Character stories
Author: Chu Jiang Editor: Xiao Kang
Source: Marriage & Family Magazine
2024 marks the 40th anniversary of the debut of Chinese Taiwan actor Tian Li. She has participated in many film and television works such as "Don't Come to Harm" and "Why Do Women Suffer for Women".
For a long time, the label on her body is the most familiar "sexy diva". In addition, she is often shown as a "femme fatale" on the screen, which also leaves the impression that she is not easy to get close to.
During the interview, she sat there quietly, her tone was gentle and soft, but her eyes were full of relief.
40 years after her debut, Tian Li has already accepted the incompleteness of life, and the only thing she wants to break through at the moment is the role.
01
The original intention has never been forgotten, and it has always been pure for forty years
Tian Li has inherited her mother's beauty since she was a child and has a delicate appearance. Although she has been contacted by talent scouts since she was a child, entering the entertainment industry was not in her original life plan.
When Tian Li was 15 years old, the foreign trade company run by her father went bankrupt, and the acting industry in Taiwan was prosperous at that time, and she broke into the entertainment industry in order to save tuition faster.
Since she entered the industry as a singer, Tian's father has picked her up and taken her to work rain or shine. At that time, Tian Li, who had pretty short hair and a beautiful and elegant face with a little shyness, always looked bright on the screen.
The Golden Yun Award is the grand prize of the Youth Campus Folk Song Competition held by Taiwan Xinge Records, and one champion singer and several winning singers are selected through an island-wide audition each year. In the last two years of the Golden Rhyme Awards, Tian Li sang two exclusive folk songs for the innovative album of the Golden Rhyme Awards, so she is also known as the "last generation of folk singers of the Golden Rhyme Awards".
In 1984, Tian Li, who was only 17 years old, starred in "Xiao Zhao" in "Heaven and Dragon Slayer" and became an instant hit. At that time, the TV station intended to praise her as the leading girl, but reading was always her dream. After working as an artist for 3 years to raise tuition fees, Tian Li chose to study fashion design in Japan.
During her study abroad, Tian Li grew long hair like a waterfall, put on a slim long skirt, and completely transformed from a pure girl to a beautiful woman with all kinds of charms.
Tian Li, who returned to Taiwan, received a large number of film contracts and became the best choice for beautiful roles in film and television dramas: just like in the very popular TV series "Storm and Clouds Dominate the World", Tian Li played the first beauty of martial arts Yan Ying, she is sometimes hot and sexy, sometimes gentle like water, sometimes charming and colorful, sometimes cold and glamorous like frost, no matter which posture, it is so eye-catching, even now it is often edited and posted on the Internet.
"I used to be really spicy, and that's what I could have been when I was younger. But when I get older, I should be slowly elegant, and I will precipitate with the years, and I am actually very quiet in life. ”
Tian Li doesn't like to compete with others, and prefers to focus on interpreting every role. Many of her job opportunities were basically introduced by her former work partners. However, she also felt that she was too "inactive" when she was young, and sometimes, she should still strive for a good role.
Tian Li takes every role very seriously, and as long as she receives a job, she will immediately enter a state of "full strings". Since her debut, the roles that have impressed her have been Meilan, who has cancer in "Spring Warm Hualien", and her tough mother in "Don't Come Harmless".
In order to play Meilan well, she took the initiative to go to the hospital for observation, mingled with patients, and even shaved her head to play the role; In order to play "Don't Come to Harm" well, she spent a lot of effort to figure out the psychology of the role, and played the role without makeup throughout the whole process, and finally won the Best Actress at the 37th Golden Bell Awards in Taiwan through this role.
"When I was young, I was required to play sexy and glamorous roles, and I played them well. When I'm older, I'll take my role as a mother and grandmother seriously. Overall, I accept the changes that age brings and want to become more beautiful as my mom grows with age. Tian Li said with a smile.
The passage of time is not only a grinding, but also a gift, the context of Tian Li's life has also entered the "quiet autumn" from the "hot summer", in addition to the role of her mother, she gradually received some grandmother roles, but she is not sentimental about it. She admires the demeanor of her predecessors Liu Xuehua and Gui Yalei, and hopes that she can continue to act like them.
