Canadian writer Bei La, born in Shanghai, recently completed a non-fiction work titled The Tears of the Skylark. This is her first work since she left Shanghai and returned to Canada two years ago. Through a skylark, a farewell song was sung about the prosperity and loneliness, brightness and darkness, disaster and redemption of Shanghai over the past hundred years.
This work was completed during her travels, including the Lake Mochizuki in Hokkaido, Beverly Hills, Concord in Massachusetts, Vancouver Harbour, Niagara Town, and an isolated island on Lake Ontario. This is hertribute paid as the meditation on Henry David Thoreau’s Walden.
The book records the thrilling journey of her maternal grandfather as a survivor of the shocking Jiangyashipwreck in December 1948, which had a death toll even far exceeding that of the Titanic. She describes her father, who was a military doctor, taking the risk of hiding more than ten ancestral gold bars and jewelry in the soil of his own iron tree during the Cultural Revolution, avoiding the fate of being confiscated but enduring the hardships brought by wealth. She also depicts the extraordinary significance of the Christian faith of her parents’ family to their lives. And she looksback at the distorted era when she was criticized for peeking at world classics in her youth. She witnesses the human nature revealed by the COVID-19 epidemic around the world
What made Bei La decide to give up her luxurious life in Shanghai was not her experiences during the quarantine hotel and lockdown period, but rather, as a human being, everything she experienced during those special times has passed away with the wind. She left because she was called and pulled by a free soul. When a writer sees desolation amidst the hustle and bustle, yearning for tranquility amidst the clamor, and seeking her own “Walden”in the endless wilderness, she is awakened by literature.
“The farther away from one’s hometown in terms of geographical location, the closer the hometown in literature,” said Bei La.
She wrote in this book: Humans are immersed in a large sphere, gradually shrouded in anxiety, fear, absurdity, nothingness, and despair. In the ever-changing world, the unpredictability of fate has become a human destiny. This is an era that has become indifferent to tragedy. Any pain is futile. When a person is far away from the hustle and bustle, you will hear your own voice, and your soul will return to the wilderness of freedom.
The girl doesn’t speak
But it tells of sadness;
The silence of the river
Only records the years;
Time daydreaming
But it answered everything
This is the skylark singing: “Please give me the freedom to fall deeply in love with someone, give me the courage to embrace you tightly. Please give me a path to explore truth, and give me the power to find light in darkness,even if it requires sacrificing my life.”
“No matter what she has experienced or is currently experiencing,Bei La can always extract beneficial nutrients from hardships and transform them into valuable literary wealth. The light of brightness and hope has not disappeared in her eyes for a second. She stands at the spiritual pole and her thoughts far exceed those of contemporary writers. This is the best annotation that Shanghai Bei La can become the world’s Bei La,” said her literary agent An Boshun.
The French opera Shanghai Lovers adapted from Bei La’ novel was accomplished on May 24th at the Fontainebleau Theater. This opera has 13 scenes and is expected to be performed in 2 hours and 10 minutes. The lineup is very strong, reproducing the bustling modernity and true love of Shanghai a century ago. The rivers of this Far Eastern city are full of her spirit of embracing all rivers.
This French opera that reproduces Beila’s hometown will premiere in Paris and tour the world.