My Dream Goes On

Sara runs a CD store at a university. I met her three years ago when she first came to Beijing, was a lead vocalist in a band and a CD peddler. I met her again at the Midi Music Festival. Sara organized more than 50 college students to work at the festival. She was outgoing and warmhearted as always. Her name has been changed.

Sara was a little nervous when I began the interview. We sit at her small store, as people milled in and out, looking at and buying CDs.

Sara is from Shanxi Province. She went to college there as an art major specializing in oil painting and also studied vocal techniques and sang in a band. The group performed in bars and earned a lot of money for college students. After graduation, she worked as journalist, accountant and as the governor's assistant in the regional government. However, she wasn't satisfied with this ordinary, safe life. "My parents wanted me to find a good job and give up all my dreams, interests and ambition, but I was not the same type as the guys I was working with. I left home without saying goodbye to my family." With the money she had earned singing in bars, Sara came to Beijing in 2000.

"I thought I was destined to be a star," Sara said, laughing. " I was overconfident and disaffected." She spent a year learning performance at the Beijing Film Academy while living in Shucun, then a well-known bohemian area full of rockers, painters and other artists. Every day, she got up early, trekked for two hours to the university and returned at 11pm. Gradually, living far away from home began to pall, but when reporting news back to her mother, she was brave and tough. She met Xiaoyu, her present boyfriend, because his band needed a female vocalist. She joined the band and began performing in bars again. Xiaoyu got her into selling CDs to university students. Because she needed to be able to recommend music to people, Sara listened to many CDs so as to categorize them by contemporary music genre. She can now recognize genre merely by a glance at a CD cover.

Performing in bars was not easy. The group earned little, sang a lot, sometimes over 40 songs a night, and each earned between 40 and 80 RMB for one night. Said Sara, "The worst thing was that I had to sing rubbish." Meanwhile, CD business boomed as they gained the trust of growing numbers of customers. Eventually, they gave up the band entirely.

Sara enjoys her work. "Most of my customers are students and are lovely people. We trust each other. I know a lot of bands, many genres, and I recommend good music. They can preview CDs in my store before buying, and even exchange purchases. Sometimes, I keep open accounts for them."

When I asked her whether she had given up her ambition, she joked that she had now set her sights on being a good mother. But she has not given music up, and will finish her demo CD of ten songs at the end of this year. And then? The work goes on. She told me assuredly, "I'd like to do more significant work related to music, like organizing school concerts and bringing more people to better music."