Tian Li also loves fitness on weekdays, she said that nothing is more important than health when people reach middle age, and at the end of the acting work, it is also physical strength and health. When a person has a healthy body, he or she is better able to continue learning. The role she hopes to receive most at present is a full-fledged heroine role, and she is also preparing for the arrival of the role.
Acting has become Tian Li's favorite thing, because acting allows her to explore the unknown world to her heart's content, and every role she plays seems to broaden the dimension of her life. Tian Li has two older sisters and an older brother, and as the youngest child in the family, Tian Li has been favored by her parents since she was a child.
The various situations of life in the play make her better understand the "ups and downs" of life. "Among all the roles I have played, I am most like Tang Yingyao in "Why Do Women Trouble Women"." Tian Li said seriously, "We are all people who dare to pay for love. ”
02
Have the courage to give love, and learn to let go after pain
Parents are the first happy couple Tian Li has seen, and they have respected each other all their lives. The father worked diligently, helped others in life, and set an example for the children to understand what benevolence, righteousness, courtesy, wisdom and faith are.
"My parents' love is like looking for a needle in a haystack." "When I was young, my father would let my mother go out with friends on weekends, while he would take care of the children at home alone. My father didn't like to watch movies, but he would accompany my mother to them. My mother couldn't cook before she got married, so my father taught my mother one dish at a time. ”
Under the influence of hearing and seeing, Tian Li believes that a sense of responsibility is more important in a relationship, and two people in a marriage should be able to stimulate each other's potential and let each other grow better. "The best relationship is to nourish each other, appreciate each other, and achieve each other."
Tian Li has always hoped to choose one person to die old and have the same love as her parents. However, it backfired. She had three relationships, but they broke up for different reasons. However, she has never regretted her emotional dedication and has been relieved of it. "In fact, in this life, from youth to adulthood, the people you meet at each stage are different, and when the time comes, it is normal for everyone to go their own way." Tian Li said.
"We have to have the ability to withdraw, and we can't live in negative emotions all the time." Tian Li said calmly, "When I end every relationship, I must be sad, but after the heartache, the past is over." Tian Li frankly admitted that she didn't want to be friends with any ex, after all, the other party may establish a new emotional relationship, and it is not polite to disturb others. If you meet your ex by chance, you just nod and smile at each other and pass by.
After experiencing the baptism of love, people will truly learn to love another person, and Tian Li is very grateful for the growth that each relationship has brought her. She believes that if she can meet love again in the future, it will be fate. If fate is not enough, a person must live well. Falling in love is a beautiful thing, and when love comes, she will still enjoy it happily.
For Tian Li, the unrelieved sadness is the departure of her loved ones.
In 1989, Tian Li's father was diagnosed with lymphoma. By the time my father was found to be sick, the cancer had spread. Together with her mother, she accompanied her father through his last days. With her mother by her side, Tian Li slowly accepted her father's death.
Since childhood, Tian Li has had the best relationship with her mother, around 2010, when her mother was at the end of breast cancer, she did not leave the hospital for a day and has been accompanying her mother. However, on October 8, 2010, her mother also left her forever.
Tian Li was able to face this matter calmly at first, but a year or two after her mother left, her thoughts had accumulated and overflowed, and in the face of this outright sadness, she finally couldn't help crying with a strong appearance. But Tian Li knew that she couldn't be trapped in this great sadness for a long time, and her mother in heaven didn't want her to be like this, so in the end she slowly accepted the reality of her mother's departure and buried her deep thoughts about her mother quietly in her heart.
03
Every grass and tree has love, and every mountain and sea is a scene
Tian Li likes to travel alone, and her way of traveling is to walk and see while walking, and have an in-depth understanding of the local people. There are many beautiful places in China, and Xinjiang and Tibet are two places that she longs for very much. However, both places were too vast and expansive, and she found it difficult to decide where to go first.
