Chapter 23 Part Three: A Natural Body Must Be Useful

Dear Teacher Xu: Hello!I recently read your "Tuqiong Dialogue Record", which touched me a lot and made my blood boil.Your charisma and professionalism make me eager to get your guidance, to guide a bright road for a special girl like me among millions of people. What makes me special is that I am a 1.78-meter-tall, 20-year-old model born in Nanjing. I took the college entrance examination in the second year of high school, and was admitted to Zhejiang Institute of Light Industry with excellent cultural achievements and good external conditions. Design and performance major.Perhaps in the eyes of many people, models are those crazy girls who only go shopping, dancing, and catwalking all day long. When their youth is fleeting, they find a rich man to marry with their pretty face and perfect body.I hate the way people look at models, so I did modeling with a bachelor's degree.When I first entered school, I had great ambitions to be popular in the Chinese modeling industry, and to be an excellent fashion designer when I was older.

But what confuses me is that in order to become famous in the modeling industry, one must not only have excellent conditions, but also have a good opportunity. Currently, I have participated in two lesser-known modeling competitions, which did not give me fair recognition, nor Gradually lost the passion of the past.Secondly, in the second half of the third year of my junior year, I am less and less interested in fashion design. I think that if you want to achieve something in the industry, you must first have interest and passion. It is not bad to have talent without interest.The point is that I don't have both.Moreover, after graduating from a bachelor's degree, as a model, she will also be eliminated due to her age.Although choosing the career of modeling gave me a lot of self-confidence, I still felt that in the end, I was accomplishing nothing and was a failure.The only thing I am lucky about now is that I am still young and have good external conditions.Everyone's evaluation of me is that I look more mature and stable than my actual age, cultivated and rational, feminine but with a certain unyielding temperament of a man mixed in my bones.

Please ask Mr. Xiaoping to help me design the future.I was an introverted girl since I was a child, but I always dreamed of becoming a successful professional woman in the business field. I don’t know if I can choose such a path because I am not sociable.The biggest obstacle is that the major I am currently studying has nothing to do with business management and international trade.I don't know whether I should continue to work hard on my clothing major, or completely abandon the major I have studied and start from the lowest level of a foreign company (such as a secretary). Am I suitable for this line of work as an unsociable girl?Will it work?

I used to want to study in France when I was studying fashion design, but now I am inspired by your book. If I really change my career to management, I would like to work for two or three years as you pointed out, and then go abroad for postgraduate study. Combine practical experience with learning is the best effect. I know you are very busy, and there are many people waiting for your help. Please take a little time out of your busy schedule to read my letter and give me some guidance for a girl who is unwilling to be mediocre. What should I do better? Woolen cloth?In the future, I will work tirelessly for it...

slender Dear Chang Chang: I am very glad that I can read your letter and reply to you. You are indeed a unique one among my readers.I think your question is: Since God has given you a natural body, you should make good use of it.Li Bai said "I am born to be useful", according to research, it actually refers to the figure! Relying on mountains to eat mountains, relying on water to eat water.Yao Ming relies on his legs, Feng Gong relies on his mouth, and models rely on his body devil.Since you have a special body, you should try your best to sell this advantage to the market and use it to the limit.

However, you have not made full use of this body advantage, that is to say, you have not searched for and chosen opportunities with great fanfare in the modeling field.You know, a model needs to collide with countless opportunities in order to get a chance of success.It takes countless times to collide with opportunities, but just one chance is often enough to last your whole life.This is a special case of the modeling industry. Unfortunately, you're headlong into college campuses, far from where a model's most-needed opportunity is.Although you are studying a major related to modeling, after all, it is only related, and it is for the future, not to pursue today's success, not to get involved in the modeling business itself in an all-round way.

Going to college is a success for most people, but it may be a mistake for you.Because, you are not an ordinary person, you are a special talent!Your mistake stems from a core ideological mistake, that is, you are still living for others, you have to fight for your breath, and you have to use values ​​that are not suitable for you to prove that you are not yourself, but someone else. What is your self?Your self is the model.This is the will of God, the creation of heaven and earth.But you didn't go to various catwalks under the mercury lamp to show your graceful appearance, but came to the narrow dormitory on the university campus, and claustrophobic your slender figure.

