Ju Fufu holds the popcorn pot in her hand. She doesn’t look like a martial arts master or a hero in a TV series. She is more like an ordinary person who is teased by reality. The knocking sound of the pot lid is not only a physical collision, but also more like the sound of “bang bang” knocking on your head in reality. The first three hammers are fast, like the goals and desires you are chasing in life, eager and anxious; the fourth hammer is slow, as if life suddenly brakes you, forcing you to stop and think: What the hell is this?
Ju Fufu turns around in circles, and the action is a bit like a child dodging when playing hide-and-seek, but the pot in her hand is not just a toy. There is fire, popcorn, and the realities that she dare not face in the pot. The popcorn explodes and the flames jump up, just like your uncontrollable emotions: sometimes violent, sometimes tepid, sometimes erupting earth-shaking, but fleeting.
What about wounds? They are standard in life. You feel that you have been knocked down, leaving marks on your body, but what is more painful is the invisible and intangible scars in your heart. The dense scars on Ju Fufu’s body are like evidence of countless failures and compromises in her life. She dare not stop, because stopping means that you admit failure and that you are nailed to the spot by life.
The action of assistance is her only response to this absurd world. She is not an iron man. From time to time, she needs to give others a little help and prove that she is still alive. Her quick counterattack is a strategy and also a self-protection in life. The spatula is not just a tool, it is the language she communicates with the outside world and her battle declaration: Don’t touch me, I’m not done yet.
Finally, the finishing move came. The flames burned, the popcorn exploded and splashed, and Ju Fufu was like a burning meteor, releasing all the suppressed anger and powerlessness. At that moment, she was the master of her own destiny, but also like a victim swallowed by the flames. In the firelight, she was briefly brilliant, but also fragile and distressing.
As soon as the battle was over, she disappeared. The pot lid fell silent, and the embers of the flame gradually cooled. No one cares about her story, but her struggle and persistence are engraved in every scratch of the pot lid. Ju Fufu’s popcorn pot is just like the life of each of us: exploding on one side and scorching on the other; hot on one side and dim on the other.
We are often forced to knock on our own “pot lids” and perform one meaningless play after another in the absurd life. The firelight in the pot is the cruelty of reality, and the fragments of popcorn are fragments of dreams. Who can tell clearly, what are we living for? We knock on the pot lid, not to pop out the fragrant popcorn, but to give ourselves a reason to continue fighting.
The sound of the pot is an absurd movement, a mockery of reality, and a dialectic of life. Life does not allow you to be quiet, you have to knock, you have to make a sound, if you don’t knock, it’s fine, but if you knock, it’s amazing.
Ju Fufu and her popcorn pot may be the self that refuses to give up in all of us. Laugh at the flames, smile at the wounds, smile at the constant knocking of the pot lid. Life is nothing but an absurd comedy, and we are all just actors in it.