"Scallop boss" Jiangzhou and his sad life: Son dies, daughter defaults, wife takes refuge

Artist Jiangzhou is a great image of the Cai Liang stage that is known to audiences who love this art. Making the audience laugh is like that, but the late artist's personal life has many cries.

Artist Jiangzhou was the son of a Western farmer, in his childhood only knew how to herd buffaloes, herd cows and wade rice fields. At the age of 15-16, Jiangzhou went to work as a talent and was taught by the owner of the ship to reform the salary.

Jiang Zhou was praised for having a good voice like Mingjing. On one occasion singing an ancient song to help fun when the art team in his hometown was performing, Jiang Zhou was accepted into this art team. Not long after, Jiangzhou fled home to follow the Fuzhou singing burden and wandered through many other small songs thanks to his long, endowed singing. In 1968, Jiangzhou was joined by the big state reform troupe, Huong Autumn and began to be cast in supporting roles in the troupe's famous plays such as Han River Grass Burden, Two Way Separation, White Stork, Gunfire One Hour Late at Night... There, Jiangzhou married Dao Yuxian with the group.

After April 1975, the Autumn Xiang troupe took a break from singing, and Jiangzhou and his wife left the troupe to live in the air. By the end of 1975, Giang Chau was accepted into the Saigon 2nd Luong Reform Corps, then Saigon 1. Here, Jiangzhou stands out with his unique voice, creative and talented performance, making three roles of his life, even if they are not the main ones. It is the role of Thua in Hau River Song with a long, slightly cheeky voice that listeners want to break a little bit. Jiangzhou is typical of the Southern farmer, generous, genuine, and aura.

Jiang Zhou's second role was Chen Xiong, a wounded soldier in the revolutionary play Finding Life. With a half-conscious, half-drunk performance, with a voice that is both sarcastic and bitter, Jiangzhou's Chen Xiong makes the audience remember his life-filled lines such as "Just a grenade", "Drop my baccalaureate, go to sergeant, I stay at home to give birth to America. Never talk about the country, you come back and have your children." These sayings through the acting of artist Jiangzhou have come to life, popular until now.

However, the third role, the role of the Scallop Boss in the play Shellfish Clam is the role that the national audience misses Jiangzhou the most. Jiangzhou's Scallop Boss who wears a torn shirt inside a beautiful shirt, who holds a clog, who steals his armpit for fear of wearing it out, who steals ashes to make his servants starve, who is thirsty for fear of consuming rice and water, etc. has made the name Scallop Boss to this day a reference to someone who is too stingy. Jiangzhou's role as Scallop Boss also passed on to life catchphrases in life such as "Where is the person", "Open is it lightning, open is it grabbing" ... Jiangzhou's Scallop Boss is unique with a meticulous cry like pulling a stork, making the audience laugh and admit that there is no one to play the role of Scallop Boss through Jiangzhou.

Struggling to make a living in the late afternoon

The talent of artist Jiangzhou is rare, both artists and audiences know and recognize, but in his own life, he has never been rich and luxurious. At its most flourishing, the Shellfish Clam that Jiangzhou played as the Scallop Boss performed every year round, Jiangzhou's family only lived in full prosperity.

In the early 1990s, when Cai Liang declined, artist Jiangzhou had to work with artist Yang Qing to open a pub to live. But because the audience adored the invitation and his health deteriorated, Jiang Zhou divested and went to fairs, funerals, and weddings to earn a living. And Jiangzhou was invited to sing very expensive shows. However, famous artists who go to fairs, funerals, weddings are very gossipy.

At one point, Jiang Zhou mused: "Every artist wants to sing on the stage sanctuary, and I have lived under the aura of art for a long time, so when singing in the space where people eat and drink, listening to singing is secondary, I am ashamed. But if you don't sing, you don't feed me." But with a gentle and humorous nature, sometimes artist Jiangzhou joked and said to himself: "I don't care to sing on the big stage or the small stage, as long as there is an audience that loves Cai Liang, I sing. Sometimes singing at funerals is... more fun than weddings." Because he said, singing at weddings guests worry more about eating than listening to singing, so I am sad, and at ghosts people do not eat, listen attentively to the artist so I am happy.

Life seems like this but peacefully passed because artist Jiangzhou is not rich but has enough to live, a good wife, good children, and a peaceful family. But in 2013, Jiang Chau's son, a young artist Taishan, who collaborated at the Huang Thai Thanh Theater, died of brain cancer at the age of 29, when his name began to be known. A few years later, the daughter of artist Giang Chau, due to not being charmed enough to succeed her father, switched the profession of director to business and lost several billion VND, empty-handed. In old age and weakness, Jiang Zhou had to take his father to sing songs to raise his three young grandchildren. He said: "I know a lot of people look on with sympathy for me. But I felt I needed to stand firm for my children, for my grandchildren. If I collapse now, they will be miserable."

In the face of such shocks, Jiang Zhou's wife took refuge in her hair to forget her sorrow. Although Jiang Zhou himself was resilient in resisting life, his sadness kept gnawing at him. Many colleagues in artist Minh Vuong's coffee group have many times comforted, encouraged and shared so that artist Jiangzhou let go of his sadness, but he may not be able to do it. In the last years of his life, Jiangzhou often stayed at home a lot, with little communication with friends and colleagues.

On May 8, 2019, family members announced his death at the age of 65. It is known that artist Jiangzhou discovered that he suffered from a degenerative brain disease in early 2016. After treatment, the disease did not subside, he gradually lost his memory. Since May 7, he has been in a coma and by the morning of May 8, artist Jiangzhou did not survive.

Le Tham just passed away: Once a leader, her husband passed away and had to go to the NS Nursing Home Đình Như16:18:04 24/01/2024Female Cai Luong artist Le Tham, currently living at the Ho Chi Minh City Artists' Retirement Area, passed away at her relative's house. She is one of the people on the list to move to Thi Nghe nursing center right after Lunar New Year.