Tian Li has always had a dream, that is, to have a private "happy farm". A few years ago, by chance, she bought a small farm in Taitung. The location of this farm is very superior, with the mountains and the sea in the background, and whenever the wind blows from the sea, the small farm is perfectly integrated with nature in the wind. Monkeys, squirrels, boars and other small animals often haunt the farm, and when the flowers are in bloom, the farm is surrounded by flowers and butterflies.
When she is not filming, Tian Li often goes to a small farm to empty herself. There is no WiFi on the farm, and if you want to connect with others, you need to go down the hill to the commissary of a grocery store. During the epidemic years, she lived on the farm for a long time, learned to grow various vegetables according to the season with local farmers, and even learned to make fires and cut firewood.
"If you don't live in nature, you won't learn the instinctive survival wisdom of human beings." Tian Li said, "For example, to grow vegetables, you need to plant vegetable seeds in a small clay pot first, let it grow sprouts, and wait until it grows to four or five centimeters before transplanting the sprouts to the vegetable field." Fertilization and watering are also quantitative and exquisite, and vegetables grown with farmhouse fertilizer and plant ash taste much better than vegetables grown with chemical fertilizers. ”
Sharing her experience of growing vegetables, Tian Li was intoxicated, "The first time I ate the vegetables I planted, I suddenly understood what it means to 'think about a porridge and a meal'." When she wants to eat, Tian Li will go to the field at any time to pick fresh vegetables and fruits to cook, and sometimes she will call the Ami neighbors to share it with her.
The Ami people are the largest group of Gaoshan ethnic groups in Taiwan, China, mainly distributed in the Huadong Rift Valley Plain and major towns in the Coast Mountains. The Ami people are very funny, they say that they rely on the mountains to eat the mountains and the water, and the mountains and rivers are their food fresh-keeping boxes.
Tian Li admires the optimism of the Ami people, and sometimes, she goes out to sea with them to eat the freshest seashells and prawns. Freshly caught seafood is scalded in boiling water or simply steamed, and the taste is very delicious. This high-end delicacy may not be immediately available even at the city's top restaurants.
The Ami people do not have "life baggage", and even if they have a terminal illness, they will not be particularly depressed. They think that if I get sick, I should leave when I should leave, and I have to live every day happily. With the Ami people, Tian Li also became happy unconsciously.
"I feel like the Ami people have a lot of influence on me, and I've become more open-minded after getting along with them." She told her friends in Taipei that living on the farm was a very healing thing.
Of course, in addition to dealing with locals, Tian Li also enjoys watching movies alone, listening to music, and spending time with cats and dogs. The puppies of Tian Li's family have a "big" in their names, and the three puppies are called "Wang", "Uncle" and "Uncle". In the names of the kittens, there is a "little" word, and the three kittens are called "little brother", "little girl" and "little girl".
She also raised a group of beautiful Brahma chickens, and the Brahma chickens also have names, some are called "Concubine Mei", and some are called "Concubine Lin". is obviously just one person, but Tian Li has lived into a team with a good reputation. Speaking of the leisure time in the "Happy Farm", Tian Li's eyes suddenly had a flying look. She is looking forward to the next time she takes a break from work and returns to Taitung to take a break.
"What time can leave must be the most suitable for yourself. A pot of old tea, three or five confidants, will win countless in the world. Tian Li doesn't have many friends in life, but those who are still around are like family. When her friends encounter a low point in their lives, she usually doesn't give much advice, but lets them vent their emotions here to their heart's content, and is responsible for being a good "emotional trash can" for friends.
"Of course, friends should help each other, but you can't help others decide their own lives, so the problems they encounter still need to be solved by themselves, and we can only be there to accompany, assist and cheer for our friends." Tian Li said.
Tian Li's life is very environmentally friendly, she never uses pesticides, and only uses natural methods to repel insects, such as wormwood. But in order to take care of the friends who came to the "Happy Farm", Tian Li still installed air conditioning in one room.
Thousands of sails have passed, but at the end of the world, not only the earth is white. Only by experiencing the great opening and closing of life can we enjoy the loneliness of life, and even the distance and poetry.
This article is an excerpt from the September 2024 issue of Marriage & Family magazine
Original title "Tian Li: Half a life of open-mindedness, a thought of landscape and pastoral"