Living, Existing, Surviving, Breathing

(Chinese citizens’ life from 1931 to 1977)

1931-1945 Anti-Japanese War

1945-1949 Civil War

1958-1960 Great Leap Forward

1959-1961 Great Chinese Famine

1967-1977 the Cultural Revolution

What’s the meaning of life?

When you have lost so much you cherish,

When you couldn’t see the end of suffering,

When you couldn’t speak a word of truth,

When you have to pretend to be asleep if you are awake.

We hide when the massacre by Japanese happened,

Live in constant fear and pressure,

When bombs strike the land,

Trembling all the wishes,

Families set apart from life to death,

Hope is the most dangerous thing,

When you reach out for light,

When you pray to god,

But god is deaf.

No right or wrong,

No justice defeats evil in superhero movies,

The Civil War is only a battle between two liars,

Price with ordinary people dying,

And then a new nation arose from the land,

We thought that was the end of everything.

So many things happened afterwards,

They told us to destroy our pot to make steel,

China’s industry catch US in one month.

They told us to torture all the landlords,

Cuz those with wealth are born enemy of the people.

They told us to endure hunger to death,

That famine is a natural disaster with no fault of rulers.

They told us to hit our teachers to death，

evil capitalists they are,

Cuz knowledge is a sin,

And ignorance is a bless.

So please tell me,

What’s the meaning of life?

No one is to judge the history,

There is no right way of living,

Living means enduring the responsibilities life throws at us,

enduring the happiness and suffering,

boredom and mediocrity.

Like a firework of a long long night,

Lit up the entire sky in a second,

Then faded away,

As the night fell to silence and darkness and coldness

Like it had been for a thousand years.

Perhaps the meaning of life has nothing to do with love and warmth,

Simply that we live this life by our own will,

When destiny derives all those you once cherished,

what remains is the answer ,

We live for living itself,

not anything else.