The trip to Taiwan is specially organised for our school's Guzheng Ensemble. The main objective is for us to learn through the exchange programmes with schools in Taiwan. Indeed through this programme, we have learnt quite a fair bit. We learnt to interact with people of differing experience and knowledge in Guzheng, learnt to be aware that there are different types of Guzheng instruments other than the ones we used in Singapore, learnt to adapt accordingly to unforeseen situations and environments, learnt more about Taiwan’s culture and history..

In Taiwan, we had the opportunity to go to many places, such as Ximen Ding [西门町], Taipei Municipal Fuxing Senior High School [台北市复兴高级中学], Chiufen [九份], Senkeng Toufu Street[深坑豆腐街], Toucheng Leisure Farm [头城农场], Wufengqi Waterfall [五峰旗瀑布], Yehliu Geological Park [野柳], Tang Ming GuZheng Association [唐鸣筝乐团], Danshui Old Street [淡水老街], Fisherman’s Wharf [渔人码头], Shihlin Night Market [士林夜市], Taipei 101 Shopping Mall – 85F Observatory Galley [台北101 - 含85F 观景台], Eslite Bookstore [诚品书店] and Chinese Culture University [中国文化大学]. These are all I could list for now. I have also seen another kind of Guzheng instrument in Tang Ming GuZheng Association!

This is how it looks like, but I have no idea what is its name. It has 8 more strings than our normal Guzheng, if I did not remember wrongly. I was glad that everyone has the chance to touch or play it for a while, since we have never seen this type of Guzheng before. Also, this is the only place we had a chance to interact with the other members too. For the other places, we did not really interact with anybody else, probably due to time constraint. Even though the time was limited, I was glad that we were still given time to shop for souvenir as this is the first time I have been to overseas, I would feel bad if I did not buy anything for my family.

I have learnt that one must be able to know how to react accordingly to situations no matter how bad it is. For example, we were told that the Senior High School would be lending us six Guzheng. But it turned out that there were only three Guzheng. Which means, our song that is divided into 3 parts, has only one person supporting each part and it was as though everyone is doing solo since all 3 parts are playing different things and that made the performers even more nervous, some even forgot the notes and had to look at the score sheet one last time before they went up the “stage”. But even though we played wrongly, we had to continue playing like there’s nothing wrong so that the audience would not notice it. Luckily, we still managed to finish playing the song. If everyone was unable to adapt quickly to the situation, the chances of finishing the song in front of the audience would have probably be only 10%

During this trip, I found out, there is a big difference between the people in Singapore and Taiwan! In Singapore, most of the store assistants are quite rude. They stare and sometimes maybe even glare at you as if you’re some shoplifting brat and would only smile at you when you’ve decided to buy something. But in Taiwan, the store assistants would start smiling at you the moment you’ve made eye contact with him or her. Also, even after troubling them, and you ended up buying nothing, they would still send you off with a smile, and not with an annoyed look! Thus, I’ve concluded that, Taiwanese has better temper than Singaporeans.

During this trip to Taiwan, I’ve seen us members arguing and I think that it is totally a normal thing. It’s just a small quarrel among good friends and they will patch again soon, so I don’t think that there is a need to make a fuss over it and all. Also, through that quarrel, some of their bond became even stronger, they became better friends than ever, thus, quarreling may not be a bad thing. In my opinion, through this trip, the bond between all of us became even stronger through a small little incident, and that, we have a special bond that can’t be describe at all. If one of us starts to cry, the others may get affected and cry too, and I think that this bond is indeed very precious to all of us. Just that, there are a few that tends to carry their joke too far and sometimes, I’ll get pissed off. So, I really hope that everyone can control themselves, of course, I’m included too.