You know, the only way for a model to prove himself is to be a successful model, earn money as a model, become famous as a model, and exist as a model.You are a model, therefore you are here. (I model, therefore I am.) Since you have a higher spiritual pursuit and a purer personality value, you put these things in your modeling practice, and with your excellence, change everyone's misunderstanding of the modeling industry , Changing the climate of the modeling industry. But instead, you let degrees change you, you let other values ​​change you, you let other people's opinions change you.I think even though you have to finish your current college studies, you still have to fight to become a successful model, just like our Yao Ming went to college and continued to play instead of going to graduate school.You should focus the vast majority of your energy on pursuing your career goal of becoming a model.For example: make full use of every opportunity, during the study period, continue to go to places where models gather in local and central cities, attract people's attention, get acquainted with big names in the industry, and strive for opportunities to appear.

I even took a break from school for a year or so for the development of models, and used this time to seek opportunities in central cities like Beijing and Shanghai.This may seem extreme, but it is the top secret of talent success.When I was at the Central Conservatory of Music, there was a boy in the conducting department who was so obsessed with his own affairs that he dropped out of school altogether. In the 1980s, he became the biggest name in pop music production in China.At that time, there was also a girl from the composition department. When everyone was thinking of bean sprouts as musical notes for composing, she regarded musical notes as words. She had no achievements in composing, but she became the master of modern novels.In their situation, they all saw their own specialties - one was arranger, the other was composition, and they gave up the way out prescribed by their own disciplines.

Others go to university, which is the road to success, but you go to university - if you really want to be a model, the university campus may become your barrier to the T-stage.The model's diamond may be buried in the dust of knowledge. everybody is good for something.A college education may be important, but it's not for everyone, and it doesn't have to be completed by age 22.A little delay is not a bad thing.Yao Ming is said to have gone to college, but obviously his main energy is playing basketball.If you study a bachelor's degree seriously, New Oriental may have one more student who wants to go abroad, but the world will lose a great star.Yao Ming's story is obviously the best example of how to make good use of "natural talent".

