At this time, Ouyangguang saw a travel schedule on her desk. In the empty grid was written "Ouyangguang Vocal Music Class C, Dance Class D", and the handwriting was a little blurred by the coffee stains.
His eyes swept over the practice and assessment ranking list posted on the wall. The top few names were circled in red pen, with "key training" written next to them.
"Stop teasing you!"
"Let's go. I'll take you to the etiquette and expression management classrooms first." Jin Minzhi picked up the folder on the table. "These two courses are held every Wednesday and Sunday. They are compulsory courses. They mainly teach camera expression and etiquette standards in public occasions."
In the elevator, Kim Min-ji carefully checked his clothes: "The collar should be turned up. Teacher Choi pays attention to these details."
Although he didn't know what to do with a simple white T-shirt, Ouyang Guang thought to himself, but he still straightened his clothes.
"When you see Teacher Cui later, remember to bow and greet him first." Jin Minzhi suddenly lowered her voice.
The etiquette classroom is on the fourth floor. The classroom is covered with dark blue carpet and mirrors cover the entire wall. A row of high-heeled shoe models are placed in front of the floor-to-ceiling window. Kim Min-ji knocked on the door and a gentle female voice came from inside: "Come in." A female teacher in her thirties wearing a pearly white shirt stood up and smiled appropriately: "This is the new Ouyang Guang, right? I am Cui Yilin, responsible for your etiquette and camera performance."
"This is teacher Choi Ye-rin," Kim Min-ji bowed respectfully, and Oh Yang-yang followed suit.
Teacher Cui was adjusting the angle of the bow model and waved to Ouyang Guang: "Come on, try a 90-degree bow." He bent down as he was told and heard Kim Min-ji behind him say to the teacher: "This kid is pretty steady. He didn't lose focus during the Korean class this morning."
The carpet in the middle of the classroom was marked with standard standing positions. Teacher Cui asked him to walk a few steps and make some basic expressions to the camera. "Your body coordination is good," she wrote on the recording board with a pen, "but your eyes are a little too dull. Pay attention to conveying emotions during future camera training."
Ouyang Guang nodded, his eyes falling on the photo of artist etiquette training hanging on the wall - the members of Girls' Generation were wearing the same uniform, and their smiles were so standard that they looked like they were copied and pasted.
Teacher Cui approached Ouyang Guang and suddenly lifted his chin with a ruler: "Your eyes are too scattered." The cold touch of the ruler made him shudder, "Artists must always remember that there are millions of eyes watching you."
Then he was asked to stand in front of the camera and demonstrated a few simple standing postures and bowing: "It is very important for artists to have good manners in front of the public. Even the walking posture needs to be practiced repeatedly."
She asked Ouyang Guang to walk a few steps and adjusted the angle of his shoulders towards the camera. "Not bad, the figure is very good, but it's a little too stiff, relax a little."
Teacher Cui tapped Ouyang Guang's shoulders with the pointer, "Don't let your shoulders fall, as if there is a string above your head pulling you." When the pointer landed on his shoulder blades, he heard Jin Minzhi whisper at the door, "This child has good expressiveness, but it's a little too...bland."
In the next hour, Ouyang Guang learned how to bow at different angles to greet seniors, peers and staff; he learned that the thickness of the strokes when signing can reflect one's personality; he was even asked to repeatedly practice the "most photogenic smile" - with the corners of the mouth raised 27 degrees and the eyes slightly narrowed but without revealing wrinkles.
"Your facial expression management is not up to standard," Teacher Cui gave me a C on the final evaluation form. "Practice for two hours next week."
"The acting class is next door. I'll take you to visit it." Kim Min-ji took him to another classroom. "Teacher Li Yuanyuan used to be a musical actor." When he opened the door, there were people practicing their lines inside. When they saw someone come in, they paused for half a second.
Teacher Li is a middle-aged man with curly hair. He asked Ouyangguang to improvise an emotional scene of "receiving a notice of graduation." Ouyangguang stood in the middle of the classroom, thinking of his mother's tears when they said goodbye just now, his Adam's apple rolled, but he didn't let any expression climb onto his face.
