Every evening, there are always crowds appearing in the noisy plaza. In the centre of the plaza, raging flames are burning.
It drives out the coldness in the air of the night, and also gives warmth to the circles of crowds.
More and more people are gathering, not only for warm themselves, but for a more important reason, they are coming to watch an unbelievably amazing show.
In the plaza, there is a cute clown. The clown's humourous dressing, swiftness, and his funny face look especially lively under the burning flames, and make those who are watching feel the happiness right from their heart. Yet, the clown has still one more special talent. It is his special
puppet that makes his audience could not hold back their exclaimation.
This puppet has a round face, with tiny eyes, a big mouth and wears a dunce cap. Indeed, he looks almost the same as the clown! What suprising is, there are no strings controlling the puppet, nor are there any pockets for inserting your palm into it and control its movements.
Everyone is wondering, how will the clown make this puppet move? As the clown finishes his last show and get out his puppet, putting it onto the floor, all audiences aside are focusing, silently, breathlessly on the puppet. The noisy market place, suddenly becomes unusually quiet, even the wind has stopped. The clown clapped, and gave a fright to the audience who is so concentrated. The paralysed puppet on the floor, seems to have heard the call, and suddenly jumps up. Everyone are amazed and cannot believe what they see. The clown starts
clapping, sometimes fast, sometimes slow, and the puppet follows the clapping and starts to dance! It sometimes wave its hands, sometimes give a bow. It is as interesting as the clown, and also as swift.
"Would you like to see even better puppet show?", the clown asked.
"Yes we do!" answered the crowd.
"So let's clap together. The louder the clapping, the show will be more fantastic!" said the clown.
So the crowd is clapping with the clown. And just like the puppet can hear the clappings, he is becoming more and more energetic. As the clapping dies away, it slows down. It jumped and swirled and did a backward somersault for once, twice, and thrice! The louder the clapping, the faster and higher it jumps. Its swiftness makes the crowd so enthusiastic.
There is a boy who is amazed by the show.
"Let's clap louder, and longer, and see how high the puppet can reach!" said the boy.
As the crowd heard him, they clapped even harder and longer, just to see the puppet's ultimate show. In the thundering clapping, the puppet did not fail their expectations. It jumped higher and higher, and did more and more somersault. At last, it even dilberately jumped and rolled near the blazing fire.
"Let's clap even louder, and see if it can jump across the fire!" cried the boy. So all the audience clapped really hard, and there are only the thundering clappings that can be heard in the market place. The puppet followed the clappings, and jumped, hardly, into the air. Everyone are amazed, and they could not even gasp at the scene, and of course, they forgot to clap. The plaza becomes silent again, and the puppet, in front of the audience, fell into the fire and was burnt into ashes.
"Why, it could have jumped across the fire. Why it didn't?" asked the boy. The tearing clown answered, "The puppet dances with the clapping. Without sound of the clapping, it is lifeless. You forgot to clap, and it lost its energy."
Most people want the clapping from others. They want to be appreciated and admired. However, if we treat this as significant to our lives, we lose our own value. Earning good comments is a positive thing, yet we should never live under it, and let it control our thoughts and behaviour. This is because, we can never live an exciting life if we care too much about others' opinion. Only if we understand the meaning behind our own doings, we can strongly believe in our way even withoulapping and admiration from others, and thus live out our own wonderful lives.