Writing for ANAM

In March, the Australian National Academy of Music asked me to write some thoughts about surviving this current season. This was for the current students, from the perspective of an ANAM alumna, to encourage the current cohort, offer advice about how to use their time well, and how to maintain some semblance of continued learning. ANAM's training programme has recommenced online, and you can read about their activities on their website. 

So it's been several weeks of our everyday lives being upended and forced into virtual lockdown. You might have started out feeling excited about that many hours to yourself, anxious about not knowing how long this would last, disappointed that you had finally found the thing you were meant to do and now it's cut short and you can't even do it, or worried that you'd go crazy without normal interaction with other people. All those emotions (and all the others I haven't mentioned) are legitimate, and it's definitely helpful to recognise that nothing about this situation is normal. 

 

Maybe you've already found your new routine. Maybe you've been struggling to find your mojo and rhythm. Or maybe it's somewhere in the middle. 

It's okay to have good days and bad days, so long as you can accept it's sometimes how it is.

Be kind to yourself. But know that kindness to yourself doesn't mean not being accountable to yourself either. 

 

At the end of two, or six, or however long months, what do you want to say you did?

Set some goals. Achievable, measurable, interesting ones that will help you. 

Do you want to be audition-ready? Make a list of excerpts you need to learn, and learn the standard repertoire.

Do you want to have read through all of Bach's Preludes and Fugues? Work through one every few days.

Do you want to have listened to all of Mahler's symphonies? Plan them for different days of the week.

 

Cultivate things other than music for your life. 

This is important not only for now. I didn't always want to be a musician. But I am now, and I love it. I also love the friends I have in music.

But it's good to have other outlets. What happens if I had a serious accident and couldn't play my instrument anymore? Of course I'd be devastated, but hopefully my family and friends would value me more than my ability to play music, and there would be other things to talk about.

Are there things you always wanted to do but never find the time? Try it now. It doesn't have to be big or time-consuming. It could be that book you always wanted to read, the cupboard that never got organised, the friend to whom you always say, "let's catch up!" but never actually ring, the seeds that you bought that you never planted. And that's just a handful of the myriad of options. Ask others what they're doing, what they're reading, what they're discovering.

You also need friends outside of music. They help to give perspective in so many different ways. They might be your neighbours, your surf club, your church or faith community, your old friends from school, your circus skills class. Don't worry if they're not in the same life stage as you, the same age, the same background. They're people too, and chances are that everybody could do with extra friends, even for this time. 

 

Of course, there is the possibility that with all this time, you have a very long list of things you want to do. You're thinking, "Wow, so many hours! I will practise for ten of the sixteen that I'm awake for!". 

But could you do that in five hours instead, effectively and efficiently?

Then do that, and spend the other five hours doing other stuff. Listen, read, eat well (that means fruits and vegetables. Proper things. And if you must, a small treat also!), turn your room/living room into your home gym, or have a kitchen dance party.

In our enthusiasm to learn, beware over-doing it. I'm saying this for balance; by all means, use the time well to practise and hone your craft, but also know that you don't want to develop RSI in the process. Check in with your teacher. It doesn't take a lot to shoot a text message, or to have a quick video call to demonstrate something. 

 

I know so many others have written about good ways to maintain regularity and good mental health. I don't want to parrot them all, but want to highlight a few:

1. The human body loves regularity. Sleep is important. Do that thing of going to bed and getting up at regular times, and get a decent amount each night. The discipline to do this is good for your health even in normal times.

2. Stay in touch with people. If you're an extrovert, maybe you're going crazy already. Make use of video calls. Have Zoom dinners together, organise a group quiz night, tune in to an exercise video at the same time and do it together (but separately). If you're an introvert, text your friends. Schedule video calls (but not three on the same day!). 

Call your family. Write an email to an old friend. Send a message to your teacher. 

3. (Related to 1, and mentioned above) Take care of your physical being. Eat well, sleep well, do some physical exercise. As somebody who hates exercise, I've taken to doing squats while I brush my teeth (that's two minutes twice a day), having dance parties through the house (it's not pretty), and walking up and down the stairs. 

4. It's okay if your experiences are different to others. Find the things that work for you. Try things until you do.

 

My final thing is to say that even though none of this is ideal, there are always positives to be found. Attitude is a huge game-changer. Make sure you smile every day and try to laugh a little.

I've taken to writing down three things I'm thankful for every day. They might be small, like eating a tasty ice-cream, or that really nice text message conversation you had, or much bigger, like watching the whole Easter oratorio on YouTube, or learning a new piece (*actual examples from my past few weeks*).

