Lei Haiwei 38 years old, in April 2018 Lei Haiwei won the overall champion of the third season of the Chinese Poetry Conference, and in July of the same year, he was invited to serve as a full-time teaching and research teacher at Chengdu Tian Hua Kai School. Li Dong photo
Nearly a year and a half later, Lei Haiwei can still clearly remember the scene when he won the overall championship of the Chinese Poetry Congress.
Before that, he was labeled a "delivery boy," riding an electric bike through the streets of Hangzhou in rain and wind to make a living.
During that time, Lei Haiwei received more than 20 job offers in total***. The highest price is a cultural tourism company in Beijing: he wants to be the company's image spokesman, the contract lasts for a year, the annual salary is a million.
In hindsight, Lei Haiwei sees this as a turning point in his life - a TV program in the Internet age that cuts his 38-year-old life cleanly, and which even he hadn't expected.
"It was like a dream." Lei Haiwei lamented.
From deliveryman to "Mr. Lei"
The million-dollar annual salary offered by the cultural tourism company surprised Lei and moved him. After all, this is compared to his income when delivering takeout, no less than a vast difference.
"The annual salary is more. But what am I going to do after a year? What else can I do?" The long night, Lei Haiwei lying in bed in Hangzhou dormitory asked himself.
After nearly a month of thinking, he decided to give up.
For the first time in his life, Lei had too many job offers. His response to most of the offers was, "I'll think about it after this period of time."
His parents and other elders had hoped that he would go back to his hometown and find a job in the system, so that the family could be reunited and live a stable life.
At this point, the head of an educational training school in Chengdu came to him. He said to Lei Haiwei on the phone, "We can't invite you to come here, but we have to invite you to come here."
This education training school, want to invite Lei Haiwei to go as a teaching and research teacher, compiling classical poetry teaching materials.
In Chengdu in late March, the city was under cloudy skies and drizzling rain. 38-year-old Lei Haiwei wore a new light-gray Mao suit and a pair of black leather shoes, sitting in his own office, which was about 10 square meters in size. Desk placed a stack of language teaching materials; inside a wall in front of the house, stood a four-tier bookshelf, the four great masterpieces, all the sons of the canon, "Liaozhai Zhiyi" and "Tang poetry, Song lyrics and Yuanququ" and other books are arranged on the bookshelf.
The work area of the teaching and research department of this education and training school is located on the sixth floor of the Sichuan Provincial Materials Building. On the floor, every staff member who met him, gently called "Mr. Lei".
The corners of Lei Haiwei's mouth curved upward, and he nodded at them.
Here, Mr. Lei's daily work is to prepare teaching materials and scripts for ancient poems, or to record teaching videos. Sometimes he also gives talks to children and parents about his own experience of learning poetry.
He now works more with children. The two ancient poetry textbooks that he participated in compiling are in the form of using dialogues and pictures to let children feel the rhythm and picture sense of poetry; in September 2018, he once took a group of elementary school students to Wangjianglou Park, where he taught them couplets and humanistic allusions on the Wangjianglou. Walking on the bamboo forest path, he also gave the students knowledge of poems related to bamboo.
"It's been more than half a year, and I've gotten used to what I'm doing now." Lei Haiwei said. Unlike in the past, when he hardly interacted with customers, he now has regular contact with children, "They are lively and energetic, and I feel quite young."
The desktop computer desktop on the workstation, stored a few need to Lei Haiwei compilation, review of teaching documents. He opened one of them, it was the Song Dynasty lyricist Yan Shu wrote "Raccoon River Sand": "A new song and a cup of wine, last year's weather old pavilion. When will the sun set in the west?" The bottom of the word, is the word name interpretation and word content explanation, nine lines of italic characters, are Lei Haiwei hit the keyboard to enter.
The compilation of teaching materials also involves knowledge of classical culture. For this reason, Lei Haiwei took advantage of his free time to read the popularized version of the "Medieval Times" and "University". His desk recently placed a copy of the "Gu Wen Guan Zhi", from time to time will pick up and flip through a few pages - a new job in urgent need of "recharging", which is the work pressure he faces.
