The TV program called "Let's Dance!" Season 2 started last month. I finally caught up on all the episodes today. I enjoy the show very much! I envy those kids so very much! How I wonder what would have happened if I were able to have such a chance when I was a tomboy! But all that was impossible!
The show gathers 14 kids who love street dance and 5 masters - Shifu in Chinese - with different styles in a street dance training camp. Through dance instruction and living together, they establish a sincere friendship between teachers and students, improve their dance skills, create their own street dance work, and inherit the spirit of street dance.
I was born in an extremely poor village in middle-northern China. There were no toys to play with, no books to read. We kids exhausted our endless energy by doing whatever simple stuff we could do, like climbing the threes. Back then there were still big, even giant trees growing in the neighborhood. I still believe till now there are dryads living on the big trees, just like what was shown in the movie Avatar. I heard many stories from mom and other villagers about the mysterious tree goddesses. I always wondered if I would see a tree child playing somewhere in the tree branches, especially at night under the stars. There were no books to read so all the stories I've known were from people's stories.
My father lived in a city 1600km away from our village. We four siblings stayed with our mother. We only saw our father once a year around the Spring Festival. Other than that we never saw him. I remember vividly my mother crying out loud in our home while surrounded by some neighbor women trying to comfort her. But she just kept weeping. Without knowing anything I'd known she cried because of my father. Lots of things I didn't understand. However, there was a seed planted in my little heart. I did not like to have a man like my father existing in my family, in my life.
I always wanted to protect my mother. Someday she wouldn't have to cry. She wouldn't need to beg for money from him. I was a very tough girl, but I never thought that I was a girl. I still think somehow my mother must have made a genetic mistake when she gave birth to my older brother and I, although we were five years apart. I should have been a boy, my older brother was in fact a girl.
Well, I have to stop writing now. It's time for me to practice yoga. Since July I have made tremendous progress on the arm balances and inversions, which was not the focus of my practice in the past years. I feel so cheerful, strong, and younger! It's hard to believe I will be hitting fifty seven in a few months. Let's go and do some yoga!
