Life on a String (1991)

Zhongyuan Liu: Old Master

Quotes 

• Old Master : [singing during a conflict]  Each of you is a person. Each of us is a person. Each of them is a person. When! Oh when did we learn to hate and resent one another, blame and cheat one another. Bully and make fun of one another, stop loving each other. When! Oh when did we start behaving like animals. Not like humans at all! When one person strikes another... one grieves, the other mourns. One is sad, the other weeps. Yet another becomes angry... angrier and angrier. And so once more one person strikes another. When! Oh when will we learn to love one another. Help one another. Respect one another. Yield to one another. Save one another. Hold out your hand to another. When will we learn to stop hating each other. Be true to ourselves! Be human again! With our feet on the ground. Standing tall beneath the heavens. Human at last!

• Old Master : One day, the Two Princes of Heaven were bathing in the cloud. Accidentally, they fell all the way down to earth. Soldier were sent down to close their eyes. The soldiers couldn't idetinfy the Princes among the people. So, the soldiers closed the eyes of everybody on earth.

• Old Master : [singing]  One day, the women folk came to me and asked me 'what did I see'? I'm blind, I answered, there is nothing I can see. One day the men folk came to me and asked me 'what did I hear'? I'm deaf, I answered. There is nothing I can hear. One day the children came to me and asked me 'what did I feel'? That I cannot say out loud, I answered. Why don't you come inside me and feel. One day a clap of thunder roaring from the sky and a great fire blazing across the earth, men, women, children all came to me and said: You are not blind. You are not deaf. You are still young. You can see. You can hear. You can talk. You can sing. One day, all of us will sing. No more sadness, no more tears... we will lift our voices and sing for joy!

• Shitou : Master, why are we blind? Why does it have to be us? I want to open my eyes and see, even just for once.

  Old Master : You really do?

  Shitou : I do! I do.

  Old Master : Then keep plucking the strings... one by one, with all your might.

• Old Master : Shitou. Listen, we have our banjoes, they are better than women. When a string breaks, it breaks. It doesn't fool you. Grandmaster used to say: life is like a string.