"Mr. Lei is very easy-going. Although there is not much to say, but when discussing the issue, always be able to put forward their own insights." Xie Qiang (a pseudonym), a colleague, said of him, "He has a surprisingly large reserve of poems." Xie Qiang introduced the teaching form of guessing poems from pictures in the textbook, which was thought up by Lei Haiwei, thanks to his inspiration from the competition when he participated in the Chinese Poetry Congress.
In Chengdu, the takeaway boy became "Mr. Lei".
"I'm not a big fan of delivery." Lei Haiwei said it was just a stopgap measure to make a living.
Before the delivery, Lei Haiwei also did a lot of work. 2001, after graduating from secondary school, he left his hometown in Dongkou County, Hunan Province, and ran to a factory in Shenzhen to do half a year of electrician; in 2002, Lei Haiwei went north to the Shanghai Maglev train construction site to do a small worker; since then, he has been in the car wash as a car washer, a waiter in the restaurant, and also did a salesman and gift sales.
In 2008, he went to Hangzhou. In this first impression of the city is "beyond the mountains, beyond the building, the West Lake song and dance when to rest", a stay of 10 years.
"Not counting Netflix"
In the age of the Internet, it has become commonplace for ordinary people to become famous overnight. The first time I saw this, I was in the middle of a long journey, and it was a long time ago that I was in the middle of a long journey, and it was a long time ago that I was in the middle of a long journey, and it was a long time ago that I was in the middle of a long journey, and it was a long time ago that I was in the middle of a long journey, and it was a long time ago that I was in the middle of a long journey, and it was a long time ago that I was in the middle of a long journey.
Lei Haiwei read these news, but do not feel novelty. April 12, after a long period of silence on the phone, he told the Beijing News reporter: "I do not think I count the net red."
After winning the title last year, he was contacted by a brokerage company that wanted to package him as an Internet star. A Hunan hometown working in Beijing also advised him to market himself well with the heat. But Lei Haiwei refused, arguing that he is not an entertainment artist and is not willing to sacrifice his freedom to make more money.
"I don't like to stand on the tip of the wind and waves, and I don't like to be the center of attention." He said. He prefers to read and memorize poems quietly than to be a netizen.
The relationship with poetry began at a young age. It was first grade, Lei Haiwei was 7 years old, his father Lei Changgen is one of the few cultured people in the village, read high school, worked as a substitute teacher. Lei Changgen loved ancient poems, he took a brush and transcribed the poems into pieces of paper in neat lowercase letters, pasted them on the kitchen wall, and read them to his son word by word. The company's main goal is to provide the best possible service to its customers," he said.
Lei Changgen remembers, Lei Haiwei grew up with an excellent memory, "take him to read three or four times, and then you can read."
The fascination with poetry began in 2004. At that time, Lei read Li Bai's "Chivalry" in a bookstore in Shanghai: "Ten steps to kill a man, thousands of miles do not leave a line. When the matter is over, I brush off my clothes and hide my body and name." Previously, when he watched a TV series, he had heard this poem, and an aura of chivalry ran through his body, making it unforgettable. After reading the whole poem, he was so excited that he recited Chivalry by heart.
It was also in this year that he began to learn poetic meter, studying the structure of poems, rhyme and leveling. As his interest in poetry grew, he began to memorize poems on a large scale.
Lei wrote down the titles of the poems he memorized on white paper, then took pictures of them and saved them on his phone. When he was waiting for his meal as a deliveryman, or when he was free, or when he was delivering food and waiting for a red light, he would turn on his cell phone, or take out the "Three Hundred Poems of the Tang Dynasty" in his pocket, and recite them over and over again. After coming to Chengdu, this habit still remains, "A day without memorizing feels like something is missing." Now, the title of the poem has reached the 1,197th - the most recent one he memorized is Li Bai's "Playing for Du Fu".
Lei Hai for memorizing ancient poems part of the "poetry list".
When he memorizes a poem, he usually reads the commentary first, and often remembers it after reading it once. But if you want to memorize it for a long time, you need to recite it again and again. "Repeat and repeat, if you want to say there is any trick, it is two words: diligence."
He memorized the poem purpose is very pure: 18 years of travel, want to find a place to rely on in poetry, to obtain spiritual comfort. As for the change of life trajectory, he has never thought about it.
But Lei Haiwei's fate did take a sharp turn because of poetry.
