21st Century and Me

4 . Looking at the photos of public celebrations for International Pillow Fight Day in the news and social media from the 50 cities around the world, one question occurred to me: What are pillows really stuffed with? Not physically, but symbolically? Armed with nothing more than bring-our-own sacrificial cushions, strangers struck heavily each other in playful feather from Amsterdam to Atlanta, Warsaw to Washington DC. But why? Is there anything more to this delightful celebration?

As a cultural sign, the pillow is falsely soft. Since at least the 16th century, the humble pillow has been given unexpected meanings. The Chinese playwright Tang Xianzu tells a famous story about a wise man who meets a depressed young scholar at an inn and offers him a magic pillow filled with the most vivid dreams of a seemingly more fulfilling life. When the young man awakens to discover that his happy 50-year dream has in fact come and gone in the short space of an after-noon’s nap, our impression of the pillow’s power shifts from wonder to terror.

Succeeding writers have likewise seized upon the pillow. When the 19th-century English novelist Charlotte Bronte poetically observed “a ruffled (不平的,起皱的) mind makes a restless pillow”, she didn’t just change the expected order of the adjectives and nouns, but instead she made unclear the boundaries between mind and matter — the thing resting and the thing rested upon.

That can be considered as a trick which perhaps Bronte learned from the Renaissance philosopher Montaigne, who once insisted that “ignorance is the softest pillow on which a man can rest his head”. On Montaigne’s thinking, intelligence and happiness confront each other forever in a pillow fight that only one can win.

Based on the words of Tang, Bronte, and Montaigne, we can perhaps more easily measure the attraction of the global pillow fight. Like a ritual of release, the annual international pillow fight amounts to a kind of cleansing, a brushing off of daily worries, an emptying of the world’s collective mind. Rather than a launch-pad for weightless rest, the pillow is a symbol of heavy thought: an anchor that drags the world’s soul down- one that must be lightened.

The Mid-Autumn Festival is one of the     1     (important) festivals in China. It is an evening celebration when families gather together     2     (merry) to light lanterns, eat moon cakes and appreciate the round moon.     3     that special night, the moon is the roundest and brightest thing in the sky. The full moon is a symbol for family reunion,     4     is the reason why that day is also known as the Festival of Reunion.

The Mid-Autumn Festival celebrations date back to more than 2, 000 years ago. In the Tang Dynasty, people began to enjoy     5     admire the full moon as a custom. In the Southern Song Dynasty, however, people sent round moon cakes to their relatives as gifts in expression of     6     (they) best wishes for family reunion. After it turned dark, they looked up at the fall silver moon or went sightseeing by lakes     7     (celebrate) the festival. Since the Ming and Qing dynasties, the custom of Mid-Autumn Festival celebration     8     (become) even more popular. Together with the celebration appeared some special     9     (custom) in different parts of the country, such as     10     (burn) incense (香), planting Mid-Autumn tees, lighting lanterns on towers and fire dragon dances, etc.

On Women’s Day, my father and I planned to give my mother surprise. We did something specially for her. Know that she was always unwilling to buy herself anything, we decided to buy him a perfect gift. In the shop, the shop assistant introduced a beautiful necklace, what I thought was the very thing for my mother. However, we bought it without hesitations. The moment we take out the necklace, my mother was very surprised that she could not say a word. This is my great pleasure that my mother likes the gift. I hope my mother will be happy and healthy forever.

Yours,

Li Hua