Struggle

　

Singapore I-Weekly Magazine / 新加坡雜誌專訪 / 2002.4

 

  English Translation

　

Full of struggle in a lifetime.

Choosing between left and right,

Starting or ending.

Winnie Hsin struggled among friendship,

love and career in the year she entered the showbiz…

　

“It seems that I have some relationship with the word ‘struggle.’” Winnie Hsin said gently. She had kept asking herself for a while, that if she didn’t pick singing as her career, her career path would be a bit easy or not. Before singing, she was a teacher in a music school. ‘I was very happy at that time, many students treated me as their elder sister.’ Later, she became a singer suddenly. ‘It was a very difficult decision. As I studied vocal music, I hadn’t thought of becoming a pop singer.’ After a certain period of struggle, she harbored her courage and released the first album ‘Lonely Winter’. ‘After that, quite a number of friends treated me as a traitor of classical music.’ Winnie had a question mark on her mind for her preference.   

　

   Though her friends still misunderstood her after singing for a certain period of time, Winnie didn’t regret for her choice. ‘I love singing very much, and I’m glad to have the song “Understanding” and my favorite album “Selfish”.’ However nobody realized her hard time. ‘I graduated from music faculty and perhaps it let me to have some idea for pop music.’ But as a market-oriented singer, she struggled and learnt how to make choice sensibly. The album ‘Forever’ was released after a long period of struggle. ‘I used to object singing any cover versions but in this album, all are these.’ She showed her agreement after company’s persuasion. ‘As I grown up, I realized it’s a waste of time for such persistence.’  

　

   She sold 100,000 copies of this album. However do you know Winnie had the idea of retirement after the poor results of albums ‘How’ and ‘Talking About Love’? ’I was disappointed for the results so I wanted to retire. I sang from my heart but nobody realized it. I went overseas and understood the world is not just black and white. There are possibilities in between.’ She even didn’t care to have a boyfriend who was 15 years old younger than her. ‘I cared about age difference and hadn’t thought of happening on myself. You can just understand it after experienced it.’ The diva didn’t mind the opposition of family members and kept the love relationship. ‘I hadn’t made up my mind for a long time and fortunately my boyfriend showed his sincerity to my parents.’  Before finishing this interview, Winnie gave her comment. ‘We shouldn’t set a model for everything. No frame, no more struggle.’

　

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Chinese Original

人生總是充滿掙扎。

選擇向左走，還是往右走。

選擇開始，抑或結束。

踏入歌壇那年，辛曉琪已開始在友情、愛情和事業上經歷一輪輪的掙扎......

　

        『我似乎與「掙扎」這兩個字很有緣。』辛曉琪氣定神閑地開始說起。她說有一陣子，她甚至反復問自己，如果沒有選擇唱歌，這條路是否可以走得平坦一點。未唱歌前，辛曉琪在一間音樂學校擔任老師。「那段教音樂的日子很快樂，不少學生都把我當姐姐來看待，感覺很好。」後來，在機緣巧合下，她莫明地當上歌手。"那是個很辛苦的選擇"她娓娓說道，「由於我念的是聲樂，彈的是古典音樂，交的是一群喜歡這些音樂的朋友，所以當上流行歌手不是我先前所預料的。」在一番掙扎後，她鼓起勇氣地錄製首張專輯《寂寞的冬》，「出了專輯，不少朋友都認爲我是古典音樂的叛徒。」友情面臨打擊，讓她開始懷疑自己的選擇。   

　

        唱了一段日子後，即使繼續遭受到不少朋友的誤解，她始終不曾後悔過。「我很喜歡唱歌，也很開心唱過經典的《領悟》，還有出了一張我很喜歡的《自私》專輯。」當然，這期間她所面臨的掙扎，旁人無從看得到。「我畢業自音樂系，或許這樣的背景讓我對所謂的流行歌曲都有一定的要求。無奈的是，當一個歌手在銷售市場面前，他總是顯得特別的無助。因爲一路上的掙扎，我也開始學會取捨、理智地作出讓步。」新專輯《永遠》就是她經過一段長時間掙扎後的妥協。「一直以來，我很抗拒翻唱歌曲，尤其是這張專輯裏的歌曲全都是翻唱曲。」後來，在公司的說服下辛曉琪接收了這個安排。「人總會長大了，也開始意會到鑽牛角尖只會浪費時間。」 

 

        這張專輯爲她帶來10萬張的風光銷量。但沒有人知道她曾因先前的兩張《怎麽》和《談情說愛》的反應冷淡而萌起退休念頭。「當時我很失意，甚至想過要放棄，唱得這麽用心可是大家卻不曾留意。後來從外國旅遊後，領悟到世界並不是黑或白，很多的事情都可以有更大的可能性。」她說她看得更透徹，所以不介意與比她小15歲的男友談起戀愛。「以前，我很在意年齡的差距，我從來沒想過這樣的事會發生在自己身上。原來很多事情要在你親身經歷過後才能體驗到那種感覺。」因爲堅信這段戀情，她不顧家人反對，繼續與對方來往。「我曾因爲這件事掙扎許久...還好，男友終於用誠意打動了父母。」說著一路走來，她在訪問結束前留下這一句話：「我們不應該給事物設定一個模式，沒有了這些設定，也就不會有所掙扎。」