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Like many independent Chinese singer-songwriters, who have no academic musical training, Ma spent a long time searching for his own style. He had written pop love ballads, which were heavily influenced by Cantonese pop music then. He had torn those songs up overnight because he despised those works.
"For a very long time, I stopped writing songs and avoided listening to any kind of music. I just read books and tried to figure out what I really wanted to sing," he says.
In Hua'er, or Flowers, one of his most dazzling originals and biggest breakthroughs, Ma mixed the ethnic music of Xinjiang with his lively guitar sounds. In the song, he depicts the tradition of his hometown when a man takes betrothal gifts to propose to the woman he loves.
In How Long is My Loneliness, he writes about his sadness when he broke up with his longtime girlfriend, who left him and went to South Korea in 2005.
"I was the kind of guy who will never apologize to my girlfriend and will never beg her to stay. I just poured my sadness into my songs," he says. "But now I am softer and much more tolerant than before."
Ma is now preparing for his new album, which will be released in May. He will also tour the country together with many other indie musicians under the label Thirteen Month.
"My life became very busy after the show. My concerts were sold out and more people learned about me. But I still make the same kind of music as before," he says.
