On 2nd June 2010, I went on a Guzheng Exchange Journey in Taipei with my Guzheng teachers and friends. The objectives of this exchange journey are to share the joy of music, exchange ideas on how to improve our standards, enrich our experience in performance through music exchange and performance. It also provides opportunities for bonding and team building among members.

From the exchange programme, we have learnt from the Taiwanese, their performance skills, their style of song played and gain new experience. Most importantly, we have also learnt their attitude in playing and performing and the importance of building our confidence.

On this trip to Taiwan not only did we participate in the exchange programme , we also went on sightseeing , stayed in a farm, visited a few streets and went to see a waterfall. Besides having a chance to interact with the Taipei Guzheng students, we also had a one night farm stay which I like very much and was glad that I came. During the farmstay, there was an activities call Kung Yao where we split into groups to cook sweet potato using dry soil. My group failed a few times but we did not want to give up so we tried a few more times but in the end we still did not succeed.

From this I learnt that not all hard work will pay off, not everything will be successful in the end even if we did not give up. We must understand this and learn to accept failures and learn from our mistakes. This is important in our Guzheng group in order for us to improve ourselves. I also learnt about teamwork from this activity, which is also important in our Guzheng group. We have to help and encourage each other during practices and cooperate with each other when performing just like making the Kung Yao.

We also went to Wufengqi waterfall where we had to climb an extremely long flight of stairs if we want to see the top of the waterfall. There were two levels we could stop at, the second level is around half of the waterfall and the first level was the top of it. The tour guide actually did not expect us to climb to the top but we did. We all chose to climb to the top as we want to see the top of the waterfall. Although it was very tiring, it was worth it. When we reached the top, the place was very cooling and refreshing. It gave me a sense of satisfaction as I had climbed so far. From here I can then understand what the people in the show always says that if you work hard to get what you want you will realize that in the end you will feel even better when you get it even it is just a simple thing because you have worked hard to get it.

I can say that this exchange journey did not go as smoothly as we thought. Because we kept facing problems during the exchange and we were not mentally prepared for it as we thought it will go smoothly like our normal performances. For example, on our first exchange with the Taipei Municipal Fu-Xing Senior High School we faced our first problem that made us very nervous. They only have three guzheng instruments but we were told previously that they will prepare six guzheng instruments for us so during our practice, we had six of us practicing the piece. On the actual performance, we were told that we can only send three students to perform. The three chosen ones were quite nervous as they were suddenly told that there were the only three playing. Normally, there are more people performing so everyone will feel more confident. Because of this there were a lot of mistakes in the song and the person who played solo did not finish the whole song as she was asked to play solo suddenly. However, I was still proud of them because they were very brave.

On our second exchange with Tang Ming Guzheng Orchestra, because their guzheng which is very different from ours, we have never seen or learn to play this type of guzheng before, we did not get to perform.

On our third exchange with the Chinese Culture University Department of Chinese Music, I felt that we did not perform really well although teacher said that she is proud of us. Because during the performance some notes were not accurately played and I even snapped a string during the performance which spoilt the performance. This is partly due to the fact that we are not used to their guzheng.

There were quite a few problems during our exchange but our teacher told us that this will be an experience for us and I learnt that when this kind of situation happened, you will not know but you must be prepared for it.

During this six-day trip, I can really see that their main language is Chinese unlike in Singapore we speak English. In Singapore when we see a woman we call her aunty, when we see a man we call him uncle. However, in Taiwan because they speak mainly Chinese they will not understand if we call them uncles or aunties but as we are used to it sometime we will forget and call them uncles and aunties in English and not Chinese. They could understand that we are foreigners so they politely asked us what that mean. They were very friendly too unlike in Singapore, people will talk to other people only when they know each other. For example, when we were climbing the stairs to see the waterfall, there was also another group of elder climbing down, they smiled at us and even joked with us saying that there are bus-stops on top and even say that we are reaching even though it was still a long way to go. But this lightens up our mood as we were very tired when we heard that we are reaching, we were encouraged and kept on climbing.

I also realized that when the students are performing all the girls will let down their hair unlike in Singapore we are told to tie up our hair. In addition they also do not really have a guzheng ensemble where the whole group is guzheng, they are more like orchestra where guzheng is the main musical instrument. Unlike us, Guzheng is not their CCA, it is more like a subject to them. In Singapore, we are more into the academics but over there, they care a lot in the non-academic like example the performing acts.

I really enjoyed this trip, I hope that after this trip our Guzheng members will be closer to one another and after seeing their students played so well, we will also work hard to achieve a better result, our standard will be raised and we will play well in next year SYF.