July 2008, California, USA
In the summer of 2008, I attended a summer camp in a small town called Oceanside near Los Angeles. At first sight, I fell in love with a Spanish girl named Teresa at the same summer camp. During a awkward chat, she recommended a film adapted from a musical that she had just watched two days ago. A 15-year-old boy, probably only if his brain was stunned by hormones, would he sit in Mama Mia's cinema alone when he went to see Dark Knight with his friends. At that time, I might not have thought that I would have entered the pit of musicals from now on. One day after a few years, I would sit in the Novello Theatre in the West End and sing silently with a group of old women for one night.
August 2008, Guangzhou, China
I still remember that the morning when I boarded the plane back home in San Francisco was the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics. On the second day after returning home, I went to high school to report non-stop, and went to the suburban closed military training with new classmates I just met. In August, Guangzhou was exposed to the same high temperature as California, but the air was so moist as if you could squeeze out water out of thin air when you stretch out your hand. At that time, he was young and his body was still strong, and the dopamine left over from a brief foreign relationship was enough to sweeten the boring day. At night, I lay on the mat on the hardwood bed, put on the earphones bought at the roadside stand, and listened to the ABBA before returning home with Nokia's 128kbps sound quality.
July 2018, London, UK
After another week of shifts, London, which had been exposed to the sun for a whole month, was finally showing signs of turning overcast. I rushed to finish the week’s work before 8 o’clock and ran to Regent Street next to the company to pick up a new suit that the tailor had just changed. I didn’t have time to wait for Uber, so I stopped the black car, and finally arrived before the trailer was over. Cinema.
From the perspective of the movie, without the support of the original musical selection, choreography and script, the plot and characters are very thin. The insertion of classic songs such as Waterloo and Angel Eyes in the first half is a bit embarrassing, and Lily James still remembers it. Natasha two years ago. But after all, feelings and emotions have the upper hand, and my mind is full of the shadows of the past ten years, three years in high school, four years in college, three years in England, the girl I loved, the wine I drank. Ten years later, life is the same as movies, without the young and frivolous world at your feet, and with more gains and losses and sophistication.
Everything is different, yet everything is still the same.
2018.7.20 London
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