중국에서 농민공 출신 음악밴드, 바리나즈가 뜨고 있다

[kagy]

Varihnaz performing its first show of a national tour in Guilin, China, in September.Credit...Gilles Sabrié for The New York Times

By Vivian Wang

Vivian Wang traveled to rural Guangxi, China, to visit the lead singer of Varihnaz on his farm and to attend the band’s concert in the city of Guilin.

Oct. 29, 2024Updated 2:45 a.m. ET

Before setting out on his band’s first national tour, before recording another album and before appearing on a major television network, Ba Nong had one task: finishing the summer harvest.

Standing in a field edged by rolling hills, two days before the first tour date in late September, Ba Nong, the frontman of the Chinese band Varihnaz, looked over the yellowed remnants of the rice stalks he had spent the past few months tending.

“The land gets to rest, and I get to go play,” he said.

Planning around the harvest may be an unconventional way to manage an ascendant music career, but Varihnaz is an unconventional band.

For its members — two farmers and a former bricklayer from rural Guangxi in southwestern China — the land and their music are inseparable. Rather than the usual staples of love and longing, their lyrics dwell on pesticides and poultry rearing.

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Varihnaz means “fields filled with fragrant rice flowers,” in the language of Guangxi’s Zhuang ethnic minority. To fans, the group offers a refreshing break from China’s hyper-commercialized popular entertainers, with music about a simpler, slower way of life, an alternative to the intense competition of modern Chinese life.

Ba Nong hopes his music helps people consider shrugging off mainstream expectations themselves. “The more tolerant and developed a society is, the more diverse its lifestyles should be, too,” said the musician, who is 44.

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Ba Nong harvesting beans on his farm, a few days before the start of his band’s national tour. He’s selling rice from his farm at the shows.Credit...Gilles Sabrié for The New York Times

Born Wei Jiayuan, Ba Nong adopted his name early in his career; it means farmer from the karst mountains, a reference to his home region. He and his bandmates’ commitment to their lifestyle, even at the cost of conventional success, has been a guiding principle since they started attracting national attention last year, on a reality music competition, “The Big Band.”

When asked on the show what would happen if they advanced to the final rounds that September — which would interfere with the harvest — Ba Nong replied: “Then we’ll try not to get to September.”

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Before appearing on “The Big Band,” Ba Nong had been making music with a rotating cast of friends under the name Varihnaz for almost 20 years, as a hobby. The group played for crowds of 30 or 40 people and had little desire for more.

But when the reality show, which has often highlighted less mainstream musicians, approached him, he readily agreed.

“It was the peak of the pandemic, there were all kinds of quarantines, and there was also the Russia-Ukraine war,” he recalled during an interview in Guangxi, while loading the last of his harvest into a winnowing machine. “Everything felt very divided and tense.”

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Ba Nong preparing his farm’s organic rice.Credit...Gilles Sabrié for The New York Times

He saw an opportunity to share a message of peaceful coexistence, inspired by natural farming techniques, which eschew chemicals.

“When we went on, I was explaining to everyone about organic rice farming,” he said, laughing. “I was overeager.”

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The broadcast “didn’t show much of that,” he said.

Yet the band members — who by that point consisted of Ba Nong; Shi Ba, the other farmer; and the bricklayer, Lu Min — also made clear that they were not rejecting modern life, but adapting it. They talked onstage about breaking up harvest days with red wine. Often described as folk music but frequently crossing into rock or blues, their songs are as likely to feature electric guitars as a whistle made of fresh-picked leaves.

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Ba Nong making music with leaves during the first date of Varihnaz’s national tour.Credit...Gilles Sabrié for The New York Times

Ba Nong was born in rural northwestern Guangxi. At the time, China’s economy was booming, and like so many in his generation, he dreamed of moving to a city.

He eventually found work as a graphic designer in Guangzhou, the megacity near Hong Kong. On the side, he taught himself guitar.

He played love songs at first. But then friends introduced him to pirated CDs of African folk songs, and to Taiwanese Indigenous musicians who infused traditional sounds with contemporary influences. He wondered why Chinese music seemed to be separated into only two distinct genres — either pop, or folk music like the kind he’d grown up with, which was dismissed as uncultured.

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Ba Nong holding one of the traditional instruments he studied after returning to his home in rural Guangxi. He taught himself guitar while living in Guangzhou.Credit...Gilles Sabrié for The New York Times

His song “Mama’s Indigo Blues” drew on American blues and Zhuang mountain songs, which also often served as laments. Another song, “A Mei Wants to Be a City Girl,” was folk “but expressed the mood of modern people,” he said.

