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心中 always has the sense of joy and happiness, no matter where you look. The moment you see someone smile, or hear a word that makes your eyes twinkle, it's easy to feel happy. In my school days, I remember seeing this kind of thing happen: two children were playing together, making funny faces as they went about their day. Then one kid ran up to the teacher and said, "It's so fun!" The teacher looked at him and said, "You'll get older when you're done with this." They all laughed, because they knew that even though she was really young, someone like her would have had more experience than a lot of people.
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There once was a man named Chen Liang. He worked in a restaurant every day. One Saturday afternoon, he was trying to learn how to read English words. He was sitting at his table, typing away when his phone rang loudly. His mother came over and said, "Hey, what's up?" He didn't know, but he replied, "Mummy, I just saw a word that looks like 'tong'." Mummy couldn't understand Chinese, so she asked him to read it again.
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The man Chen Liang wasn't happy. He had been working at the restaurant all day long. His mother always made sure his phone rang when he left for work or did homework. He was very worried that her attention would be on the money or money-related stuff. His father didn't understand Chinese, so he also tried to read it. One evening, he finally understood "tong," which meant "good." Mummy and dad both said, "Great! You’re doing well."
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Now I’ve been looking at this man for hours, trying not to laugh. He was so happy and cheerful that he looked like a king. One day, he brought his mom with him to the store. They were going to buy some candy. She told him she could make it cheaper if he used the coupons they had set up in the store. Chen Liang didn’t know what to say when he heard this. He just looked at her.
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There was a man named Zhang Bo and his mother, Mo Yu. They were both very famous in their town. Every Sunday afternoon, Mo Yu would drive across the country with her husband, Bo, to buy candy. It started as a way of saving money, but soon it became something they did every weekend. Mo Yu thought one time that if she could make them give coupons, they’d stop buying candy altogether. But then Mo Yu told Bo, "I can’t help you. I’ll just let the coupons go."
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Now when you look at a picture of a man and his wife, it’s hard not to smile. A woman with long dark hair, a man with short black hair: they’re different enough that people don’t call them anything in particular. But sometimes you see a couple with a lot of sadness, like when their kids have lost their parents or their children can no longer talk.
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The real magic is in the way we choose to view it. Sometimes we view things as sad and difficult, other times as beautiful and full of possibilities. In this story, though, we saw the man Chen Liang, a man so happy and bright that he became a symbol of hope for others. At the end of the day, the man was content—happy with his life, with his family, and with the little boy who lived in their arms.
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I can’t imagine what it would be to see this kind of thing happening again. The world is full of different faces, each one telling a story about their own experiences. Some people laugh at us for talking about sad things—maybe we’re just scared that people might think differently than we do.
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Now that I’ve thought about all these pictures, I realize they are all part of the same magic—the fact that happiness and joy can be found everywhere, no matter how you look at it.
