Fairy Tales Tell No Lies

By Hui Guniang

I like to visit the Disneyland Parks around the world, where otherwise strange things in our daily life appear explicitly reasonable and cute.

Once at the Disneyland in Japan, I saw two old ladies with gray hair, in their seventies or eighties, accompanied by neither children nor husbands.

Hand in hand, wheelchair-free, and with stooped backs, the two old sisters were slowly strolling in the park, whispering and laughing to each other. One of them wore a red Mickey Mouse ears headband while the other carried a Minnie backpack and held an ice cream in the shape of Donald Duck in her hand. The two ladies took turns having bites of the ice cream.

At such an old age, their teeth were all gone and they had to gum the ice cream into their mouths, slurping in the melting liquid, which overflowed from the corners of their mouths. The two ladies were not worried, instead, they just looked at each other smilingly, wiping their mouths for each other with their sleeves.

Tears welled up in my eyes, not because I was sad for them being so old, but because I was moved by their childlike innocence.

At the Disneyland in Paris, I saw a mother and a daughter looking like sisters.

They were buying Elsa dresses from Frozen in a store, with the mom trying on the adult size and the daughter trying on the child size.

The handsome father called their names from outside the fitting room. The mom opened the door and came out with her daughter, both laughing, blue gauze skirts flowing around them in a surreal manner. The husband and dad ran over to hug them, planting one kiss on each of them, admiring heartily, “Oh, my princess and my little princess, you two look gorgeous.”

Mom or daughter, old or young, they were both princesses that day.

In the Disneyland of Orlando, I saw two big black men in their forties or fifties having a duel under the castle, fully dressed in pirate costumes from Pirates of the Caribbean. Sparring aggressively and menacingly, they looked like two children playing dress-up, while the words coming out of their mouths were all classic lines from of the film:

“Wherever we want to go, we'll go. That's what a ship is, you know.”

“This is either madness, or brilliance. It's remarkable how often those two traits coincide.”

“For certain, you have to be lost to find a place that can't be found, elseways everyone would know where it was.”

No one in the crowd laughed at them. Instead, the spectators burst into applause from time to time when they heard highlights.

Suddenly, one of the men swung his sword, just missing a middle-aged woman beside him.

Taken aback, the woman took a step back and blurted out a line: “Don't fire at me!”

The crowd laughed and applauded again.

The two men regarded themselves as pirates, and so did the spectators.

I have a friend who seldom goes out due to her leg disability. On December 3 of one year, which was the International Day of Disabled Persons, the Disneyland of Shanghai invited many people with disabilities to visit it, and she was among those who attended.

That was her first time going to an amusement park.

On that day, she tried the ride named “Tron Lightcycle Power Run,” on which special comfortable seats were installed for the disabled. It was so fast that she couldn't find her voice when she wanted to scream.

She cried after she came down, which startled the staff and her companions. They asked her: “Why are you crying? Are you scared?” To which she replied: “It's so fast and so much fun. I felt like I was really racing in the movie Tron: Legacy, speeding through the air. It felt so cool. I have been crippled half of my life and never expected to have such an experience. It's so worth it.”

It's easy to dream, but having people believe in their dreams is hard.

Life is long and bitter, and we need to indulge ourselves in the fairy tales now and then, living a surreal life even just for one day.

Let's give our dreams a bit more space.

(From Don't Care, Don't Fear, CITIC Publishing Group. Translation: Lu Qiongyao)

童話不說謊

文/輝姑娘

我很喜歡逛世界各地的迪士尼樂園。在那里，平時看起來“匪夷所思”的畫面，總會變得合理又可愛起來。

在日本迪士尼，我看到兩名頭發花白的老太太。

大約七八十歲，沒有子女跟隨，也沒有老頭兒陪伴。

兩個老姐妹手拉著手，弓著腰，不坐輪椅，一邊低聲說笑著，一邊慢吞吞地在園中逛著。其中一個老太太頭上戴著紅色的米奇頭飾，另一個老太太背著米妮背包，手里還拿著一根唐老鴨造型的雪糕，自己咬一口，又遞給對方咬一口。

大約是年紀太大，牙都掉光了，她們只能把雪糕放在嘴里慢慢含化。結果化著化著水就順著嘴角流出來了，兩人也不著急，彼此看著呵呵地笑，用袖子給對方擦嘴。

我看得眼淚都要流出來了。

不是為蒼老而難過，是為童心而感動。

在巴黎迪士尼，我見到有好幾對母女看起來像姐妹一般。

她們在店里買冰雪女王的裙子，媽媽試成人大碼，孩子試幼童小碼。

英俊的父親在更衣室外呼喚她們的名字，媽媽帶著女兒推門出來，同時笑起來，兩襲蓬松的藍色紗裙朦朦朧朧地飄蕩著。男人一臉驚喜，跑過去把她們擁在懷里，左親一口右親一口，輕聲地贊賞：“哦，我的公主和我的小公主，你們太美了。”

沒有媽媽和女兒，沒有年長與年幼。

只有公主和小公主。

奧蘭多迪士尼。

兩個看上去已經四五十歲、胖胖的黑人男子，買了全套加勒比海盜的裝束，穿戴整齊，氣勢洶洶地在城堡下面“決斗”。

那場面簡直像兩個小孩子在過家家。

你一言我一語，全都是《加勒比海盜》的經典臺詞：“我們想去哪里就去哪里，這就是船的真正含義。”

“瘋狂和偉大之間只有一線之隔，它們往往是相伴而行的。”

“當然要迷失方向，才能到達一個無人能找到的地方。”

圍觀的沒有一個人嘲笑他們。聽到精彩處，還不時爆發出熱烈的掌聲。

忽然，其中一個男人揮劍一劃，險些劃到旁邊一個中年女人。

女人嚇得后退一步，脫口而出：“不要沖我開火。”

周圍的人再次笑著鼓起掌來。

他們把自己當海盜。

旁觀者也把他們當海盜。

我有個朋友是殘疾人，腿部行動不便，平時很少外出。某年12月3日，國際殘疾人日，上海迪士尼邀請了許多殘障人士去游玩，她也在其中。

那是她第一次去這種游樂園。

那天，她坐了速度最快的“創極速光輪”，上面有殘疾人專用的座位，非常舒服。光輪太快了，在上面喊都喊不出聲來，她下來以后就哭了。

她一哭，把工作人員和陪同的親友都嚇到了，連忙問她為什么哭，是不是嚇到了。

她說：“真快，真好玩。我就像在《創：戰紀》里飆車一樣爽。穿了機甲，風馳電掣。以前不敢想。我瘸了半輩子，還能有這種體驗，值了。”

讓人做夢很簡單，讓人相信夢境很難。

人生漫長苦澀，我們需要在童話故事里短暫地放肆，不切實際地活一天。

讓造夢的空間再多一點吧。

（摘自《無所謂，無所畏》中信出版集團）