Learn a Chinese Song Flower of the Sea , Hai Shang Hua , 海上花

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“ Flower in the sea “ is written by Luo Ta-yu  for YonFan ‘s film “ Hai Shang Hua “ ( Immortal story ) . This film can be mistaken for the other movie of the the name  “ flowers of  Shanghai “, directed by   Hou Hsiao-Hsien.

Both movies are about lives of the courtesans , however their stories are completely different . “Immoral story” starts of the story with a courtesan in Macao found guilty of killing her ex lover from ten years ago  , whereas the “ flowers of Shanghai “ are based on the novel “ The sing-song girls of Shanghai “ by Han Bangqing ,translated by Eileen Chang , about the chronicles lives of the courtesans in Shanghai  in the late 19th century . Despite their different stories , the title “Hai Shang Hua “ in both storiesare a metaphor for a life which has a beautiful, dreamy appearance  , however is often shattered by an ugly reality , like the beautiful flowers on the sea , with the coming of the roaring waves , none of them survive .

Han Bangqing claimed that his book surpassed the other well known novel from the Qing dynasty : The Scholars, written by Wu jingzi , translated by Yang Xianyi  . Eileen Chang spent the later part of her life translating The sing-song girls of Shanghai which was originally written in a Wu dialect,  both into a late-Qing-dynasty-Chinese and English . The English translation was mystically reported lost and was only found after Eileen Chang’s death.

Personally I find the song lyric more related to the original book than the movie which was written for . The book starts with the writer’s own life , a person names himself “ Hua Ye Lian Nong “ , lives every day in a dream , and does not believe he lives in dreams , instead he start to write a book in his dream , and in writing this “ book in the dream” , he woke up from his “dream in the book “.  In the very beginning of Hua Ye Lian Nong’s book in the dream , he sees a sea of flowers , The flowers covers the entire sea where no water can be seen at all. Upon seeing this sea of beautiful flowers , he grew overly excited ,  he does not care that the sea is endlessly wide and endlessly deep , does not want to let go of the flowers and pretend they are on the ground . However the flowers have no roots , they are only floating on the water.  Whenever there is wave in the water , the flowers will have to move along helplessly . Even for times there are no waves , there will be a great number of birds and insects attacking these flowers and all of these delicate flowers could not bear , all fall into the water . Hua Ye Lian Nong sees this and becomes overly sad , and because of being overly happy then overly sad , he fall under the water , and woke up from this dream , and arrives another scene ( dream ） where he meets the main character of this novel .