Yang Mi | Instance Zones of Life

杨幂 | 副本人生

Yang Mi always says that, “I have to fully understand myself first”. In this year of fate*, she realises a few things again. It's just like going through the necessary journeys when finding herself, seeing and experiencing numerous of instance zones*, just to move close to the original itself.

*T/N: (1) 2022 is the year of Tiger and Yang Mi's birth year (1986) was too. Therefore, according to the Chinese cultures, every year of Tiger will be Yang Mi's year of fate. (2) 副本 (Fù běn) means "copy" or "duplicate" in English. However, this phrase is also now commonly used in video games with the meaning of "instance zone" (special area or new copy of location). And in this interview, the editor used this phrase mostly for the latter meaning.

During the photoshoot break, everyone surrounded the monitor to double check the outcomes. But Yang Mi sat alone at the other side of the backdrop while playing with her phone calmly.

“Are you playing games?”

“Yes, I'm now at the instance zone.”, Yang Mi answered, but her eyes were still looking at the phone screen while her fingers continued to move.

Yang Mi didn’t only mention once in her interviews that she wished to view her life as an “action/level up game”. For those audience who watched the E-sport show《战至巅峰》(We Are The Champions), they must know how much Yang Mi loves gaming. She always said that she didn’t mind, but in fact, her performance was very conscientious.

“It’s because the atmosphere has been heightened to that way!”, Yang Mi argued.

Her idea of “level up” came from playing games, “During the summer break of my elementary school days, my family bought a computer. So, I played RPG games for almost every day, completing the mission and moving up a level. –– Did you know《仙剑奇侠传》(The Legend of Sword and Fairy)? Playing games is just like gaining and storing energy. When you finally defeat the BOSS, you will be very satisfied.”

“But before defeating the BOSS, you must go through countless of failures and repeat the games again. Won’t you feel frustrated?”

“What is frustration?”, Yang Mi wasn’t questioning back. Instead, she spoke with a stable and calm intonation.

She had quit from being emotionally, “Frustration isn’t important. Everything that was happening –– either good or bad, both were something that should be happened. If you use the mindset of “playing”, they are just the experience you gained from an instance zone.”

When promoting《斛珠夫人》(Novoland: Pearl Eclipse), Yang Mi admired the role she played; Fang Hai Shi, who decided a hard mode –– going for a hard love relationship, and experiencing a hard life. However, real life and drama should be separated. Although she admired the role, she still preferred and wished to start a happy and easy mode:

“Did you guys watch any ‘reincarnation anime’? The main character was already a strong and skilful person in his previous life. But after he reincarnated and restarted his life, he had all the skills he learnt before. You think, who doesn’t want their life to be a ‘reincarnation anime’ too?”

Since it’s impossible to be lucky enough to hold a ‘reincarnation anime’ script, let’s just create and start more instance zones. Building up games within games through the instance zones, and achieving the final goal of returning to the original location with a feeling of exaltation upon fulfilment. Then, how many instance zones of Yang Mi’s life did she start?

She said: “My life is basically the progress of always breaking apart and rebuilding myself.”

Over the year and within every one or two months, Yang Mi would be the cover star of a fashion magazine –– every of them was her but at the same time was different too.

The fashion editor hopes to excavate different conditions of Yang Mi: As an actress, she must have hidden different attitudes within herself, then what type of styles should be used to express her different attitudes? And, what’s coordinated with the photoshoot were those pieces of articles/interviews about Yang Mi. In these articles, the details of her daily life were being highly depicted. For example, within this year, Yang Mi loved to wear various types of bead bracelets, interested in making phone cases, tufting rugs…… And, at a period, strolling has been the meaning of her life.

“Daily life is reserved for me and myself, and unrelated to others.”, Yang Mi’s voice echoed to my ears.

“Did any of them turn into your hobby now?”

“None of them, it’s enough for me to just try them. Otherwise, do I need to keep doing them for the rest of my life?!”, these things had been the parts of instance zone that were thrown away by Yang Mi.

Although Yang Mi didn’t mention directly, but you can tell her changes. For example, rather than being used to prioritise her career and put all her energy in it, now she will speak leisurely:

“Daily life is also very important. Although we always say that our daily life might be a part of work, we can’t say it as a sacrifice because when there is a gain, there must be a loss too. In this world, it doesn’t exist a person who live their daily life well and at the same time succeed in their career. This perfection doesn’t exist.”

