Mei Niang Misses the Earth
Music by Guo Feng
Young women in old China were subject to arranged marriages, sometimes being pledged to marry before they were born. A young woman who resisted this custom was faced with few choices. One was to become a nun. Most Buddhist and Taoist monasteries in old China accepted women into religious orders, where they were expected to practice a life of contemplation and submission… The dance of Smoke takes place as a nun sits in prayer. As coils of burning incense trail lazily upward her mind begins to wander and she imagines herself floating above the monastery walls to freedom.