At the same time, he was growing disaffected by his work designing insurance ads. He read “The Half Farmer, Half X Lifestyle,” a book by a Japanese environmentalist about getting by through sustainable agriculture mixed with passion projects. In 2012, he moved home.

The change was lonely at first. Most young people were in the cities working, so Ba Nong played with village children. Other villagers couldn’t teach him to farm, because they all used pesticides.

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Ba Nong at home. The move back to the countryside was lonely at first, with most of the area’s young adults having left to work in cities. Credit...Gilles Sabrié for The New York Times

But he connected with other organic farming aficionados online.

He also found new hobbies. Cognizant that his hometown traditions were endangered, he visited local museums to study traditional instruments. He collected nursery rhymes in the Zhuang language, which has faded as schools push standardized Mandarin, and published a book of his lyrics and poems.

“Some people told me that my coming back was like retreating from the world,” he said. “I said no, after coming back, I am more useful.”

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Ba Nong couldn’t rely on other villagers to teach him to farm, because they all used pesticides.Credit...Gilles Sabrié for The New York Times

During an event promoting his book in a nearby city, Ba Nong met Shi Ba, who after graduating from a top university chose an itinerant lifestyle, raising pigs, bartending and busking. Shi Ba introduced him to Lu Min, who had left school at 13 and learned to play guitar while working in factories.

Together, they reconstituted Varihnaz, which had gone dormant as Ba Nong pursued other projects.

“Big Dream,” a song written by Shi Ba, cemented Varihnaz’s popularity on “The Big Band.” The lyrics span a migrant worker’s life, from childhood to old age, and narrate his exhaustion trying to make a living.

Many audience members cried during the taping. The song went viral, with some declaring it an anthem for a disillusioned generation.

Fame brought critics, too. Some viewers accused the band of overly romanticizing the countryside, or of exaggerating their farming lifestyles as a marketing ploy.

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Varihnaz fans at the Guilin concert. The lyrics of “Big Dream,” one of the band’s most popular songs, span a migrant worker’s life, narrating his exhaustion trying to make a living.Credit...Gilles Sabrié for The New York Times

Ba Nong was unbothered. Everything was romanticized, he said, pointing out that many young people flocked to cities because of TV shows, only to be disillusioned.

Besides, he wasn’t calling for everyone to become a farmer. Ba Nong knew his lifestyle wasn’t for everyone. He was promoting a mind-set.

On the first night of the tour, at a sold-out venue in the city of Guilin, Varihnaz shifted between slow songs led by a hand-carved flute, and “Field Song,” a pulsing number in which Lu Min struck the tip of a hoe with a drumstick as Ba Nong curled over an electric guitar.

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The band performing a slow song led by a hand-carved flute during their sold out first concert in Guilin.CreditCredit...Gilles Sabrié for The New York Times

When they sang in Zhuang, Mandarin translations were projected behind them. One song, “Extermination Curse,” was composed entirely of names of pesticides, recited in a monastery-like chant.

Halfway through the performance, Ba Nong clicked through a slide show, teaching the audience of around 450 people about natural farming techniques. He and Shi Ba had brought bags of their rice for purchase.

In describing why they liked Varihnaz, several audience members used the word “pure.”

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Fans checking out the organic rice at the merch table. Credit...Gilles Sabrié for The New York Times

“This is the era of clicks,” said Yu Zhujun, a 31-year-old visual artist. “Everyone is trying to get ahead. But they just stay true to themselves, perform when the time is right, and then go home to their own lives.”

Li Jingwei, a 24-year-old university student, said he grew up in the countryside of northern China, and had also longed to escape. He planned to stay in the city for now. But he admired Varihnaz for highlighting the beauty of what he had left behind.

“To be able to get this emotion from others, and let myself settle down and find a good job, is enough,” he said.

While Ba Nong expressed some disappointment that Varihnaz’s new popularity had not translated into more people reassessing their own routines, he knew that was a lot to expect.

The band has already achieved more than he ever imagined. Guangxi’s main broadcaster recently aired a program starring Varihnaz as ambassadors of pastoral bliss, and the band recently recorded an album at the studio of one of China’s most renowned indie rock bands.

Still, Ba Nong has no expectations for how long Varihnaz’s fame will last.

“If we become outdated, that’s fine,” he said. “I can go back to farming peacefully.”

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Varihnaz greeting fans after the band’s performance in Guilin.

Siyi Zhao contributed research.

Vivian Wang is a China correspondent based in Beijing, where she writes about how the country’s global rise and ambitions are shaping the daily lives of its people. More about Vivian Wang