heart, he chose to understand his wife's decision.
Two days later, accompanied by her husband, Yang Jun went to the hospital for an abortion. As she lay on the operating table, her eyes were filled with mixed emotions. There is not only regret for the unborn child, but also dedication to the cause.
After only two days of rest after the operation, Yang Jun returned to the rehearsal room, she put all her feelings into the performance, and the premiere of "Tianxian Pei" was a great success, and the applause of the audience seemed to soothe the pain in her heart.
However, fate seems to have played a cruel joke on Yang Jun. In 1994, due to the rehearsal of the new Huangmei opera "Unfinished Love", Yang Jun became pregnant unexpectedly again. This play is directed by the famous Yu Xiaoyu, written by Tang Shuzhen, starring Yang Jun and Zhang Hui.
When the news of Yang Jun's pregnancy came out, the entire crew was half cold.
Faced with this hard-won life, Yang Jun once again fell into a painful struggle. She looked at herself in the mirror, her hand caressing her slightly bulging lower abdomen, her eyes full of contradiction and reluctance.
However, considering the dedication of the crew and the expectations of the audience, she once again made a decision that broke her heart.
On the day they came out of the hospital, Yang Jun and Li Shiheng had tears in the corners of their eyes. They looked at each other speechlessly, but they seemed to have a heart-to-heart and understood the pain in each other's hearts. Yang Jun's face was full of deep sadness, but her eyes still flashed with a firm belief in art.
The success of "Unfinished Love" won her the 13th Chinese Drama "Plum Blossom Award" and the individual gold medal of the National Huangmei Opera Art Festival.
However, behind these honors is Yang Jun's irreparable regret. Whenever she sees other people's children, there is always a hint of loneliness in her eyes. She often wept alone in the middle of the night, for the two beings who did not come to this world.
Yang Jun's story is not only an artist's growth process, but also a true portrayal of a woman's difficult choice between career and family, and this sacrifice makes her artistic life more moving, and also makes her heart always carry a trace of hidden pain.
In December 2008, Yang Jun's artistic career ushered in a new turning point, she bid farewell to the Huanggang Huangmei Theater Troupe, which had served for nearly 20 years, and transferred to the Hubei Provincial Local Opera Art Theater in Wuhan.
Although she burst into tears, she knew she needed a broader stage to showcase her artistic talents.
After entering the new theater, Yang Jun was not satisfied with the performance mode of traditional opera, she boldly innovated and decided to adapt the Hubei folk song "Dragon Boat Tune" into the Huangmei opera "My Sister Wants to Cross the River".
For this work, Yang Jun led the team to go deep into Lichuan, Hubei Province, to experience the local life and customs in the fields, rivers and lakes, Yang Jun felt them with his heart, and his eyes were full of love for art and enthusiasm for life.
In February 2011, "My Sister Wants to Cross the River" premiered and was a huge success. Yang Jun's delicate and sincere performance won the audience's long-lasting applause. This work has been praised by industry insiders as "a milestone of Hubei Huangmei Opera" and "a new cultural business card of Hubei".
When Yang Jun stood in the center of the stage for a curtain call, her eyes flashed with tears of relief, and she knew that her persistence and innovation had finally paid off.
Yang Jun's road of innovation has continued. In 2018, the Hubei Provincial Local Opera Art Theater launched a new red Huangmei opera "The Party's Daughter", and Yang Jun challenged himself again and played the protagonist "Tian Yumei".
This work once again won the praise of the audience and effectively consolidated Yang Jun's status in the Huangmei opera industry.
Yang Jun's artistic achievements have been widely recognized over the years. She has won the 13th Chinese Theatre "Plum Blossom Award", the National Huangmei Opera Art Festival Individual Gold Award, and the "Wenhua Performance Award" twice as the Chinese Culture and Art Government Award.
When she came to the stage to accept the award, her face was always filled with a happy smile, but there was still a trace of regret for life hidden in the depths of her eyes.
Despite this, Yang Jun still devoted himself wholeheartedly to the development of Huangmei Opera. In 2023, she is over sixty years old, and she is still showing her artistic charm on the stage, interpreting the unique charm of Huangmei Opera with her role.