Not every striver is able to succeed.If Yao Ming, through hard work and trials, finds that although he is tall and can dry clothes, but cannot play basketball, then he can apply to study at Peking University (as an alumnus with me) or Barrington University (as an alumni with his fellow Shanghainese Wu Zheng) Not too late for a degree.Therefore, you must go to the end in the direction guided by God, and decide the order of your life according to God’s will: follow the call of your heart and conditions, and do what God wants you to do, you must do it to the end, and do this article fully. , Until practice proves that the path you choose is not feasible, until practice proves that God can make mistakes. My advice to you, is to try to get on the catwalk and get out of your future, if you really think you have this natural condition.Modeling is a great business, one that every girl dreams of and very few are qualified for.You are only 21 years old. If you work hard, you will definitely have unlimited room for development. "I once had great ambitions to be popular in the Chinese modeling industry, and I can be an excellent fashion designer when I am older." These two dreams of yours are basically incompatible.The first dream, being a model, conflicts with your undergraduate studies; the second dream, being a designer, has nothing to do with being a model!There is no necessary connection between your fashion design and modeling.The world's great fashion designers are certainly rarely retired models who have aged from the catwalk!Your school actually has this professional setting, I think it is a mistake.The mistake is that the modeling industry is not regarded as an industry, but as a transitional behavior, a short-term behavior.This is a theoretical and pedagogical tragedy. I graduated from the Conservatory of Music.In conservatories and all art colleges, only those who cannot make a living from art itself, such as singers who find themselves unable to succeed as singers, will choose a related industry to change careers.Singers are music teachers and composers are music editors. Modeling is a great art, a dazzling industry, and a unique system.Modeling and fashion design are two completely different things.Putting these two majors together and letting someone with a model figure come to learn fashion design, I think it is ridiculous. In fact, only those who have no hope of becoming models are the most likely to become great fashion designers, just as few of the greatest poets and writers are handsome men.Because, since God did not make him a messenger of beauty at birth, he must complete God’s shortcomings by creating beauty—he must make up for God’s injustice to him by design, creation, and imagination.What drives him to create is his determined will and strength to make himself his own god.What should I do if I am born "not talented"?Make up for it by working hard. Therefore, staying away from the catwalk and entering the cold window of university is the first reason for your current predicament; while studying in this major that combines modeling and fashion design must be the institutional guarantee for your future troubles.Going to university is a choice with uncertain career goals.The mixing of models and fashion is the result of ambiguity in professional design.The goal is not firm, the purpose is not clear, how can the end of the road of life be seen? I have nothing against the idea of ​​you wanting to go into business or anything else.But I want to ask you a question: There are hundreds of millions of girls in China who can be secretaries, engage in international trade, and engage in general business management. Besides you, there are probably only a few hundred beauties who can be models?Please, seize the golden years of your youth and strive to grow in the line of work God has chosen for you.Models may be the rice of youth, although in the years when there is food, they can store more rice than they can eat in a lifetime.But youth is short, and the time when models show their faces is limited.Don't waste it. I am born to think that if I use it, it will be useful, and if I spend all my money, I can't take it back.Next time you write, either tell me that you have been judged by the market and professionals that you are not suitable to be a model, and then let me tell you how to develop next-or tell me that you have become or will soon become a "popular" model Chinese model! Xu Xiaoping Dear Teacher Xu: I really didn't expect you to reply to me (when I received your automatic reply letter, I thought the hope of receiving your personal reply was slim), let alone your reply would be so fast!You may not be able to imagine that when I opened the mailbox and saw your letter, I danced and shouted. The excitement and gratitude in my heart cannot be truly expressed to you through words! I may have misunderstood some things in the last letter, so you may have misunderstood.I didn't even know about the modeling industry in high school, and now this school has trained me to become a professional model and study fashion design.If it wasn’t for a teacher from this school who found me and strongly recommended me to be admitted to this school, I would have finished my high school career and entered an ideal university, studying an ordinary major such as international trade or English.The idea at the time was to take the college entrance examination in the second year of high school (my grades were not bad at that time, and modeling is an industry that relies on youth), and get that major.Because I believe that a model must have high self-cultivation and high quality in order to have more potential. After all, models with a bachelor’s degree are a minority in China (Beijing Institute of Fashion Technology and Shanghai Donghua University have such majors), and they will become a model in the future. trend.In addition, the costume performance and design major in our school is to cultivate multi-skilled and high-quality model majors. The mutual penetration and integration of the study of fashion design and fashion performance will make both aspects improve and progress.I don't think my college choice was wrong, on the contrary, I saw that the quality of those models without a diploma is very low. They have been modeling all the time, and some of them graduated from junior high school, but few of them were successful. . The modeling