I encourage you to do the same, because we could all do with some warm fuzzies that even though are brought about by this pandemic, don't have to be about the pandemic either. 

 

Use this time to focus on how to improve as a musician, but more importantly, how to develop character.

The life of a pianist

So accompanying makes up a lot of my work. And I use the term accompanying here, as opposed to the more politically correct (? appropriate?) term of associate artist. Because, let's be honest, sometimes it really is accompnaying, particularly when the role entirely is to support rather than to create an incredible musical experience for the performers and listeners alike. Which I realise is probably is the point of making music in the first place, and remains the most sought-after goal, and the ideal. But you know, sometimes in school and AMEB exams, it definitely isn't about whether I can play an incredible Brahms or Beethoven sonata, but whether little Johnny can execute his grade two pieces.

So, we're at the time of year where I'm getting lots of requests for accompanying. Some of them are for external exams, such as the AMEB exams, and some are for recitals at university. I don't even think I get that many requests (as one friend has said he is only going to say yes to 25 and then after that, he will just say no. I'm only playing for six uni ones and some AMEB ones and auditions and stuff!), but seriously, I could write a book even from this year's correspondence. I receive communication via email, phone calls, text messages.

Here are but a few highlights so far:

* The AMEB AMusA exam:
Mother calls me up for her daughter's exam. I'm about to walk out the door so ask if she can email me the details. She says she doesn't have the internet, much less email. I ask if she can send the repertoire through via text message. She doesn't have a mobile phone. I am stuck talking to her while she demands I check my diary to see if I'm even available ("Well, there's really no point telling you the repertoire if you're not even available to play for the exam." I'm not even kidding. I just don't want to talk business before 9am!). Reluctantly, I open my diary. I should have just said no. But stupid me didn't. I am free. She says the previous accompanist found the repertoire too difficult. She asks when we can rehearse, and I tell her that my schedule changes all the time because I freelance so I'll get back to her once I see the music so I can figure out how long I need to learn it. So then she asks where she can drop the music, which I tell her. Turns out she doesn't drop the music that day as promised, and she rings back and says I gave her the wrong address. I didn't, but she typed it into her GPS incorrectly (despite me giving lots of details, like the cross street, what the building looks like, not just the street address). We have a conversation where she is getting worried because there isn't enough time to rehearse (two weeks). I have to pull out the "Trust me, I'm a professional musician. I do this all the time on little rehearsal. Your daughter is probably very bright so we'll make it work." Music arrives a couple of days later. I'm super busy so don't get back to her about rehearsals yet because my schedule is so crazy. She rings and leaves multiple messages because I'm in rehearsals/working. She's frantic. I ring her back and leave a message for her. We play phone tag. I eventually get onto her at 9.15pm one night and say, "Obviously you didn't receive my message because you rang me again?" to which she replies, "No, I don't have the internet, email, mobile phone, and we don't get our voicemails." WHAT. I work; I don't even know when is an appropriate time to call her so that she picks up the phone. I work so that I can live and pay my rent. I don't know why I didn't get out of this sooner. I don't even know why the previous accompanist found this music hard (it's not that hard) - but was probably much smarter than I am. WHY.

* Text message received at 10.44pm on 28 October asking for accompanist for exam on 3 November. "I realise this is very late notice....the other accompanistsI have contacted have been unavailable or unresponsive."
I wonder why.

* Email received on 27 October asking for accompanist for exam on 4 November. Playing some of the Reinecke "Undine" flute sonata. That I don't already play.

* Email received within two weeks notice to play first movement of Mendelssohn 2nd cello sonata. Pretty sure I have about three times as many notes as him, and many more other rehearsals to fit in that time.

* An email probably from an international student, based on the extreme politeness and slightly awkward English: "So would u like to help me out?....So would u like to help me please?"
And that his teacher would like to hear the first rehearsal next week. I don't think so.
I don't have a problem with teachers listening to rehearsals, but seriously, let me do my work first.

* So many requests that only list the day. No time. Just the day. Like I'll be free the whole day for them. Details, people, details!

* After asking an individual to give me as much information as possible, I get a list of the songs she's singing. But she's forgotten to include the time and date of her exam because there is no way I remember the details from our phone conversation (one of many on any given day) and that's why I asked her to email me.

* I paraphrase here, but effectively this:
"Hi, I'm so-and-so. Are you free for my recital on this day at this time?"
No what instrument, nor what repertoire. Details, people!

* Request from uni student for accompanist within a very specific location, so she doesn't have to travel very far.