Her innovative spirit and dedication to art not only promoted the development of Huangmei Opera, but also allowed her to go further and further on the road of art and climb to a higher artistic peak.
Yang Jun is a great artist, and her life is a legend of constantly breaking through herself and pursuing the pinnacle of art. With her life and achievements, she has demonstrated the spirit and contribution of a true artist.
At the same time, she has made outstanding contributions to the inheritance and development of Huangmei Opera.
The relationship between Yang Jun and the "Four Golden Flowers" - Wu Qiong, Ma Lan, Yuan Mei and Wu Yaling has gone through a complex process from competition to reconciliation. During their time at the provincial art school, they were good sisters who talked about everything.
However, after entering the work, the battle for the focus of the stage caused some estrangement between them.
In 1985, the filming of the movie "Meng Jiangnu" became a turning point in their relationship. At that time, the director originally planned for Yang Jun to star and be voiced by Wu Qiong. This decision caused the relationship between the two to fall to a freezing point for a while.
However, Wu Qiong finally chose to support Yang Jun, not only encouraging her to sing by herself, but also giving Yang Jun the full tape of her stage play "Meng Jiangnu" This sincere friendship deeply touched Yang Jun and became the beginning of their reconciliation.
Over the years, this sisterhood has grown stronger. In 2008, when Wu Qiong held a solo concert in Hefei, Anhui Province, Yang Jun came from Hubei to help. This performance not only realized the reunion of the "Five Golden Flowers", but also moved countless fans.
They held hands on the stage, their eyes flashing with tears, as if they had returned to their youthful years in art school.
In 2016, when Yang Jun participated in the talent show "The King of the King", his friend Wu Qiong, who had been friends for many years, actively helped. Every time the two perform on the same stage, the deep sisterhood between the two is revealed in their eyes, which makes people deeply feel the delicate and sincere artistic emotion.
Time flies, and what was once competition has turned into mutual support and encouragement. The five golden flowers bloom with different brilliance on their respective stages, and the friendship between them becomes more and more precious.
This friendship that transcends time and space not only warms Yang Jun's life, but also becomes a good story in the Huangmei opera world, which witnesses the sincere emotions between artists that transcend competition.
Yang Jun, who has entered the age of sixties, is still committed to his artistic career. She served as the director of the Hubei Provincial Local Drama Theater and tirelessly devoted herself to the inheritance and development of Huangmei Opera. In order to cultivate a new generation of opera talents, Yang Jun led the team to more than 1,800 towns and villages in the province, went deep into more than 2,000 schools, and finally selected 160 talented children to learn opera in the theater for free.
Yang Jun poured motherly care for these young students, not only caring for them in life, but also teaching them to do exercises and sing by hand. Whenever he sees these students growing up on the stage, Yang Jun's eyes are always full of love and expectation.
During a rehearsal, the children called her "Mother Yang" in unison, and at this moment, Yang Jun burst into tears Although she did not have her own children, these 160 "drama children" filled the vacancy in her heart.
However, the two missed opportunities to have children made Yang Jun regretful, and she often said in public that women should be mothers at the right age and not leave regrets in life like her.
Every time she talked about this topic, Yang Jun's eyes would flash with complicated emotions, and she said excitedly: "Women can be regarded as a complete woman when they are mothers at the right age, don't learn from me, don't let people have regrets in life."
Although the current situation is not as expected, Yang Jun (60 years old) still insists on contributing to the inheritance of Huangmei Opera. Her husband, Li Shiheng, has always been a strong supporter of her, and often gives her encouragement and comfort: "As long as everything is half-satisfied, we have already gained a lot."
Every time I see you standing in the center of the stage, the audience gives you applause and flowers, and that's the happiest moment for me."
Yang Jun's story is not only like the growth of an artist, but also like a true portrayal of a working woman seeking a balance between family and career. Her life experience makes us think deeply about how to take care of our own lives while pursuing career success, which is a problem that everyone who struggles to keep moving.