Dance Trippingly with Death: Lo Man-fei

After watching the clip of Steve Jobs’ lecture in Harvard University (2005), I thought of Lo Man-fei. The topic that connects the two figures is—death. So, who is Lo Man-fei? Have you ever heard of her before? Lo Man-fei was a famous Taiwanese dancer who died in 2006 of lung cancer. When she died, she was only fifty-one years old. It’s a younger age than Steve Jobs’. And when she died, I was an elementary school child, knowing not much about her death.

Here, I would like to share with you about Lo Man-fei’s value towards death, and also life. Why do I talk of life? Because I think death and life are the two sides of one coin. And, not knowing about life, how is it possible to know about death? So, let’s talk about Lo Man-fei’s life. She started dancing at the early age of five and became a professional dancer when she was twenty-four. Then in the following over twenty years, she worked as a dancer, an educator (of course of dancing) and a CAO (Chief Art Officer) of Cloud Gate Dance Theatre. Her life went without a hitch by then. She even told Lin Hwai-min, her thirty-year teacher and friend, that her biggest suffering was she had never suffered in her life. However, her suffering then came as the form of cancer cells.

Steve Jobs looked in the mirror every morning and asked himself: “If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?” And whenever the answer has been “No” for too many days in a row, he knew he needed to change something. For Lo Man-fei, she knew she would die earlier than average people. So during her five years of illness, she kept dancing, teaching and choreographing without stopping for a single minute. Even when she was too weak to dance, lying on the sickbed, she still watched the videotapes of her students’ dance. She devoted her whole life in dancing, even when she was threatened by cancer, because what she cared most was not the length of life, but how rich it could be. Steve Jobs told us to live each day as if it was the last. And Lo Man-fei said she will cheerfully live to the last second. Both of them were so close to death, and both of them taught us to live with might and main, also to live a splendid life.

Confronting with death, Lo Man-fei look steadily at death and said, “Death, I don’t fear it. Now I’m so close to it, I don’t even have to fear it.” Lo Man-fei viewed life as a big party, and she told her friends, “If I’m gone, it is just I leave the party earlier, resting in the room next door.” Big party versus small resting, it is thus clear that Lo Man-fei thought life is more important than death. Lo Man-fei was completely at ease when facing the horrifying death because she held an optimistic, enthusiastic attitude towards life. Every time when someone admired for her persistent will to fight with cancer, she replied, “I’m not fight with cancer, but live with it harmoniously.” Again, what she really cared about was not when she would die, but how splendid her life could be. Just like her English name Joy, Lo Man-fei’s brightness made people around her feel her ardor for life. Indeed, Lo Man-fei was the dancer of life.

Steve Jobs once said, “Death is the destination we all share.” Lo Man-fei herself shared the very similar view with Jobs, she said, “All people can’t escape from death. Now that everyone is doomed to die and will die, why not get along with death joyfully?” Though Lo Man-fei’s dance steps in man’s world ceased, I will keep her sanguine attitude towards life in mind for ever.