Introduction to "The Soul of Camellia"
One autumn night during the Yuanhe period of the Tang Dynasty, at the head of the Xunyang River, the poet Bai Juyi, who was relegated to Jiangzhou, was stopped by the sound of a pipa that made people cry. The sound came from Guzhou, and the performer was a middle-aged woman with extraordinary charm. After a night of conversation, a story from the Tang Dynasty flowed along with the music: she was once a famous singing girl in Chang'an, and she fell in love with Mustafa, an Arab merchant who dealt in spices. He promised to be engaged, but left during the tea season, leaving her in suspense for half her life. When Bai Juyi returned to Xunyang a few years later and met his old friend who was seriously ill again in a Taoist temple, he realized that fate had played a cruel joke - a tragic love like "La Traviata" had already written its ending in the torrent of time and the barrier across the sea. This is the meeting of two "lost people", and it is also an elegy about love, waiting and dignity composed with pipa and life.
