If you asked me about the most exciting scene in my favorite cartoon series,?My Little Pony, as I was in third grade, I would definitely talk about the scene in which Spike snatched the crystal heart from King Sombra and saved the entire Crystal Empire. In my years in fifth grade, on the other hand, if you asked me about the character I’m most interested in, it would not be a hard question to answer for saying out the baby alicorn, Flurry Heart, who was just born in the Crystal Empire. When I was a child, I was probably attracted only by the shining crystals and the crystal pony, without taking too much time thinking about the author's intention to design all of these. Today, I was being attracted by the shine again, thus returned to the Crystal Empire from Equestria again and viewed this beautiful place from a different perspective. Perhaps... this empire is symbolizing the treasurable nations that preserved all their traditional culture in reality.

Let’s start off by recapping the storyline of the Crystal Empire in Season Three. This empire is, in fact, a forgotten one that had survived for more than a thousand years without a soul under the rule of King Sombra. Later, a ruler named Princess Cadance came to this empire, using her magic to protect this place day and night. As her protection magic was fading along with her loss of stamina combined with the fact that King Sombra was about to return, Equestria’s leader, Princess Celestia, appointed her student, Twilight Sparkle, to visit the Crystal Empire along with Twilight’s friends in order to protect there. When the magic of Princess Cadance was still barely able to support, through the cooperation of Twilight Sparkle and her friends, they reminded the residence of the Crystal Empire about their own culture step by step. At the end, when King Sombra broke the defense and invaded the empire, Twilight, her friends, and Spike found the crystal love hidden by Sombra through countless hardships, then used the magic of love to light up and save the crystal empire. After that, the crystal heart became a cultural relic that maintained the cultural identity and cohesion of the crystal empire ponies, making their empire known and remembered again.

Corresponding to reality, isn't this a portrayal of a nation experiencing countless intrusions from external culture? Regardless of the location, countries with profound cultural heritage can hardly escape the elimination of traditions by the invaders again and again, and ultimately can only become a tragic and bleak history. Some of these traditions are still being protected and practiced by later generations, and some of them may have truly been fixed in cultural relics, even disappeared. The powerful intrusion of foreign ethnicities can be said to be like King Sombra, suppressing the people's national self-confidence, allowing their own traditions to fade away due to the assimilation of the invaders. If talking about an ancient country with culture, which of the empires being historically glamorous still shines with the splendid light of the flourishing culture of that time? On the contrary, all of this has been weakened by other cultures, and even some have been replaced. China has the most continuous and long-lasting cultural retention among many of these countries, but we must not forget that our country has not experienced the ravages and destruction of cultural treasures by the great powers in modern times. Fortunately, the later Chinese began to strengthen the protection of cultural relics through the belief of remembering culture and national humiliation, so that modern people can also understand the culture of their own homeland, and it is difficult to forget their roots.

But what will happen after a culture had been through the changes of the times? It's time to introduce the storyline of Season Six. In this season, Princess Cadance has a little baby, Flurry Heart, whose magic is highly out of control. The uncontrollable magic made the little baby inadvertently shattered the crystal heart, leaving the crystal empire with the crisis of being buried by the eternal blizzard. After that, through the efforts of certain ponies possessing the mastery of magic, they added the purest piece of crystal into the crystal heart based on the original relic restoration spell, thus restored this broken heart and even strengthening its magic.

When seeing such, I couldn't help myself connect this unintentional harm toward cultural heritage with today's cultural changes. Isn't Flurry Heart similar to those new ideas and new technologies penetrating into our traditional culture? Although the arrival of all this may be a surprise to everyone, it is undeniable that the intervention of this new idea also has a high probability of disrupting people's previous thoughts and styles, resulting in more and more people who have been following the trend losing their own souls. But in reality, how many people can stand up to change the situation after being aware of such a cultural disaster, like those few ponies possessing mastery in magic????????

In fact, similar problems are occurring in the city where I have lived for many years—Beijing. I remember that my elementary school Chinese teacher once said that Beijing has lost too much of its traditional culture, being replaced with a capital’s production that is gradually commercialized and industrialized instead. One week in June, I took part in a Beijing cultural study with my school. I was able to slow down my steps in this fast-paced city and devote myself to the experience of seeking my roots again. This immersive experience made me feel really sad that those rich traditional arts are now gradually faded out of history along with the introduction of external culture and advanced technology. At the same time, I was also very disappointed at the excessive commercial entertainment of historical attractions. Seeing these, I started to have a stronger belief that my teacher's words are so true and worthwhile of reflection. However, life also changes with the changes of the times. You cannot just give up advancing with the times and hold strongly on the tradition in order to preserve your roots. What we need to find is a balance of eclectic integration of ancient and modern cultures, which can not only meet the material and spiritual needs of contemporary people but also enable them to remember their own culture. In fact, during this trip, I also saw this kind of effort to maintain this balance: shadow puppet shows interspersed with works from the Ming and New China periods, and cloisonne that combines Chinese and Western elements... I just hope that more people will be able to do realize the necessity of such a combination and take their actions so that the spirit of the "Flurry Heart" of the new era can be perfectly integrated into the "crystal heart" we already have.

I don't know how many people will still remember where they belong and their cultural roots under such rapid social development today. Treating these culturally forgotten "Crystal Empires", would you let them be buried by the eternal snowstorm, or would you like to make them shine brilliantly like crystals again? ...