What we are experiencing is an era of fast food in love.
Love can be biologically disenchanted, they say it's nothing more than a hormonal game; love can be deconstructed psychologically, they shape it as PUA control; love can be measured economically, proving time and again that "door-to-door pairs" is the optimal solution to the zero-sum game...
We mastered the eighteen martial arts and went into the arena to win love. We're really interesting.
How efficiently we are pursuing love in the hustle and bustle, how strategically ambushing love.
As a result, it is increasingly unclear to ourselves whether we are obsessed with the thrill of hunting ambushes or whether we are really looking forward to a solid love.
Everything is taken for granted.
As it should be, the love fairy tales of this era seem to be naturally rare in the city, and it is logical that fairy tales should appear in remote frontier countries.
"Mohe Ballroom" is such a love fairy tale that takes place in the snow country of northern Xinjiang.
In 1987, a huge fire broke out in Daxing'anling that shocked the whole country. The total area of the fire site is 17,000 square kilometers, and 211 people were killed and 266 burned in the fire, more than 10,000 residents were affected, and more than 50,000 people were affected.
Among them, 211 victims included Zhang Dequan's beloved wife. For more than 30 years, the old man did not remarry, and the two did not have children before they were born. The old man's wife loved to dance before she died, and the couple often lit a lamp in the old warehouse to practice dancing together. 30 years later, in the dance hall of Mohe County, you can still see the elderly Zhang Dequan who danced alone.
In 2020, musician Liu Shuang learned of the story of the elderly Zhang Dequan, and after obtaining his consent, he created the song "Mohe Ballroom", and planned to use the first-person perspective of the elderly Zhang Dequan to write a letter to his deceased wife Kang Shi "Goodbye Evening Star".
A year later, the song, and the story behind it, finally reached me. I recall that I had heard its chorus melody on the short video platform before, but the scenes at the music festival and the images of countless urban grievances did not impress me.
In the end, what broke through time came to me was the complete melody and lyrics of this song, and what finally immersed me in it was the love story behind the song that confronted the power of time.
Young people in the lively city, in the music festival and short video platform, enthusiastically pursue the love fairy tale in the desert river of northern Xinjiang. In this fact, time and space are themselves the most poignant irony.
Only because you and I, who are in the hustle and bustle of the city, have indeed lost the firmness to believe in love, have indeed lost the determination to bear love, and have indeed lost the courage to dedicate love.
We weigh the pros and cons, we calculate carefully, we calculate, we desire dissatisfaction, we vainly cling to it, we are exquisite and self-interested... So, oh, we deserve not to get love.