I’ve gained a lot of experience during the past 6 days 5 nights of the Taiwan tip. The main objectives of the trip are the things we have learnt from the schools in Taiwan and the rest of places that we have gone to during the entire trip.

I learnt a lot of skills during the second day in Taiwan when we went to to Municipal Fuxing Senior High School especially the importance of movements and sound when playing Guzheng. The girls were a little nervous but they did not show it on their faces and put up a good show for us to enjoy. After my solo, I felt that I had a lot more to work on because I played a note wrongly during my solo and made a facial expression which showed that I have made a mistake. I expected my solo to have a lot of mistakes but little did I expect to stop when I have not played until the first half of the song. Nonetheless, our visit to Municipal Fuxing Senior High School was fun and enriching as it was our first time at a Taiwanese school.

We’ve been to many places of interest such as Ximending, Yehliu Geological Park, the tall mountain that took us a lot of energy to climb and so much more! On the fourth day when we had to split to have dinner at a night market, Victoriette was lost and alone. That taught us a valuable lesson not to leave a member alone even if we dislike her because once something happens to her, the whole ensemble will be held responsible. Moreover Taiwan is a big country and once a foreigner gets lost in a place or in a crowd, finding him/her will be a huge problem. It taught me and the rest that team spirit is important and if we dislike a certain person, we must not talk behind her back but confront her instead and tell her what she should improve on.

Dinner at the night market with my friends was very enjoyable. What appealed to me the most was the fried ice-cream – It’s hot and crunchy on the outside but cold and soft on the inside! It was my first time eating a unique ice-cream and we did not regret buying it.

At the Tang Ming Guzheng Association, I learnt that there are different types of guzhengs and the Japanese guzheng is totally different from the Chinese’s. The Japanese guzheng can be played on both sides, the left-hand side and the right hand side. The number of strings on the left-hand side is two times more than the strings on the right hand side. The tune of the guzheng can be easily adjusted just by sliding a little piece of compartment at the ends. I also learnt that it takes years of practice to get up to the level of the girls at the Tang Ming Guzheng Association as they can play English songs such as Mozart’s piece on a Chinese instrument! The Japanese guzheng is harder to play as both sides can be used and the distance of the strings on right hand side of the guzheng, which is where we normally play, is slightly further apart from each other.

On the last day of the trip, we went to the Chinese Culture University Department of Chinese Music. We were very nervous when it was our turn to perform on stage and many of us played wrong notes. If that was the SYF performance, we would not be able to achieve the gold medal. We did not perform well due to a few factors. Firstly, we were very nervous. Secondly, we had no confidence in playing the song and lastly, we were not used to playing a guzheng which do not belong to us. This taught us that with enough practice, we will be able to play a piece together with ease and it also taught us that we have to adapt to change and should not always rely on our own guzhengs in school or at home to play a song well. As the saying goes, “Change is inevitable”.

I hope to see a huge improvement in our guzheng standard as our aim for next year’s SYF is Gold with Honors. To achieve this we should practice hard and not laze around when the teacher’s not around to coach us. I would also like to see us bonding well with one another and with the juniors too.

The culture of Taiwan is very different from Singapore and the Taiwanese are very nice and gracious. Taiwan’s highways and expressways are very clean compared to Singapore’s roads where rubbish can be found on the roads even though we are considered a “Garden City”. Even though there are no cleaners in Taiwan, we hardly see any litter around as the Taiwanese pick up or keep the litters themselves and throw them away when they see a dustbin. In Singapore, we can still find litter around us even though there are cleaners to help us clean the streets.