"Well," Teacher Li put down the script, "You have strong control, but lack explosive power." He pointed to the emotional explosion area in the corner, "Starting from tomorrow, come here and shout out your lines for ten minutes every day to force out what's in your heart."
Kim Min-ji explained beside her: "Acting classes are held three times a week, interspersed with etiquette classes. This is an independent training class and you can choose it yourself." Ouyang Guang said "Oh" and noticed an obvious sign of wear and tear on the classroom floor, like evidence of being repeatedly trampled by countless feet.
When I walked out of the classroom, I heard crying from the next room. Kim Min-ji said it was the theater classroom. When I opened the door, a man with long black hair was crying heartbreakingly on the stage. There were more than a dozen people practicing sitting in the audience. Some of them were watching intently, while others were staring blankly.
"Emotional burst training," Kim Min-ji explained quietly, "only once a week."
The man on the stage suddenly fell to the ground, and his crying stopped. After a moment of silence, the classroom erupted in warm applause. The instructor was a middle-aged man with a goatee. He patted the man on the shoulder and said, "Good. Remember to control your snot next time."
Suddenly he saw Ouyang Guang standing at the door, and his eyes lit up!
"You! Yes, you! The blond kid, come on stage!"
"Sister Minzhi, I remember that my class schedule doesn't seem to include these courses?" Ouyang Guang said in a low voice through gritted teeth.
"Ha~ It's okay. You have to learn it in the future anyway, so just consider it as adapting in advance!" Kim Min-ji pushed him.
When Ouyang Guang was escorted to the stage, the black-haired boy wiped his tears and passed by him, whispering "Oops". The topic given by the teacher was "The moment when you found out that you were not selected out of the group".
More than 20 pairs of eyes were staring at him. Ouyang Guang took a deep breath and suddenly remembered the scene a few days ago at the Sichuan Airport when Chen Zheng and his friends hid behind the security checkpoint and secretly wiped their tears.
He didn't cry, but just slowly squatted down, his fingers unconsciously stroking the floor. Then he suddenly laughed, his shoulders trembling, and he curled up into a ball. The laughter gradually turned into sobs, and finally returned to dead silence. When he looked up, the tears in his eyes sparkled under the light, but they never fell.
The classroom was silent.
"Interesting," the goatee teacher stroked his chin, "using a smile to express despair..." He wrote a few words in his notebook, "Starting next week, come to my advanced class every Monday night."
Coming down from the first floor, Jin Minzhi pointed to the signs on both sides of the corridor and said, "Look, the vocal department and the dance department are separate, each occupying three floors. Each department is divided into four classes, A, B, C, and D, based on their strength."
"Class A is the strongest, and Class D is the basic class. You have a good vocal foundation, so you can move up to Class C on the second floor."
They went to the vocal music department first. The vocal music department was on the east side of the building. There was a sign on the door of the Class C classroom on the second floor that said "Vocal Music Class C". There were a few people practicing their voices in the classroom. When they saw Kim Min-ji and the newcomers come in, they all stopped.
"This is Ouyang Guang, the new trainee. She will be in Class C with everyone else." The male teacher who sat next to Kim Min-ji in front of the piano introduced her, "This is Mr. Park from Vocal Class C."
Teacher Park was probably in his thirties and wore a pair of gold-rimmed glasses. He asked Ouyang Guang to sing a song at random.
Ouyang Guang thought for a while, then sang a classic English song "Seasons in the Sun" with a steady voice and full breath.
"The pitch is good," Mr. Park pushed his glasses, "but the way you pronounce the words is wrong." He walked behind Ouyang Guang and put his palm on his abdomen, "The force is here, not in the throat."
When the teacher's hand pressed on his belly, Ouyang Guang suddenly thought of his vocal teacher when he was a child, the woman who always liked to wear red skirts, who said that his "voice was gold and his breath was like cotton."
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