Superstar Spotlight: Hua Chenyu

Hua Chenyu 华晨宇 is a famous Chinese singer. Most of the information online about him are in Chinese, so I decided to write a post in English for non-Chinese speakers (and for everybody to know about him). He is currently my favourite singer.

Nickname: Hua Hua 花花 (means ‘flower’)

Fans’ name: Huo Xing Ren 火星人 (Martian)

After he posted photos with the monkey on his Weibo, the toy ran out of stock.

I first learned about him through a Facebook video that was shared on my homepage. It was him performing the song, My Skateboard Shoes 我的滑板鞋. I thought his rapping was impressive. Afterwards I decided to find more music by him and found the song, Ashes from Firework 烟火里的尘埃. He has a very powerful voice, especially when he performs live.

I like that his music is comprised of different genres, such as pop, alternative rock, folk and classical music. The fact that he is capable of singing to this wide range of music shows that he is talented.

My favourite song by him is Quasimodo’s Gift 卡西莫多的礼物. Quasimodo is a fictional character from the novel, The Hunchback of Notre-Dame. Everyone calls Quasimodo “hideous” because of his deformities, and as a result he experiences deep loneliness. In the song, Hua Chenyu sings  “Quasimodo’s gift is to enjoy the loneliness” 卡西莫多的礼物 享受孤独. This is my favourite part because he helped me realize that loneliness is not necessarily a bad thing. Often times, we associate ‘lonely’ with negative feelings but to be able to enjoy it is actually quite nice. I can relate to aloneness very well from my personal life, and the moment you begin to enjoy is really an eye-opening experience. Practicing self-love, and finding your own interests and passions are just a couple of reasons why this is important.

Hua Chenyu is someone I consider authentic. Authenticity is something I look for because a lot of artists create content for the sake of being more popular. Hua Chenyu does not care about that (he even has a song called, I Don’t Care 我管你).

Despite being famous, he is an introvert and that’s why his first album was dedicated to the topic of loneliness. He also has some quirks which differentiates him from other celebrities. He does not try to hide who he really is. Hua Chenyu promotes the idea of being true to yourself, even if others do not like it.

He loves to watch anime!