business is very dark when you actually walk in.I have neither background nor backer. The unfairness of the competition makes you really have no confidence.Secondly, if a model is not beautiful, she must be ugly and have personality, otherwise it will be difficult to have the capital to become popular. I am exactly the middle of the two, and I belong to the category that is not very beautiful. In fact, I have also thought about your suggestion, make good use of the gift of God, make good use of external conditions, and continue to seek some opportunities in this line of work after graduation.But you don't know, the age of the models is getting younger and younger, so young that I feel very old.I had expected such a day before, so the fashion design major can pave the way for me, so that the model will not be laid off and have nothing to do.However, I am less and less interested in design. I understand that the guidance given to me by Teacher Xu in the last letter is to give full play to my strengths and cherish what I have.If I continue to be a model after graduation, is it a good choice to study acting and design in France?If not, should I go to Beijing or Shanghai? However, a successful professional woman in the business world is still my dream. Should I really not waste resources?Shouldn't you be in business management?Should I give up this dream first?Or are there other age-free jobs in the modeling industry to try?For example, an editor of a fashion magazine, an assistant manager of the sales department of a clothing store... Every night when I can't sleep, I often think about my future repeatedly. I can't waste any more time. I will graduate in more than a year. I have to set a specific and suitable goal for myself immediately, so that I can work hard for the early stage. To prepare, please ask Mr. Xu to give me some guidance from his busy schedule again, thank you very much! slender Dear Chang Chang: Your letter still exposes some points of view that I don't think are correct, so I will put forward mine point of view: In my last letter, I said that your career goals are not clear (modeling or not), and your professional direction is not clear (modeling, or fashion), and your letter is still circling in this dilemma.This problem is really serious! You wrote: "Because I think that a model must have high cultivation and high quality to have more potential." The higher the quality of the model, the more potential it has, and I have no objection to this.But high-quality and high-cultivation must mean a bachelor's degree, and no diploma must mean no development potential?I don't think so.Just look at those superstars in Hong Kong - Zhou Xingchi, Leslie Cheung, Leung Ka Fai, Chow Yun Fat, Jackie Chan, they are all from a "vocational school" artist training class at best, and they don't have any "undergraduate diplomas" - overthrow education first doctrine!Those artist training classes linked to film and television production companies are a major invention for cultivating talents in Hong Kong, and they are also a great invention with great results. You also said in your letter: "The costume performance and design major of our school is to cultivate multi-skilled and high-quality models. The mutual penetration and integration of the study of fashion design and fashion performance will make both aspects improve and progress." I think the teaching idea expressed in your letter is almost at the level of kindergarten.A piano-playing student at the Central Conservatory of Music has never learned to repair or make pianos. If he thinks that he can only make a living by repairing and making pianos in the future, he should drop out of school as soon as possible and become an apprentice in a Beijing piano factory. Zheng Quan, an alumnus of the Central Conservatory of Music, who I am proud of, is a world-renowned master violin maker. I have never heard that he also has a bachelor's degree in violin performance! Originally, my letter did not want to involve the education system.But your statement makes me have to express my strong indignation at your school education thought.Because, it is the absurdity of this professional setting that has caused your troubles about the future and my old man's troubles - I have to preach a very simple problem to every young man: the pursuit of studies should be based on professional goals. Oriented; the design of the curriculum should also take the students' life outlet as the ultimate goal.And your major of design and modeling is deviated from this direction.In fact, it is enough to talk about fashion for the quality of models, and it is enough to talk about the works and styles of world fashion masters.As for the knowledge of cutting, sewing, washing, printing and dyeing, leave it to the designers to endure.You wrote again: "If I continue to be a model after graduation, is it a good choice to study acting and design in France?" Such a simple question contains the greatest confusion in life.If you continue to be a model after graduation, you can only study acting in France instead of designing.If you want to engage in design after graduation and go to France, it is best to study design instead of acting. The difference in career goals determines the difference in learning content; the difference in learning content determines the difference in professional ability and prospects.How can these two major issues of life and death be confused with each other! What I said above is that a person must scientifically and clearly define his career goals, and then decide on specific study subjects and study content. Let me talk about the professionalism I want to talk about most.And this professionalism, in your letter, also shows a worrying lack. If you decide to do something, whether it is modeling or fashion design, you must go all out, make every effort, spend your whole life, and do everything you can. When a person decides to choose a career, he must have a vision. Once he chooses his own pursuit direction based on his foresight, he must devote himself to it with a religious sense of mission. . This is what I mentioned in "Tuqiong Dialogue", the three "ions" that a person must have in order to be successful in his career, vision, passion and sense of mission.In that article, I also added ION—fasion, that is, fashion. I don't think you may lack this factor. However, you have no passion for becoming a