Watch spoken drama 'Rhinoceros in Love'
A ticket bought out of curiosity, prompted by a fleeting conversation last year with an acquaintance about wanting to see this play. I never made it. This time, I went and watched it to the end. It was worth it.
What does love look like? I believe everyone has their own answer. What is mine? Plainness, joy, passion, happiness, quarrels, anger, compromise, submission, building together.
These are the words that shape my current imagination of love. I have never been in a relationship, so I have no first‑hand experience. These are simply the shades I suspect love might hold.
Watching Malu try so desperately to show himself to Mingming, only to be met with her utter indifference—a spontaneous sadness welled up from my heart. The saddest thing in the world, perhaps, is loving a woman who does not love you back.
When Malu poured out everything he had before Mingming, and she still refused, still loved another man, I felt a kind of dread: What if one day I meet a woman to whom I would willingly give all that I am, yet her heart belongs to someone else?
This is only a specter of the imagination. I hope I am lucky enough to meet someone whom I love, and who loves me in return.
Songs that moved me during the performance
Rhinoceros in Love
The birds have all flown south
I am not a bird, I have no need for the south
The leaves all turn to face the sun
I am not a leaf, I have no need for sunlight
How lonely I am, how brave I am
I am a rhinoceros sick with longing
How lonely I am, how brave I am
I am a rhinoceros in love
The train has pulled into the platform
I am not a train, I need no terminus
The rain has soaked through my clothes
I am not the rain, I need not stay up in the sky
I am a rhinoceros in love
To love without being loved in return, yet to call oneself "in love"—nothing but a brave face over a broken smile.
Oxygen — Mingming's Song
Smile at me, smile
As if we were meeting for the first time
Speak to me, speak
Even if the vows will change by tomorrow
Enjoy me now
Life drifts so weightlessly
Remember me in the years to come
In the year you grow old
The years gone by will surely pass
With you, my final love
The years gone by will surely pass
With you, beside me at last
All the light rushes toward me
All the oxygen is breathed in by me
All objects lose their weight
I have nearly reached the end of every road
When Mingming sang this song, a shiver ran through me.
A Poem for You — Malu's Song
Everything white, when it meets you,
Turns to black ink drained of light
Every bird and beast despairs at being unable to speak your name
Every intersection lights up green so you may pass freely
Every compass needle points out your direction for me
You are the wind that leaves no trace
You are the wind that brushes gently past the body
You are the wind that leaves no trail
You are the wind that is everywhere and at all times
My love, my love,
My love, my love,
My love, my love,
You are my warm gloves,
The ice‑cold beer,
The shirt that carries the scent of sunlight,
My day‑after‑day dream
You are pure, innocent, glass‑like,
You are pure, innocent, water‑like,
You are pure, innocent, and nothing can change that
Sunlight passes through you
And alters its own course
On the way home, listening to this song, I wept in silence, letting the tears trace down my cheeks.
Ah, Mingming, Mingming. Beloved one, how can you be so merciless? How can you let a heart that loves you slowly grow cold?
Ah, Malu, Malu. Pitiable man, the taste of unrequited love—how it aches, how it aches.