* Request from mother for son's AMEB exam with only the date (not the time). When I ask for the time, she tells me, and then tells me that we will have to be there half an hour before for the warm-up (like I don't consider this). And that the first rehearsal will be in two days time at his teacher's studio at specific time "so he can give some feedback on my son's performance". Because my schedule and availability is not important. Nor is preparation.

* Phone call from uni student - all the other people he's rung have said no for whatever reason; when I ask him his repertoire, he mentions Dutilleux oboe sonata. I buy time by asking if he could email me his entire programme and details about everything (because I honestly stopped listening when he mentioend the Dutilleux and am trying to figure out whether it's even possible to learn and put this together within three weeks). I don't receive email for a few days from him, by then (which, to be perfectly honest) my schedule has legitimately filled up with other requests which obviously need learning and prep time. When I finally get an email, he says the uni had my email address wrong (it doesn't. Other people have emailled me in that time). I tell him honestly that it is impossible for me to fit him in given the short leadtime and his specific programme. I find out later that he actually did a mass email to a whole bunch of people on the uni list asking for an accompanist with some sort of line about 'If any of you would like to take up my offer to be my accompanist, please let me know.'
I wonder why nobody replied to him...


* So many that say, "I know this is very late notice." Sometimes with no apology. I really wonder if they know how this music thing works and that late notice is usually very terrible, particularly if you want somebody worth paying.



WHY ARE THEY SO DISORGANISED?? I'm a human being too, and a professional musician, not just some support act ready to drop everything in my schedule to make yours work. This making music together is entirely about a relationship. Last time I checked, relationships went both ways.


There have been some really great people though.
My favourite so far was the student who was so organised that she asked me well before the exam dates were even out, and I said I honestly couldn't commit unless I had a date and time (and her repertoire was totally no trouble). And she said she understood and thanked me for my honesty.
Ah, there is some hope left still!

music and beauty and faith

I've been thinking a lot recently about  how the different elements of my life are not separate entities, but it's all one life. Faith, my career and work, my personal life, among other things - it's all part of me, and I can't comprehend one without reference to the others. I've held for a long time that playing in a church band is a lot like the church itself - everybody has different strengths and weaknesses, with individual and different functions. It wouldn't work if everybody did the same thing, nor would it if everybody tried to do their own thing. The end result is something greater than the sum of its parts, and is beyond ourselves. A few days later, I also came to the distinct realisation that playing chamber music is a lot like this too. As some of you might know, I love playing chamber music. It is probably my favourite thing in all of my music-making. And if you think about it, I hope you will understand the analogy here too. Every ensemble has is individual members who have different roles to execute and at various times, some people come out more than others and at other times, one has to step back to allow others to do their thing (and often, support them in order to do so). And that the end result is extraordinary, something beyond the sum of the individual parts, that we would not be able to recognise in isolation. I told somebody about this realisation the other week and was also drawn to the analogy of a fugue. The voices are individual, and the end result is spectacular, but without one of those parts, it would not be as brilliant as it really is. This is where I freely admit that the music of Bach, for me, is a deeply personal experience. Its brilliance, ingenuity, creativity, structure, subtlety and sheer beauty point me to God.

Now, you dear reader(s??), don't have to agree with my faith. I will clearly state that I don't intend to antagonise anybody. I realise pushing this out onto the internet makes it possible for pretty much anybody to read, so that, along with the hope that my blog is a space for my musings, are the intentions.

The last few days, I've been preparing a pile of music. Much of it is focussed on some truly masterful works - Debussy's cello sonata, Hindemith's alto horn sonata and the Franck violin sonata. (Don't worry, I'm also playing a bit of Bach and Brahms, among others, every day for its sheer beauty.) The more I sit with these, the more I discover. I think this is the case with music, and also with faith. One realises that you cannot exhaust learning about these things. I've been moved to the point of weeping because I've seen a little glimpse of genius, or because of just how beautiful it is. Maybe others do or don't gain so much excitement, or such emotional reactions from enharmonic shifts, seeing structures in music, the colours that dance in space or the vivid images that pop into my head when I hear certain things. But I've come to realise that sound has a profound impact on me.

And I came to the conclusion again, that regardless of whether the composers had faith or not, God truly gave us music to experience beauty and wonder. This article I subsequently read (only today!) summed it all up so nicely.

"Beauty was created by God for a purpose: to give us the experience of wonder. And wonder, in turn, is intended to lead us to the ultimate human expression and privilege: worship. Beauty is both a gift and a map. It is a gift to be enjoyed and a map to be followed back to the source of the beauty with praise and thanksgiving."

I think I've been experiencing this beauty.

