Chapter 533: 532: From Young to Old (8)

Within a single day, morning signifies dawn, evening signifies sunset.

And in a person’s lifetime, morning signifies childhood and adolescence, evening has already stepped into dusk.

From morning to night today, it seemed as though a person’s entire past and future had been lived through. The only thing remaining was the present, the immediate now.

Xia Siyu was not one to indulge in sorrowful reflection with the season’s change, especially not the kind of delicate sentiments. But recently, through her interactions, she didn’t know if it was the influence of Bo Yan or because of her acting studies, she also began to think more, observe more. And occasionally, she would even make a summary afterward.

There’s a saying, “The nation’s misfortune is the poet’s fortune, tasked with chronicling the turmoil, the verses come to life.” It speaks of the poet’s writing being connected to the joy and sorrow of life, national enmities, and family feuds. The more one experiences, the less one indulges in idle laments, the less one needs to force sentiments into new poems.

Just as it is with poets, so it goes with actors. Those best actress and actor award winners, apart from integrating into their roles, what’s more important is the delicacy of their portrayal, within mere seconds or even a second, they might need to display extremely subtle changes.

Inferior performances are those where emotions are externalized, crying must be loud, laughter must be boisterous. But if emotions are too intense, it starts to look contrived. A slightly better performance will show the layers of acting, displaying different emotional changes. But the finest performances may not require you to cry or to laugh at all, just the slightest twitch of a muscle at the corner of your mouth, a subtle shift in the gaze of your eyes, and the audience can capture through the camera lens all the meanings contained within that single expression.

Of course, there are those “acting skills” of popular figures who simply stretch their legs, glare, and get dubbed, which are not even worth discussing, because you can’t discuss something that has never existed.

At this time, Xia Siyu’s ability to express emotions outwardly was no issue, and her emotional changes were also not a problem, but she needed to develop into deeper levels, indeed she needed to think more, delve into her craft more deeply.

Source: novgo.co

She grew up in Italy since she was a child and returned to her home country for high school. Not long after, she entered the entertainment industry. Although her family life might not have been very happy, she had certainly never experienced poverty, not knowing what hunger tasted like.

Lately in the Northwest, fetching water required a cistern, making fire needed wood, drinking cornmeal porridge meant grinding it herself, and even bathing meant boiling the water first. She had thought that this was the entirety of hardship, but only after arriving today did she realize just how many poor people there were in the world, living lives of careful cost-cutting.

For example, Hope Primary School’s food was unpalatable, but out of ten kids, there would always be four or five who ate with particular relish, unwilling to leave behind even a bit of soup dregs. There was no need to ask; one could tell just by looking at them that their family circumstances must be very poor, that their school uniforms were already their best attire, worn to the point of fraying at the edges.

For example, the elderly couple they had visited today, one bedridden with a serious illness, the other having succumbed to pneumoconiosis from working in the mines long ago, lived in a home stripped to bareness. Even though the country had given them subsidies, they still lived a very tight-fisted life.n/ô/vel/b//in dot c//om

Of course, there could be even more remote, even poorer places in this country, perhaps many more people struggling on the poverty line. But whether they were children or old folks, there was no loss of hope in their eyes. They knew that as long as they worked hard, there would always be a hot meal available, there would always be hope.

Whether it was their effort in struggling through poverty or the flame of spirit that always shone in their eyes, all of it stimulated Xia Siyu. These experiences also became her contemplation, enriching her spirit, to be utilized in her roles in the future.