Beads of Jade

According to my parents, the first movie I ever watched in theaters was Mulan. (Amy, I hope you appreciate that I italicized the title of the movie because it refers to an entire work and not just a section.) Anyway, that doesn’t explain why I chose this particular song for my “moved by music” post.

There’s a line in “Honor to Us All” that sparks a specific memory from my childhood. When Mulan is getting ready to see the matchmaker, her grandmother gives her a jade necklace and sings, “Beads of jade for beauty.” For some reason, when my cousin Andrew (same age as I was) and I heard this part of the song, we would always burst out laughing for at least ten minutes straight. I think we were about four years old? That’s a total guess, but we were quite young. We would keep repeating “bee-toh-shieh” over and over again because that’s what we thought the grandmother was really saying. No matter how much we tried to convince our parents that we were right, they never believed us, which probably made the phrase that much funnier to us.

Anyway, “bee-toh-shieh” became a symbol of my childhood. I can’t think of Mulan without also remembering all the good times I had with my cousin, constantly finding ways to entertain ourselves before iPads and tablets were invented.

Now that I think about it, one reason why kids seem to enjoy themselves so much (besides the fact that they have fewer responsibilities) is that they figure out how to make even the dullest things seem entertaining. Sometimes I get so caught up in the past, present, and future that I forget not to take myself too seriously. It’s all about perspective. Given any object, there are a million ways you can look at it. It’s your job to decide how you want to look at it. If you’re used to seeing it in a serious light, try looking at it from a silly angle next time.

When’s the last time you let your imagination run wild? When’s the last time you did something just to have a laugh? There are a lot of people out there who want the secret to eternal youth. You know what? I think the answer is easier than they think. Take some time out of your busy schedule to just goof off for a bit and remind yourself of those carefree days when you found everything fascinating.

This post is “brought to you” by the Weekly Writing Challenge and Coffitivity (a cool website that I just found today) 🙂

Thanks for reading!