model, and retreated despite the difficulties; you lack a sense of mission, and you did not regard it as your mission, and devoted yourself passionately to the mission promised by God.Among the three necessary factors for talent struggle, if two are missing, how can you succeed! The aforementioned Jackie Chan, for the sake of his honor as a martial arts superstar, never used a double, so that he almost died in front of the camera, and he has almost died without regret.For example, many Hollywood superstars, as well as many Korean superstars that we are more familiar with, have undergone plastic surgery even after they became famous. I don't approve of anyone risking their life just for a certain visual effect, and I don't encourage anyone to get plastic surgery for the pleasure of others.However, Jackie Chan's adventures and artist plastic surgery illustrate one point: those successful people, in order to achieve their life goals, that is, specific career goals, no matter whether they are giving up God's works or transforming God's works, they are not hesitating.After all, Jackie Chan's adventure is to reflect the glory of Jackie Chan created by God, while plastic surgery is just using artificial power to make himself more in line with the kind of person God wants! God is not human, but he can make mistakes. What is reflected here is the obsession and madness for a life goal.So many people in the world want to pursue success, but who can succeed?It is those who, after they have identified and established a correct goal, will never look back, regardless of the consequences, have passion, have faith in their hearts, will not give up until the Yellow River, and are still unwilling to continue walking when they reach the Yellow River! If being a supermodel is your pursuit, you should pursue it like this instead of using various excuses to not pursue it.There are too many people in the world pursuing the same goal!Mount Everest stands there, constantly sending out ancient calls and millennium expectations to the world. Everyone knows the glory and dream of climbing to the top of the world. In theory, anyone can climb up, but there are only a few people who reach the top in the end. people. The infinite scenery is on the dangerous peak - although I don't like to use this famous poem that has been misunderstood a lot, but here, I feel that this is the only sentence that can express my thoughts. You can go to the nine heavens to catch the moon, go to the five oceans to catch turtles, and go to the T-shaped stage to report victory.Nothing is difficult in the world, as long as you dare to have plastic surgery.You say "the modeling industry is dark inside", which is yet another confusing and harmful awareness.Tell you, there is no industry in the world that is not "dark".Competition, the competition of choosing means and the competition of unscrupulous means, are the natural behaviors of people in ancient and modern China and abroad when they strive for interests.The bottom line of competition is the law, and the law, even in a legal country like the United States, still has countless loopholes.One of the most frequent topics in American society is calling on people to play their cards according to the rules. Play by rules was one of the most attractive slogans of Clinton's presidential campaign.In other words, there are too many unruly and dark operations in American social life.When many Chinese talk about the market economy, they mean intrigue and intrigue.Now we have also implemented a market economy to a large extent, but unfortunately, from your letter, we can see that what is more difficult to establish than a system is people's ideology. How to view the competition within the industry, how to use the prevailing rules of the game in the industry, how to maintain the balance in the heart and the sanctity of principles when everyone is fighting fiercely for interests, in fact, it is not only you, but also me, and everyone in Chinese society Common challenges and torments.It is in this challenge and torture that the new values ​​and world outlook of the new generation of human beings will appear shiningly under the mercury lamp. If you choose Mount Everest, you choose climbing; if you choose a model, you choose competition.You said that you don't want to be a model and want to switch to business, think about it, the competition and darkness in the general business economy... help! Having said that, I don't really care if you're a model or a manager.What I care about is your mentality and way of looking at problems when you face challenges in life.All roads lead to Rome, and model managers are rich.If you are determined to be a model, you have to desperately do many things that you are not willing to do at present; if you are determined to be a manager, you also need to devote all your life strength to a struggle with life and a contest with the industry .Your choices are actually free, and your prospects are diverse.You can be a fashion designer, you can work in management in the fashion industry.The latter may also be very suitable for you.Kennedy Jr.'s wife is a public relations manager in the fashion industry at a CD company.She is also a very beautiful and manageable woman.You can also go this route. My letter only reveals a specific law of success.As for which path to take, it doesn’t actually depend on me, but on personal interests, surrounding environment, personal choices, methods of struggle, and finally God’s will—that is, the so-called planning depends on man, and success depends on God. So, although I can't decide for you in the letter whether to take the modeling path, the fashion design path or the management path, I can tell you: whether you want to be a model, a fashion designer, or a manager of a fashion store, In fact, all need vision, passion and mission (vision, passion and mission).You must know that if you want to succeed in any field, you must pay the same hardships and tribulations as in the field of modeling, and you must face the "darkness" and competition before and after the catwalk to be able to light up The spotlight of life, drink the champagne of youth! As for the specific evaluation, I think we need to talk face to face because of your particularity. I would like to meet you in Beijing—but don’t tell others, otherwise they will say that Teacher Xu only meets beautiful women.snort! Xu Xiaoping