At 27 she was busy with no savings; at 30 she borrowed money to open a flower shop: But Few Idle People

Shaoyao has a good friend who just celebrated her 30th birthday a couple of days ago. After the cake, the conversation started off happily about being single, then grew heavier and heavier. She said that at 30, her career is mediocre, her love life is a blank, and she feels like a failure.

Shaoyao listened to her rambling and didn't know how to comfort her. After all, I'm only 18 - does turning 30 really mean we have to be glamorous or accomplished for our first half of life not to count as a failure?

Qiao Daye, who turned 30 last year, went through a fear of age but ended up living more freely. Every day tourists come because of her reputation, walk into her flower room hidden in the ancient town, and say to her, "I envy you so much~"

{ Shao Yao Gu Niang Vol.823 }

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The Flower Room in the Ancient Town

Qiao Daye's enviable life wakes up in an ancient town where the air drifts with the smell of hot pot base and fried dough twists.

At that time, the flowers outside the flower room had been lazy all night,

and still looked as if they had just woken from a dream.

Once they stretch and get dressed up,

they become bright and showy,

and start attracting customers for Qiao Daye.

Inside the flower room, though, it is almost filled with green plants.

On the glass window facing the street,

Qiao Daye hung a curtain of green plants.

Fresh flowers seem to be placed casually,

unfolding in their most natural state.

You can rarely see two completely identical flower vessels,

yet the not-so-big flower room is full of beauty waiting to be explored.

When the weather is good, she gets up very early

and goes to the countryside to be a flower-picking girl.

If she finds some free time, she sits in the flower room and reads.

If you think Qiao Daye is a gentle flower-room girl, you'd be wrong - she is a girl nicknamed Daye~ Qiao is a true northern girl. When filling in her college application, she came from Luoyang to the rugged mountain city of Chongqing.

Chongqing is very magical,

its ruggedness, its night views, its spiciness,

all make visitors reluctant to leave.

Maybe she fell in love with this place during her four years of college, or maybe she wanted to make something of herself to show her parents. After graduating, Qiao looked at the dreamlike lights of Hongya Cave and decided to stay.

After graduation, Qiao did photo retouching work for three years. Unable to bear saying insincere things to clients every day, she resolutely quit.

Quitting to open a small shop is the dream of so many girls striving alone in a foreign place.But few succeed - maybe because they lack courage, maybe because they lack money.

When Qiao opened her first shop, she had no money either; the rent and renovation costs were all borrowed. At that time she had nothing. It was precisely because she had nothing that she could live freely.

She named this shop "But Few Idle People." These four characters come from Su Dongpo's line, "What night has no moon? What place has no bamboo and cypress? But there are few idle people like the two of us." The poet expresses a feeling of leisure mixed with the sorrow of exile. It matched her state of mind at the time: free and at ease, yet the deepest string in her heart was never relaxed.

At that time, "But Few Idle People" was a creative variety shop. A year and a half later, business began to improve, and the money owed from opening the shop was almost paid off.

But heaven suddenly played a joke. She suddenly received notice that the building would be demolished and rebuilt - no room for discussion, and no compensation.

On the day the shop was emptied, looking at the empty store, this usually straightforward person suddenly burst into loud sobs.What crushes a person in life is not long, unchanging hardship, but a blow to the head just as hope approaches.

During that period, she shut herself at home and, fittingly enough, fell ill.In the end, she held on with two sentences: In the future, no matter what difficulties come, they will not be worse than now. The second was: Good things and bad things will all end someday.

When faced with her family's questions, she made up stories to muddle through. Being away from her parents and family for a long time had taught her to report only good news, not bad. Only two months later, after renting a new shop, did she dare tell the truth.

After moving to the second shop, she gradually fell in love with flowers. In 2015, she simply changed the variety shop into a flower shop.

At the beginning, there was no teacher,

and she didn't know how to learn,

so she persisted purely out of love.

After she started working with flowers, her laziness was completely cured.

Only when people do what they truly love are they full of drive.

There are no shortcuts in working with flowers,

only being a silly girl who practices nonstop.

That year on Qixi, she officially became a flower-selling girl. With ten orders, she would deliver part of them by taxi herself, then turn back to the shop to continue working, going back and forth like this. After delivering the last bouquet, it was already past 11 p.m., but she felt a long-lost happiness.

