I am intrigued to discover any new elements in my hometown, whether it is purely a physical substance or any philosophic power that exists. I admit that the reason partially originated from a sense of vanity. However, more than anything, it is a sense of belief deeply rooted in me that the essence of life might lie in the very birthplace where we were born. One specific thing I have learned is from the very scene of rapeseed in the rain.

The practical usage of rapeseed is that it serves as a delicious (or delicate, more accurately) food. As a low-fat vegetable with dietary fiber, traditional Chinese medicine suggests it can function to detoxify. The taste of the rapeseed will bring me all the way back through my childhood, but that is far too much of a story to narrate.

Rapeseed obtains a color of green and luminous yellow —— yellow, which shines so bright in the sunlight but is even more limpid when she engages in a soothing summer rain. It is a wonderland when rapeseed in the distance extends further into the endless end of the horizon. Of course, the more common image in mind is often not as infinite but a patch of a field with rapeseed and weed. Some dance in the wind, some stooped their body, but rarely can you notice any that stand perfectly straight and still. The rhizome and the twigs have to knuckle under at some point, and so do we, as humans, in life.

However, the color of the rapeseed does not fade just because it bows down her body. The meaning of this in life, I think, is that some very principal part of humanity is so precious that we couldn’t discard and wouldn’t discard.

In Chinese culture, the plum (symbolize perseverance), orchid (symbolize simplicity), bamboo (symbolize modesty), and chrysanthemum (symbolize unstrained) are the very four flowers that many prefer its ‘personality.’ Such an ordinary flower as rapeseed is too plain and tedious to be mentioned. When people respect the flowers, the spirit it has been endowed with is more significant than the fragrance it emanated, especially for ancient Chinese poetry.

Now, I feel full of awe when reading these poetries or essays, but these examples often seem too apart, too out of reach, too ‘high level’ for me, and as a result, it is not truly the way I will consider my ideal life looks like.

You might think my value is passive and that I make no attempt to make progress, but that’s not for me; at least, I do not think so. When I say the phrase ‘my ideal life,’ what I really mean is I do not want or need to be labeled any form of property, even if it is praise. I am myself. All I desire to live carefree and ordinarily—— ordinarily does not mean mediocrity, though.

Yes, rapeseed in the rain bends its body down. Yes, rapeseed is such a common flower. However, rapeseed in the rain is just the perfect way and style I want to live as the journey of life goes on. At the moment, I am writing these words down as a young man with his idealism surpassed its realism, and I wish that it is still the case 30 years or more after.