The Avid Reader (and enjoyer of all subjects)

Another eon since I haven’t updated my blog!  I’ve just sat back and watched visitor after visitor pour in, seeking news about IMO 2009’s results.  (My FlagCounter has been working hard recently, and my ClustrMaps found it had work to do after napping.)  Anyways, what about this music school, as you ask?  I’m getting to the post:

One day, in the morning, out of the blue, my grandpa asked us if we wanted to go to a music school in the community.  We refused, as I wanted to do some blogging, but my grandpa always has his way, no matter how many people are against him, so we left the house for the music school.

There, we saw quite a lot of students with a few adults.  One of them was in her 50-’s to 60-’s, at the front of a piano.  The rest of them were around 20.  As the students turned slowly towards my sister and I, our faces reddened.  One of the teachers handed us a packet with songs in Chinese.  Students needed to sing two songs.  Since my sister and I did not recognize some Chinese characters, we just heard the students sing.  After they sang the first song a few times, the teachers directed them to sing the second one.  The second one was a song my sister and I were familiar with, so we sang along.  It had been sang at the Beijing Olympics by a girl called Ling Miao Ke.  However, when the teachers asked the class which song they preferred, the students said the first one, probably because it was shorter.

Then, it was time for a talent show involving music!  At this, my stomach turned over.  My grandpa told us to go up and perform.  Heads rotated back again, and my face turned as red as an apple.  However, I was not prepared for this, and would not do so.  I stubbornly refused.  This time, my grandpa had to acquiesce.  I sat back in my chair, relaxed, watching one of the teachers playing “Old McDonald” on the harmonica, then a courageous little girl singing one of the songs in front of the whole class. 

After the class ended, I was relieved that I didn’t play piano in front of the class.  I knew that without sufficient practice, my usually nimble hands would shake and tremble so much I would botch up the notes.  My grandpa, who didn’t have a single notion about piano, said that I had no reason to be afraid–the students did not know piano.  At this point, I was reminded of a scene in “The Joy Luck Club” by Amy Tan (which I have recently re-read, by the way) in which the protagonist, Jing-mei (June) Woo plays a song on the piano at a talent show.  Her incessant messing-up causes the whole audience, with the exception of her deaf teacher, to disapprove of her performance. 

At least I got away that time, but I’m still wary of a day when my grandpa will tell us to go to the music school and play a song for the rest of the class.

This entry was posted on Sunday, August 9th, 2009 at 3:01 am and is filed under Education. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.