Si Mana couldn’t forget the applause!
The first time she performed on stage, when she finished the first song, the response from the audience was indifferent. Nobody applauded, which made it “illegitimate” for her to do an encore. Ah M, the master of ceremonies, had to come on the stage to smooth things over for her. He said to the swarming audience down there, frothily:
“Our Miss Si Mana has brought us Hong Kong fans several of her latest love songs that have been quite a hit among many young people. She likes Hong Kong very much. So, let’s welcome Miss Si Mana to sing us another song with warm applause, her very best ‘Mad About You!’”
Some sporadic, half-hearted applause aroses from the audience.
When the second song was over, the audience began to applaud more enthusiastically. It seemed their applause came from the heart. She was thrilled.
The applause for the third song was even warmer.
When she stepped out of the nightclub, it was already past midnight. Si Mana’s boyfriend stopped a taxi to take her home.
In the car her boyfriend said bluntly: “Na, you sang badly tonight.”
“What?” Si Mana said, “You meant my first song, right? I know I didn’t do it well, but the audience in Hong Kong . . . they were so rude. No response at all. How do you suppose I could put myself into singing?”
“How can you blame the audience when you didn’t sing well in the first place?”
“My second and third songs were better than the first. You know the secret?”
The boyfriend shook his head.
“I’m a moody singer. The audience’s response means a lot to me and I need applause badly. It’s stimulating!”
So the first time Si Mana performed on stage she heard applause from the audience. For this, she was so excited she couldn’t fall asleep. She crawled out of bed at around midnight and sang a song in front of the floor-length mirror. She imagined that on the other side of the mirror a large audience of several hundred nightclub guests were listening. Then, as she imagined a thunderous applause arising from down there, she closed her eyes, excited, intoxicated, her soul soaring into the clouds in the sky.
However, the reviews by music critics were not only unflattering, they were sharp in their criticism. Since Si Mana didn’t read the newspapers, she had no clue.
After performing on the stage a few more times, Si Mana fell ill. According to doctors’ diagnoses, the cause of the illness was excessive excitement. Si Mana knew that the excitement was, in turn, caused by the audience’s applause. Whenever the warm applause arose while she was performing on stage, her heart would beat so fiercely. The more frenziedly the audience applauded, the less she could control herself, and the more she let go of her emotions, so much so that she became hoarse and sounded like a different person.
The maddest was a recent evening. Si Mana had barely walked onto the stage and hadn’t even opened her mouth when warm applause erupted thunderously, mixed with whistling and frenzied hurrahs. Si Mana was so excited she fainted! Her boyfriend jumped on stage and removed his jacket to cover her thin, semi-translucent dress, which revealed her bra-less chest.
(n.d.)