Europe Reflections Part 4: Taking my breath away

A few experiences and places that took my breath away:

Ste-Chappelle, Paris
The most exquisite of Paris' Gothic monuments, one enters the first chapel and is amazed. But that's not the real deal. One ascends to the top chapel, to be greeted by what Messiaen described as "the pinnacle of religious art", one thousand stained glass windows in the most brilliant blue.

Musée de l'Orangerie, Paris
Monet's Waterlilies (Nymphéas) displayed in their intended light (diffused from above). The museum specifically does not allow photography, and tries to maintain quiet as much as possible to let all visitors experience the art, which is disaplayed in two oval rooms along the walls. I've never felt quite so much peace at looking at paintings before.

Musée Rodin, Paris
Probably one of my favourite museums out of the many I visited. For its peace, for revealing to me at the time that I enjoy sculpture, to see The Thinker, The Kiss, and the model of the human hand.

Grand Place, Brussels
The most beautiful city square in Europe that I saw. Big claim? See for yourself!

St Paul's Cathedral, London
Again, one can't take photos in here. Maybe it's the places that don't let you take photos that one really enjoys the experience in the moment. The grandeur of this building, but so beautiful, in its not over-the-top opulent way. My friend was right when she said that she loved it because it felt like it had clean lines, and was perfectly apportioned. The inside of the dome is beautifully decorated. The crypt is fascinating, with such luminaries such as the Duke of Wellington, Lord Nelson, Arthur Sullivan and Christopher Wren himself are interred here.

Anne Frank Huis, Amsterdam
Actually climbing through the narrow corridors and stairs of the house where Anne wrote her famous diary while in hiding. The grim reality of being in hiding brought to physical reality.

Holocaust Memorial, Berlin
The experience of actually walking through this maze created by Peter Eisenman is sobering. 2711 concrete columns rise from the ground, and one can see other people disappearing into the maze. One doesn't know how many people are in the maze at any given time, and the school group we saw enter seemed to be swallowed up by it. Walking through it, the undulating ground revealed the columns to be deceiving, as if the sky was closing in on you.

Dreikönigskirche, Frankfurt
To be perfectly honest, lots of OTT Catholic churches in Paris were like eating too much dessert - the opulence was too much to handle. Stepping into this church quite randomly, I was struck by its beauty in simplicity. Of course, it was beautiful in its own right, but the extensive notes for the self-guided tour (thankfully a version written in English) revealed a humbleness and serious, well-thought out theology for why certain traditional elements of the building are why they are, and why they're still relevant today. 



Of course, there are so many other places and experiences that were also magnificent that this (fairly short, in comparison!) post cannot begin to cover...

Europe Reflections Part 3: What lots of people ask

I hae been home nearly four weeks, which is nearly as long as I was away. But still many things are fresh in my mind. Some memories have probably already faded a little and some a little altered. I think the beautiful thing is that even though I might forget the facts and particulars, I will remember the impressions and emotions experienced. Some people have been pretty excited to hear how my travels went, though I suspect some have already followed along on social media and pretty much know most of it. Popular questions include, "What was your favourite thing?" or "What was your favourite city?". I think these questions are hard to answer, as I have a couple of favourite cities, but maybe because of the experiences that I had there, because of the sun shining or the people I met. Also, trying to answer just one favourite thing is hard, because there were so many excellent things.

One of my friends asked me this tonight, and I protested that one thing was too difficult (like choosing a favourite child, not that I actually know anything about this, but I assume perhaps like asking a parent that??). So she granted me "Top 5". And I thought for a while, and couldn't decide on the 'top five' favourite places as such, but came up with a Top 5 things I thought were really excellent that come to mind strongly.

In no particular order, and with stories (because I like stories):

1. I loved how history was so present
Not that it isn't in other places, like my own home country. But the idea that I went to visit a palace that was owned by the emperor, whose family ruled for six hundred years?! European settlement in Australia isn't that old!! And to hear how the different wars across the continent affected different countries differently, or to hear about the same war in two different countries with different perspectives. And that history is not just something from hundreds of years ago. I forget that the Berlin Wall fell during my lifetime. And that people of my generation, and people alive today were directly affected (or have family) who lived through this time, a time that, somehow in my mind, I had put into a glass jar and put in on the shelf as an artefact from a long time ago. But no, one can see parts of the wall that have been preserved, and go past it on their way to work, as a reminder that this struggle is from a time not that long ago.
And that I stood in buildings from the medieval times; wow.

