In my memory, during the coldest part of winters back home, nightfall often came early. The biting wind swept over the empty fields like knives, swirling dry straw and dust into the air. Yet winter was also a season full of anticipation. During the agricultural off-season, people have more time for joyous events, and weddings were especially plentiful. Whenever there was a happy event in the village -- a wedding or the birth of a child, well-off families hosting the celebration would invite a film projection team to set up a snow white screen in the village square, sharing their joy with the entire village.

Our hearts were instantly ignited. After school, without waiting for the slow-cooked dinner my mother was preparing, I jointed my friends grabbing our stools and rushed toward the village square. We had to secure the best seats -- right in the middle, neither too close nor too far -- where every glance and every line of dialogue could be clearly caught. 

By the time the first film began, we had already waited in the freezing wind for more than two hours. When we learned that the first two films were an old-style costume drama and a family melodrama, our parents -- who had arrived unhurriedly just before the screaning -- tried to pursuade us to go home, have a quick bite, and warm ourselves up. “We will come get you when the second film is almost over,” they promised.