Breaking Ice: Power of Music

When your English skill is limited, it is not easy to make friends.

It was not an easy experience to get to know people in the college dorm while you can barely listen to people to understand where the conversation is going, not able to tell what you think about the topics.

It was like a watching ping-pong game at the beginning...looking at the people speaking one after another, quietly.

All the girls in the dorm were between 18 to 20 some years old, and they speak fast. You also do not know what they are talking about if you never watched the particular TV programme or movie which is the topic of the conversation.

But I found the tool to break ice.

There was a piano in the dorm living room.

Besides the piano lessons I was taking when I was in kindergarten, I self-studies some music on piano. So that I played simple ones like Richard Clayderman and For Elise.

That music I played created something to talk about, and it worked as a real ice-breaker.

There were variety of students in the dorm: My roommate was from Hawaii, others from NY, Alaska, and Paris. Some blacks, some whites, and one Asian (me)...as the time went by, we became good friends.

Another music I enjoyed was a College Choir.

When I took a Voice Class to fulfill the liberal arts requirements, the pianist of the class recommended me to take the Concert Choir class which had one hour lesson every day.

It was over 60 students in the choir with full 8 voice parts. I became the second soprano and only foreign student in the choir.

It was such a wonderful experience. The choir sang very classic gospels in Latin, German, and English, or sometimes the medley of Beauty and the Beast. We went to the concerts in the churches around the cities in California like Santa Barbara.

When you are lonely, it was always the music which helped me and stood by me.

There was one concert away from Bakersfield. The audiences were mostly elder people in that city who loved classic choir music. After we finished all the music of the day, one old lady approached me and said,

"I watched you perform very beautifully. It was so wonderful."

There was no solo part and I was one of the many sopranos, so I wondered what impressed that lady so much, but I was very grateful and thanked her for the comment. Being the only foreigner in the choir was actually not so easy. But that lady's comment saved my day and my entire year in the choir.

Music helped me to communicate people better, and it also supported me to gather myself during the tough moment.

Without piano and singing, I would have made much fewer friends during the first year in Bakersfield. I believe in the power of music, and I do appreciate it very very much.

But at that time, I didn't dream that I would be working in a music company one day.