She didn’t realise about this matter gradually.

“I am a person who is constantly changing.”

Yang Mi breaks our stereotype on the Earth signs*,

“There is no eternal rule in our whole life. All rules are possible to be broken. I never think that there is any fixed thing within myself. A person should always adjust their relationship with the surrounding because the surrounding is impossible to remain unchanged. When it hits you, you just endure it; If you can’t, then fight it; If you can’t defeat it, just run.”

*T/N: Earth signs are Taurus, Virgo (Yang Mi’s zodiac), and Capricorn. Earth signs are practical, stable, and grounded. (https://nypost.com/article/zodiac-signs-elements-explained/)

There are many ways to record a life progress, actors may have more. If she is asked to choose a way, Yang Mi prefers to record her life using her projects. When first entered the industry, she was famous for her extreme hard work. If films were passed to her hand, she would accept them and tried her very best to portray them; Until the movie《宝贝儿》(Baby) on year 2018, Yang Mi said, she only wanted to prove to herself –– not proving to others, but only proving to herself.

“At the current stage, my condition is just proving nothing. I am not very competitive in acting. I just want to do it well. However, if talking about comparing or competing with someone, I don’t have this thought because acting can’t be compared. So, I prefer to focus on myself.”

Talking about “Fù běn”, it has another common definition, that is a copy of art. The Iranian film director, Abbas Kiarostami wrote a line for his male protagonist in the movie 《合法副本》(Certified Copy): “My intention is really just to try and show that the copy itself has worth. It leads us to the original and in this way, certifies its value. And I believe that this approach is not only valid in art.”

Moving on to the story of another instance zone, Yang Mi’s new drama 《爱的二八定律》(She and Her Perfect Husband).

In the early of the year, when Yang Mi did voice dubbing for ‘She and Her Perfect Husband’, she watched her role, Qin Shi, and said: “This character is really cute.”

The “cute” mentioned here must be redefined: “This character is realistic enough. She looks smart but also not very smart. She has some self-assumed cleverness, whereby causing her to do some things that only she herself assumes are great; She lies once, and it needs her to use a hundred of more lies to cover up. So, the whole story expansion is basically the progress of the female protagonist “covering up her lies”.”

In this drama, Yang Mi played a role of a lawyer. Lawyer Qin Shi wishes to be a member of the top lawyer firms.

“Based on your opinions, what kind of clothes should a lawyer wear, what should she do, and how does she look like in her daily life?”, Yang Mi turned around and asked the people around her.

She wants to break the typical stereotype on a lawyer: “Please don’t forget that rather than a lawyer, she is a human first. Since she is a human, she must have feelings and desires. For example, a human will love to wear beautiful clothes, do pretty make-up. Although she is a lawyer, she is also a girl who is beautiful and loves to dress up nicely.”

With this attitude, she decided to not use any fixed pattern of acting skill on any characters she played. Also, not summarising any issue into a generally used principle. And, even be alert of the people who will always love to talk about value and give lectures in the daily life:

“Don’t let others’ attitudes affect your judgement or thinking. It’s very easy for you to be PUA (gaslighted)! Those people who are being PUA usually don’t know that they are. They must think that the others are doing so for their sake, think that what they said are right. My friend was PUA before. It (PUA) does not only happen in love or family relationships, but it is possible in all types of relationships.”

Yang Mi always have this kind of “clear-minded” speech. When watching 《花儿与少年第四季》(Divas Hit the Road Season 4), much audience will assume her as their on-screen “mouth substitute*”. Her candid attitude has never changed. She is straightforward and sharp. There were times when she wanted to learn “some “crafty*” communication skills which will not cause tense atmosphere”. But now she just gave up: “I don’t want to change anymore. It has been years and I can’t turn around* anymore. It’s too tiring.”

But there is a point which Yang Mi emphasised on: “I’m just saying so, and this is just my opinion. I don’t even have the thought of trying to convince anyone. What I said may not be right, so you guys don’t really have to refer to my opinions. We are all adults, so we will have our own different judgement too.”

The most suitable way of talking to Yang Mi is fast and effective, and no need to be very serious. She will automatically dodge any deep inquiries. And seems like all her experience gained from her instance zones is only useful for Yang Mi, whereas the others need to create their own instance zones to find the only answers belong to them.