After that day, she was certain of one thing: floral design would be her career from then on. Once she found her direction in life, the road ahead became bright.

Soon after, she founded her own floral brand CourageFlower. She hoped to give herself a little more courage, and also hoped her flowers could bring courage to others.

Many young men order flowers from her to woo girls, precisely because they feel this bouquet can bring them courage and strength.

However, from the first day she started working with flowers, Qiao set a rule: she would not accept custom orders based on pictures, and only wanted to customize a bouquet with a story for each customer.

A light blue bouquet,

ordered by a girl for her husband.

She specially instructed that it should not be too big, because her husband would think it was wasteful.

But Qiao was moved and couldn't help adding many flowers.

A bouquet an old customer gave to his beloved on 520,

on every occasion like this, he never misses it,

and with just one sentence, Qiao knows what he wants.

She hates following the crowd. If the market is currently favoring a certain style and someone wants her to copy it, sorry, Qiao Daye won't take the order!

On the contrary, whenever a new floral material appears, Qiao becomes a "flower-buying maniac," hauling it all back to the shop to practice. Every brand-new combination excites her for a long time.

Ecuadorian rose Coffee Scorpio,

its deep color can also become a bride's bouquet.

A cluster of delicate moments,

placed at different angles, gives a completely different enjoyment of beauty.

When corn poppies bloom,

everything is full of wild charm.

Qiao Daye's girlish time,

a box of pink moods.

Yesterday, a dried flower bouquet specially designed for the Yaofen,

given away at the end of the article~

Qiao is immersed in the world of flowers, and her works are loved by more and more people. People began asking on their own initiative to learn floral design from her. Usually straightforward Qiao hesitated instead. She was not sure she could be a good teacher and repeatedly asked the other person to think it through. With the other person's persistence, she also decided to teach everything she knew.

Gradually, around the long table in the flower room,

a group of girls gathered.

They come from all over, brought together by flowers - a rare kind of fate. From the first student she took in, Qiao always had one thought:People travel a long way to come learn from you; you cannot let them down, you cannot let them down.

Perhaps because of her straightforward personality, Qiao is also especially strict in class. If students do not do well, she criticizes them directly, and some have even been scolded to tears. Sometimes during class, they work on flowers and forget the time, going straight until dawn.

But the students cherish this strictness very much. In the last day or two of each course, when it is time to part, someone always cries and says they cannot bear to leave.

The students' floral works

Looking at her students now, Qiao can always think of her own past. From one person handling customer service, purchasing, flower care, and floral design, taking photos, retouching, and writing copy alone, staying up all night working overtime alone, to now having two helpers, doing what she likes and living the life she wants.

These five years of running the shop have also been the five years of her fastest growth. In these five years, she experienced the biggest failure of her life so far,forced to become strong and forced to mature while isolated and helpless.

In these five years, she experienced a woman's fear of age as she approached 30, and endured her family's ceaseless urging to marry. Fortunately, in the time spent with flowers, flowers healed her anxiety and loneliness.

Now Qiao Daye no longer feels anxious about age.She is independent in thought and finances, has a career she insists on pursuing, and has the easy grace given by time.

Qiao also keeps a dog named Hao Man,

the shop has been open for five years, and Hao Man has accompanied her for five years too.

Outside work, she has learned to care for her inner self.

She once could not live without takeout,

but now she makes breakfast herself in different ways every day.

In the mountain city of Chongqing, heavy with rivers-and-lakes spirit, Qiao keeps a flower room at the end of Heng Street in the bustling Ciqikou Ancient Town, living a happy life.

You see, at 30 a person can also live wonderfully alone.

Finally, let's end with a lyric Qiao likes very much,"If the direction of the story is not at all what you want, how I wish you could have the courage to start over."

Address: No. 104, Heng Street, Ciqikou Ancient Town, Shapingba District, Chongqing

The images in this article are provided by CourageFlower, and the copyright belongs to them.

May every girl with a dream in her heart,

no matter what age, have the courage to start over.

And this time Qiao has also prepared benefits for the Yaofen who love flowers,

spots for an offline floral interest class, a dried flower bouquet she designed herself,

every bouquet is different~

After all, making her repeat the same thing would drive her crazy!

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