From childhood, the Spring Festival should be the most eagerly awaited festival for every child.
And on this day, the most eager should again be the night of New Year's Eve.
This is the night you eat all the food you've been craving all year, and when the tea and fruits are served, the family starts to enjoy the Spring Festival Gala.
There are a few programs that I look forward to the most every year: skits, magic, and dancing.
I don't think anyone would disagree that Yang Liping is China's most beautiful dancing goddess.
In 1989, her performance of "Peacock" on the stage of the Spring Festival Gala stunned the world, and everyone remembers that marvelous and gorgeous "peacock".
Yang Liping has sacrificed a lot for the sake of dance.
Ten years of long fingernails, surgery to remove two ribs, long-term vegetarian diet, which is unimaginable to others.
She also gave up childbearing for dance.
With no children of her own, it was once thought that Yang would let Xiao Caiqi, who spun for four hours on the Spring Festival Gala stage, carry on her mantle.
But the truth is that Xiao Caiqi did not inherit the mantle of Yang Liping, what happened in the middle of the story? How is the little colored flag now?
1.
Small Caiqi's real name is Yang Caiqi. As for the nickname Xiao Caiqi, it is also related to her aunt Yang Liping.
That's right, Yang Liping is Xiao Caiqi's aunt.
When she was three years old, her mom said she would take her to Beijing to visit Yang Liping.
Her hometown was in Dali, Yunnan province, where there were gurgling streams flowing down from the mountains, blue skies and white clouds, and small fish within reach.
"There are no small rivers and small fish in Beijing," she said.
When her mother moved out of the Great Wall, the Forbidden City, Tiananmen Square, she was not moved.
So her mom carried her directly onto the plane.
After arriving at her aunt's house, she beamed, "Beijing is not good, I want to go back to Dali".
Mom and aunt Yang Liping happily looked at her and praised her cute.
Until Yang Liping showed her exquisite dance at home, the little colorful banner was stunned and fascinated to look at her, what "small river, small fish" all left behind.
Yang Liping saw that she liked it, so she said: "You also dance a section to show auntie.
Small colorful flag heard, went up to a burst of spinning, probably spinning is her natural skill.
Yang Liping watched and said, "Look at her get up, just like a little colorful flag fluttering in the wind."
From then on, everyone called her Little Colorful Flag.
It was also at this time that Little Color Flag decided she wanted to dance in the future.
2.
Yang Liping thought it would be nice if someone could take up her mantle.
From that time on, Yang Liping began to teach Xiao Caiqi how to dance to the best of her ability.
By the time Xiao Caiqi was 4 years old, she was already able to perform on stage.
Standing on the big stage of Yunnan Impression, Xiao Caiqi had only dance in her mind and never thought about stage fright.
After she started on the right track, she didn't go to school like a normal child, Yang Liping said:
"It's fine if you can recognize words and arithmetic, but the rest can be self-taught."
As for her cultural lessons, Yang hired a tutor to tutor her.
Yang Liping is perfect when it comes to dancing, so her demands on Xiao Caiqi are also strict.
But Xiao Caiqi never complained about these strict requirements. Because she thinks that Yang Liping's dance is perfect and the adjustments she asks for are absolutely justified.
Seeing Xiao Caiqi's gradual growth, she took to the Spring Festival Gala stage in 2014 on Yang Liping's recommendation.
According to the program's requirements, she had to spin for four hours straight.
Feng Xiaogang looked distressed and said to Yang Liping that she should not let her stop.
But Xiao Caiqi didn't, saying, "I'm interpreting the passage of time, so I definitely can't stop."
She wowed everyone with this turn, and when she walked down the street, people approached her for a photo. She thought to herself,
"It's pretty nice that so many people know me and like me, and I'm thankful for that."
3.
Already showing amazing talent in dance, there has been speculation that Xiao Caiqi will become Yang Liping's successor.
Either that or good-looking stories don't randomly keep people guessing what the next episode will be like.
Small Caiqi naturally didn't follow the path the world thought she would.
She said, "To say the successor, our whole dance troupe can be the successor, for me, the main thing is to go to find something unique in myself, I think it is impossible to have a second Yang Liping, and there will not be another person to dance 'The Spirit of the Sparrow' for me to feel so beautiful."
Small Caiqi, who wanted to find herself, chose to enter the movie and television industry, and with her fame, she managed to sign with Tangren Pictures.
While having amazing dancing talent, it was far from enough to be placed in the acting world.
She didn't have much to show for herself in the TV dramas she starred in, Legend of the Qingqiu Fox and Immortal Sword and Cloud, and she gradually drowned in the sea of people.
For Yang Liping, who has carefully cultivated Xiao Caiqi, in the face of Xiao Caiqi's abandonment of dance to enter the world of acting, she can only say helplessly:
"She has been contrary to the original dream, and in the future will not reconsider cultivating her, and she is in the direction of her own preferred direction, and will not be forced to do so".
Saying that it is not disappointed may also be false, after all, Yang Liping once poured her heart and soul into her, and now she is going against the grain.
4.
It is only later that her private life was gradually picked up by netizens.
Once upon a time, the fairy-like Little Colorful Flag, nowadays, she would already go in and out of nightclubs with heavy makeup, and smoking and drinking have become the norm.
In the subsequent appearances, we can no longer find the former "fairy".
Presumably due to a lack of management, her face has become fat, and the revolving "fairy" has been replaced by bloat.
Even if she appeared at the same time as Yang Liping, if she didn't look closely, she wouldn't have realized that she was Xiao Caiqi.
It is thought that she recognized her current situation and decided to make herself make changes to be able to go further in the future.
In 2018, she chose to go to the Shakespeare Theatre School in the UK to continue her studies in the acting department.
Yang Liping eventually supported her choice and gave her her blessing.
More than two years have passed now, and she is still continuing to learn and grow.
Conclusion
Everyone's life is under their own control, and we don't have the right to say what others should choose.
Like sailing in the sea, some people are in order to be able to smooth sailing, smooth arrival at the other shore, no waves.
And there are those who are adventurous by nature, who want to try to see how well they can do in the midst of the rough waves.
So we don't have the right to criticize someone for not being adventurous or for being bent on having their way, no matter what choices they make.
We are not other people and do not know what other people want.
No matter what path Xiao Caiqi is taking now, what we should do is to bless her.