After becoming the winner of the third season of the Chinese Poetry Conference, Lei was thrust into the spotlight, with media interviews and invitations to events pouring in. The cell phone, which was originally used to take orders and contact customers, was flooded with thousands of messages at once. Phone messages, Weibo private messages, WeChat messages, all unread. There are friends to send blessings, the media about his interview, a company invited to join, there are poetry enthusiasts came to find him to explore the refining of words and meter.
Lei Haiwei was unanticipated and overwhelmed. Takeout is unable to send, this situation lasted a month and a half. Over time, the roommates occasionally complained, "Bring a reporter to interview again!"
The news of his fame soon reached his hometown. on May 15, 2018, Lei Haiwei returned to his hometown of Dongkou County, Yanshan Town, Lingjiao Village, was hired as "Yanshan Town, rural revitalization of cultural ambassadors".
Lei Haiwei's parents now live in their hometown. They are still in good health and do not need to be taken care of by others. The company's main goal is to provide the best possible service to its customers. In the village of Lingjiao, the townspeople have praised Lei Hai as "outstanding".
The number of visitors has also increased significantly. When you go home to visit your family, some poetry lovers come to Lei Haiwei's home, and he discusses poetry. But there are also people who don't really like poetry, but just "come and have a good time".
Last July, he named the "Lei Haiwei Cup National Poetry Competition", organized by the Rock Hill Township Government to start. Netizens have mixed feelings about this - some people think it's worth promoting, and others say it's "over-consumption".
"Secular world of the honest man"
Lei Haiwei can still fire how long? He doesn't know and doesn't care. "Fading out of the public eye is a natural process." He said with a smile.
After coming to Chengdu from Hangzhou, his life has gradually become more mundane. Media interviews and invitations to events were much less frequent than in the period after he won the third season of the Chinese Poetry Conference. After his work has settled down, there are fewer invitations of any kind.
When he first came to Chengdu, Lei thought of the Tang writer Wang Jian's "Sending Xue Tao to the School Secretary in Sichuan": "A female school secretary by the Wanli Bridge, living behind closed doors in the loquat flowers. How many talented people know how to sweep their eyebrows, but the spring breeze is not as good as it is."
The first place he visited was the Du Fu Cao Tang. In the depths of the Cao Tang, he thought about the world, and what came to his mind was Du Fu's line, "The path of flowers has never been swept by a guest, and the door of the canopy is now open for you. Now he feels that there are more people to talk to about poetry: he has made a lot of new friends, and when he discusses with his colleagues how to compile teaching materials, he often discusses the advantages and disadvantages of poetry.
"Lei Haiwei is obsessed with poetry." One of his friends said of him.
Today, he rents a house in a neighborhood near Chengdu's North Third Ring Road, surrounded by greenery. The house is on the 14th floor, with an area of 86 square meters, and is a two-room, one-bathroom apartment. The living room is furnished with two burgundy sofas, two rectangular tables against the wall, and a few chairs. Other than that, there is no other furniture.
He has a regular routine. When he comes home from work, he often sits alone in the living room, reads a book, browses the news, and goes to bed on time before eleven o'clock every night. In his spare time, he would cook noodles, make dumplings, or put on the Chinese dress he brought from Hangzhou, sit in silence and recite ancient poems.
On March 22, 2019, Lei Haiwei played a blowjob in his rented house. Li Dong photo
"I'm used to being alone." Lei Haiwei said. Before 2017, he lived alone in a small one-room apartment in a city village in Hangzhou. Then he shared a room with roommates and lived in a group, but didn't often interact with them. Nowadays, though, the feeling of loneliness occasionally hits him strongly, especially when he's walking home alone after a party.
The sound of a whimpering shawl occasionally emanates from Lei Haiwei's rented room. He likes to play "Jasmine Flower" and "The Smiling Wanderer", and in his opinion, music is one of the ways to relieve loneliness. Sometimes he misses his friends in Hangzhou, but inwardly he prefers life today. "Mindlessness makes the willow grow. I feel quite lucky, and I can also say that God rewards you for your hard work."
Cao Peng was Lei Haiwei's roommate in Hangzhou, where they spent more than a year crammed into a four-person room together.