*T/N: (1) 嘴替(Zuǐ Tì) can be written as “mouth substitute” in English. It is a Chinese internet slang and is usually used by C-netizens when they find someone is saying something that is very relatable but themselves do not dare to say out. So, they will call that particular person as their “mouth substitute”. (2) 见人说人话 (jiàn rén shuō rén huà) or the “crafty” in this context actually means being flexible and know what to say in different situations and to different people. (3) “Turn around” in this context means “become not straightforward”.

“At Heng Dian*, my right to stroll around is almost being deprived.”

To film her new drama《狐妖小红娘·月红篇》(Fox Spirit Matchmaker: Yue Hong Chapter), Yang Mi recently has been staying at Heng Dian. When the actors enter the filming set, it means that they need to stay long-term at the place. Therefore, many people “give up” on staying in the hotels and move into the same residential area. Due to many celebrities stay in that residential area, the paparazzi have kept their eyes on it.

“Those ‘news’ were all filmed at our residential area, making everyone worried and anxious. Although I can meet many of friends at Heng Dian, we don’t want every of our meeting is filmed.”

Heng Dian has become the extended map of another instance zone and it awakens Yang Mi’s feeling towards time.

“The building that I stayed has many of my acquaintance,”

Normally they will meet each other unintentionally when going up and down the building, making Yang Mi thinks that she is returning to her hostel life at Beijing Film Academy,

“My throat isn’t feeling well today, I want to ask if you have any medicine at home?” –– this long-disappeared conversation is once started again.

“When I’m bored, I can go to the others’ home, or take stuff from them. Things like these make me felt kind of happy.”

When Typhoon Muifa made a landfall at Heng Dian, Yang Mi’s house windows were blown and opened. When seeing the rain was almost splashing into the house, she tried to pull and close the windows but failed, “I remembered I have a neighbour upstairs, so I called him and asked for his help to repair the windows.”

During the pandemic, we are used to reduce movement. “I love to stay at a single place for a very long time. Don’t need to go here and there, just like staying at the filming set.”

Based on her explanation, it is similar to the “commute” kind of regular pattern: “When waking up in the morning, I wash my face, apply a facial mask, and alleviate my swollen face with a facial device. Then, I will go to work; When returning home at night, I will remove my make-up, take a bath, drink some red wine, play a few rounds of games. Then, I will sleep.”

*T/N: Heng Dian (横店 Héng Diàn) is a town at Zhe Jiang, China, and it has one of the largest film studios.

Her birthday in September was also passed in such an ordinary, simple, and calm way –– normal “going work and off work” punctually, the filming crew prepared a cake for her, and the birthday was counted as celebrated. When arriving home (she starts to normalise calling the place as “home”), drank some alcohol with her friend, “When I went to bed, it was not even 12.00 a.m. yet.”

The Tiger year of fate was countdown under a good sleep. When waking up in the morning, she only saw her phone full of birthday wishing messages. And she realised that this birthday might be a different one to her. Regardless of its form, she just wanted to ask herself: Why did I decide to be an actress?

“Because I love acting. So, I don’t want to let the other things to complicate ‘acting’. Persevering on my initial intention is the most prominent thing.”

While wanting to listen to her sharing more of her deep thoughts, she suddenly stopped talking. She looked at the mirror and lifted some of her hair on the forehead, showing her hairline and asked her hairdresser: “See, much small hair grows out, right?”

“The hair restorer my friend recommended is indeed useful. But you will experience a period of falling hair because it quickens the falling of your unhealthy hair. Then, new healthy hair is grown. This is what they meant, ‘no destruct, no construct’* for the year of fate.”

*T/N: No destruct, no construct is the literal translation for 不破不立(bù pò bù lì). The meaning of this phrase is “If the old things are not destructed, new things can't be created/built.”

Yang Mi has a habit of saying “I don’t remember the past things”, but there are a few things always linger in her mind. They are more important than imagined.

“Actually, I did say before, when I was young, my whole family stayed in a ten square meters house. Until I studied to middle school, we just moved to a storied house. Before moving, my dad talked to me, remember this house, this ten square meters house, if one day asking you to come back and stay here again, could you?”

“I said, I can.”

“I always remember this sentence of my dad. I came from there, so I could go back too.”