March 5, 2023
The 125th birthday of Zhou Enlai.
All over China and the world, people remember this day, out of respect for China’s great statesman and peacemaker. Especially in stressful times, it’s important to remember the principles of peace, that do not change from season to season.Above is a simple video tribute that we composed, featuring the music of the Violin Concerto, Butterfly Lovers. It was performed for Zhou Enlai at the Palais des Nations, when he attended a peace conference in Geneva. Butterfly Lovers is the classic Chinese love tragedy, often compared to Romeo and Juliet.
The images in this video were created by a young friend, Liu Xingxiong, who painted a spectacular set of large oil canvases commemorating the Long March. Zhou and others led the young, inexperienced army thousands of miles, for a whole year across rural China, fleeing both civil war and Japanese invaders. The survivors lived to eventually become the founders of modern China.
Even today, with so much information available, there are many things we don’t yet understand about each other.
We pause a moment, to enjoy the blessings of peace, to remember the heroes who gave their lives for peace including Zhou Enlai, Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Mother Teresa and Queen Liliuo’kalani — and to honor all those who strive for peace — known and unknown, large and small.
