URUMQI: Fifty-year-old cotton farmer Zhang Hongyuan is a drummer with a difference in northwest China’s Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region.
As a cotton farmer, Zhang looks no different from other farmers in the region. But as a drummer, he might be the only one in the country that sets his stage on a cotton field stretching for several kilometers.
“I didn’t want to bother my neighbors when I started to practice playing the drums, so I moved my drum kit to the cotton field where I was almost all alone most of the time,” he said. His drum kit is also quite special. He found a discarded drum kit over Chinese New Year this year and refitted it by himself.
With his special stage and shabby instrument, Zhang became a Chinese internet celebrity. Videos of him playing the drums that he shoots have received more than 10 million views and he has also attracted 27,000 followers on a Chinese online social media platform.
“It is joyful to sit in an open cotton field and play the drums,” he said. “It is a kind of emotional release.”
“Some fans of mine wanted to give me a new drum kit after seeing my shabby instrument online, but I declined,” Zhang added. – Agencies
