Breathing an ancient life

Before I go to the UK, I always think that I am a city girl. Just like

every normal Hong Konger, I  grow up in an environment without much

exposure to clean air, spacious area, and pleasant sunlight. Not to

mention that I didn't even know how to ride a bicycle. This trip to UK

, though not as mind provoking the way I expected it to be, was in

some way a relief and was a month of inner tranquility that enabled me

to calm myself.



I remember clearly my reason of joining this class: a chance to get

close to the "real", origin of theatre art. The setting the scene by

the professor from the University of Warwick is awesome, he led me not

only to pay attention to the acting, and witty wordplay but also the

flow and smoothness of how audience also gets a role in that play. And

this breaking of the forth wall was so real, unlike the canned

laughter we used to get in tv shows or even live drama in Hong Kong.

Because Hong Kong people are not letting go of their sense of "self",

for we are very aware of how we present affect how others judge us.

That is the first time I recognize my feeling of comfort that got to

me after a few days we landed. That comfort was unknown, but then

revealed. It was being "real", truthful and natural.



Then I started to relate every feelings of comfort to this genuineness : a genuineness of staying alive.

I am so amazed by the sun that I used to avoid because I didn't want

to get tanned; I looked to the sky and suddenly I realized how

spacious it was for me to see a whole sky of blue . Every note I

listened was performed by a street musician. That melody came out not

from the combination of one and zero that arranged to make your

earphone faking a sound. But a lively vibration from that string flung

by a passionate hand. I started to try to feel every step that I

walked, because I suddenly realized the distinctiveness of me walking

in a foreign space. You can say that I am just thrilled by the fact

that I was out of the familiar, but I found tranquility in me. This

tranquility soothed the uneasiness and undercurrent  of something that

I am feared of. It was if I got a focus, and retained the energy that

used to be in me.



The UK tour is fruitful. The museum impressed me, the stage amused me,

some places and the realization of the "war really happened" still

haunts me. Yet the best thing about the trip is how I first get a

glimpse of feeling myself when i am out of the familiar, when it

seemed to me that every thing contains life that vibrates and lives.