Whenever the song called The Blue Lotus is played, I'd hum it softly to myself, losing my thoughts in the poem-like lyrics: Nothing could ever stand between you and the free land. In a life of laissez-aller all worries are blown away. You toil through the years of dismay, from time to time lost on the way, until you glance down at your feet where your dreams and the blue lotus are always in their prime.

Just like fish are made for the sea, the blue lotus is the prize I seek. Not a day of my life have I not pictured the ever free wonderland. It should be a place where both praise and slander lose their effects, for "free ears" listen solely to the heart; where Converse (sneakers) go with Vera Wong (wedding gowns), where the dress code says the bride should get married in comfort; where money weighs little, since the composition of happiness does not contain it; where, of course, blooms the blue lotus, each root is free to go where it will.

For myself personally, the road to the free land seems to be long and painstaking. A doubtful and trembling voice, exactly like the sound of the scared fish, who never stops telling me to accept the world as it is and to play safe by adopting others' perspectives rather than to follow my own inclination. For a person who is accustomed to defining herself according to the evaluations given by her peers, is not ready with ears that have learned not to care. Utilitarian thoughts stand in my way of pursuing the blue lotus.

I used to blame time, society and the people around me, considered them to be the saboteurs of my dream. But time proved me wrong, for the saboteurs back then have all disappeared without a trace, yet my wonderland remained nowhere approachable. Since then I realized that it was me, much as I hate to admit, who blocked my way to pursue freedom.

I sincerely hope that there will come the day on which I finally take the leap and jump to a different place for the sight of the blue lotus.

 

(Translation of the lyrics: http://blog.sina.com.cn/s/blog_4c01689c0100c9a8.html)

 

Name: Lotus

Pinyin: Wang Shuoshuo

E-mail: wangshuoshuo1989@Yahoo.com.cn