Photo: Courtesy of Ayunga

Name: Ayunga
Age: 21
Hometown: Erdos, Inner Mongolia
Career: Singer and dancer and now studying at Beijing Dance Academy

By Sheng Taotao

Ayunga has more life experience than most of his contemporaries in the Beijing Dance Academy. Now 21, he was born in the grasslands, and living up to his name, which means "thunder" in Mongolian, he left to try to seek his fortune in the big city, "to achieve something in young life." It seems like the talented ambitious young singer and dancer has the drive to succeed where others have not.

How much money did you have when you first arrived in Beijing?

I had 200 yuan ($30) left after paying for a 400-yuan train ticket. I stood all the way in the train, for 14 hours. I was 16 years old then.

What did you do to make a living as a new arrival to the city?

At first I got some odd jobs, singing in bars and clubs. And then a Mongolian friend of mine introduced me to a dinner club to perform in dance musicals. The musicals were all about Mongolian traditional weddings. Of course I played the role of a bride-groom. You know, weddings in the grassland usually last three days and nights. People sing, dance, drink and get drunk and keep singing and dancing. There are endless folklore songs to sing. And the lyrics are all about our history, life and love in the prairies.

Your talent of singing and dancing is from your family?

Every Mongolian seems to have singing and dancing genes in them. I am the youngest child in my family of five kids. My older sister looks after a herd of 300 sheep and her family of five but she's not a singer. But if you hand her a matouqin (traditional Mongolian horse head violin), she can play. She sings Mongolian folklore songs very well.

Both my parents died before I was six years old. My oldest brother, who's 20 years older than me, raised me. I was recruited by the dance troupe of Chengdu People's Army when I was 14 years old. So I left home at that young age.

How was life in Chengdu dance troupe?

It's boring. I mean we had the dance training every morning and the whole afternoon and evening are sort of free.

There were not many books or much music around. I felt I was wasting time. I felt isolated from the outside world. My father left me nothing but 270 acres of grassland. Either I will go somewhere bigger or I'll go back to the prairie, but not stuck in the middle.

So you're a landlord?

You can say that. If someday I go back to my homeland, I don't have to work in a dinner club to do these dancing performances. I would buy a few hundred sheep and that would be my living.

What did you do for the acceptance test at Beijing Dance Academy?

I just sang out loud. I closed my eyes imagining that I was in the prairie.

Do you ever imagine yourself herding sheep since you made it to the Beijing Dance Academy?

Why not? I grew up in that grassland. I could always do that and I could only do it better than when I was a child. I remember when I was 5 or 6 years old, I had to help herd sheep five kilometers away from home. I sang in the grassland for hours so I forgot the sheep and 10 of them got lost.

Speaking of Beijing Dance Academy, I did not have an idea about what I was going to do in Beijing before that. I made a few thousand yuan each month by doing performances in the Mongolian dinner club and again I felt bored. I mean, was that all? Then I was told about the academy.

What's your plan for the future?

I am a young dancer. I have to do the hard training and I want to see the world as much as possible. I want to live my life to the full.

What if you're not able to achieve that?

Then I go back to the prairie where I am from. Didn't I tell you that I own 270 acres of grassland there?

Ayunga can be reached at gaga1026@163.com

shengtaotao@globaltimes. com.cn