He recalled that when he came back to the dormitory after work, his roommates were watching videos and playing games, while Lei Haiwei was reciting poems, reading books, or playing chess with his cell phone software. His impression of Lei Haiwei, "silent, not much chat with people, is a very honest person in the secular world, can also be said to be very 'Buddhist'."
"He came to today's premise, is to adhere to what they love, do a lot of preparation." Cao Peng, 26, said.
In 2018, after Lei Haiwei left Hangzhou, Cao Peng moved home after his original group rented house could no longer be lived in due to exposure. He changed jobs, but still delivered takeaways, running around the clock every day, from 8 or 9 in the morning until 11 at night.
In Cao Peng's view, Lei Haiwei undoubtedly seized the opportunity to change his fate. Despite being thousands of miles apart, the two men still chat on WeChat from time to time about their work life. Cao Peng wants to stay in Hangzhou, but the high prices in Hangzhou, how to plan for the future he said he was not clear, "do not know". He hopes that his friend in Chengdu can rely on his own talent to buy a house, a car, and live and work in peace.
"The material is not material in this life"
Last year, Lei Haiwei had a dream. In the dream, he returned to the stage and watched the fifth season of the Chinese Poetry Conference live. In the dream, he was neither a contestant nor a guest, but a "melon crowd".
In his vision, if he did not participate in the "Chinese Poetry Conference", he may now have returned to his hometown, contracted a piece of orange grove, and do farming business. 2017 to participate in the competition, he did not want to take the title, and did not set a goal for themselves, "after winning the championship instead of the inner peace".
"Life is up and down. It is only after experiencing more that I feel that the mind is important." Lei Haiwei said, "I don't care so much about success or failure now."
In Lei Haiwei's view, life pressure is always inevitable, such as marriage. Nearly all, Lei Haiwei has not found an object, lifelong matters once let the family headache. Parents like to compare him with his peers in the village. In previous years, when the Spring Festival back to his hometown in Hunan, he was arranged by friends and relatives to meet a few relatives, but all ended in failure.
"In terms of relationships, I think I'm quite a failure." He said.
Lei Hai was photographed while traveling through famous mountains in a Chinese dress. Photo by the interviewee
Lei Haiwei's way of relieving stress is to memorize poems. In ancient poems, he builds "his own spiritual world". "I try to face stress with a calm mind. Memorizing poems and reading is to have a stronger heart to face reality."
Lei Haiwei's ideal partner is Ren Yingying from The Smiling Proud Wanderer. He himself wants to be like Linghu Chong, "spontaneous, humorous, living a free and uninhibited life."
Nowadays, Lei does not hide his desire for a successful life in the secular sense. He plans to stay in Chengdu for a long time, save up a few years of money, buy a three-room house, and then set up a family, so that he can live a stable life.
"He (Lei Haiwei) is alone out there, I just hope he takes care of his health, do a good job, and then come back when he is old." Lei Changgen said.
"Taste tasteless place to seek my happiness, material not material between over this life." These are two of his favorite words, originating from Xin Qiji's "Partridge Sky - made in Boshan Temple". The allusion in the words is from "Laozi" and "Zhuangzi", to the effect that we should seek real happiness in the place of taste and tastelessness, and spend this life between becoming a material and not being a material.
"That's my creed in life, too." Lei Haiwei said. He thinks "it's a good job now", and if there are no changes, he wants to do it for a long time.
On the afternoon of March 22, Lei Haiwei walked into the Tianfu Square subway station. He was silent all the way, no one recognized that this is the "Chinese Poetry Conference" champion of the "delivery boy". Inside the subway car, Lei Haiwei looked out the window flashing advertisements, an expressionless face dissolved in the crowd.
After becoming famous, everything seems to be "gradually returning to the calm".
■Q&A
New Beijing News: In the past year, what is the biggest change for you? Lei Haiwei: In the past year, my biggest change is the change of professional identity. Before that, I was an ordinary takeaway delivery worker for a company in Hangzhou. Now, I'm a full-time teacher at this education and training school in Chengdu. New Beijing News: What is the standard of "new youth" in your mind? Lei Haiwei:
New Beijing News: In the future, what do you expect from the industry you are in?
New Beijing News: In the future, what do you expect from the national community?
Lei Haiwei: To give encouragement and rewards to those good people and good deeds of social positive energy, the moral system of the society is maintained at a high level, to build a civilized and harmonious society.