2. Going to concerts
For a long time, definitely through uni, there was this assumption that in order to get really awesome at music, one has to go overseas to Europe to get good. And I will not dispute that there are lots of amazing schools, concerts and teachers in Europe, and that there are so many. In fact, in most cities, there was something going on every night - strikingly, in particular, during the week, not just the weekend. But this doesn't mean that Australia is rubbish; on the contrary, I appreciate much more the value of the way we work and how we approach things in a refreshing and innovative manner. I think this is partially a result of having this 'cultural hangup' as described in the first sentence above, that we as Australians sometimes feel like we have something to prove. That, and also because we don't have a long-standing tradition of "That's how it was done back then/when Brahms did it/because we've done it for hundreds of years like this", and the necessity for Australian artists to be versatile and open. This I really loved.
And I went to see some really excellent concerts: the recital by Jeremy Denk, hearing the Berlin Philharmonic and Concertgebouw in their home venues, going to Wigmore Hall....
But I also didn't enjoy some of it either: I didn't enjoy some of the programming of the aforementioned world-famous orchestras (even though they played most excellently!!), and a production of Don Giovanni that I thought was a bit tacky and also fairly unpolished (disappointing because I was looking forward to seeing an opera in the theatre that it was premiered at).
So this was exciting musically, and also quite eye (ear?)-opening.

3. Hearing the languages
It was really wonderful to tune my ears to hearing languages other than English being spoken widely. And even trying to pick accents. It often took a day or so to start understanding some of the sounds - and some with greater success than others. I was, and probably still, remain convinced that I would love to learn German because I think it's a beautiful language (and I'm not talking about the gutteral, or throaty sounds that people scoff at, nor the stacks of consonants, but for the fact that it makes sense - I think! - and can be extremely poetic and evocative). I am a bit hesitant about French only because the French people have a bad reputation for being snobbish about their language, but I will be the first to admit that it's really quite beautiful, and I was sad to leave Paris after attuning my ears to their language, and a little bit shocked and pleased to hear it again in Brussels. I think Czech is difficult and full of sounds I don't even know. And that Dutch sounds like an Irish person trying to speak German. I don't think I sound, or even am, that Australian when at home but when I was travelling, it was quite apparent to me that I am a little bit! And upon returning, it is quite a shock to hear loud conversations of topics I have no wish to hear, and sometimes with such foul language, and exacerbated by broad Australian accents. I don't think I experienced such extroverted conversations on public transport while travelling, but perhaps there were and they were all in foreign languages that sounded beautiful.....even if they were swearing...
To be honest, I probably did alter my accent ever so slightly in order to be better understood....which probably came out a tiny little bit British at times...

4. Figuring out which art I like
I went to a lot of galleries; I've seen quite a lot of art (and also more if you include the galleries I've been to at home, right?). One of the most striking moments in a gallery happened when I was at the Rodin Museum in Paris; I went on a recommendation of a friend, and decided that it was pretty close to where I was going to be that day, so I'd pop in. I was also pretty keen to see The Thinker. I discovered in that few hours that I love sculpture. I find it amazing that a hard material such as marble or stone might be able to convey movement, softness and the like - properties that a hard material inherently doesn't have. Talking to a friend, she also expressed a same love of sculpture, and made the point that sculpture is created by the removal of material to reveal the product. The precision required for this is extraordinary, as is the imagination to conceive of what is inside the block. I also discovered that if I don't see another still life again, this is alright with me. These facts were quite helpful when tackling larger museums later, as I did not always have the time to see everything - so it was useful to slowly discover what art I would derive enjoyment from and to be able to skip the things I was not so interested in, with little guilt. At the newly-refurbished Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, there was a sort of alternative curatorship called 'Art is Therapy' by Alain de Botton and John Armstrong.
"The museum tour is normally presented as a chnace to learn about art. This tour has a different purpose: it wants to use the art here to make life slightly less painful for you. This is a chance to think of art's therapeutic dimension. The central actor in this tour is not the art, but you: your hopes, your disappointments, your pains and your longings - to which art has specific and sometimes useful things to say."
Alongside a number of works on display, there appeared large yellow post-it notes-like squares that asked questions about the relevance of the artwork and its meaning to today's life. It talks of human vices and thought-provoking snippets. One in particular was particularly striking: it talked of how on the other wall there was a very famous Dutch painting, probably with three rows of people in front of it, jostling to get a view. It made the point that an artwork's fame can be extremely unhelpful because in order to touch us, art has to elicit a personal response, which is often overshadowed by its distinction. Another sign clearly affirmed that just because an artwork is famous doesn't mean one has to like it; this gives me reassurance that I don't have to like certain things just because many people declare it to be great, but another piece might be something that I love for other reasons.
(I regret not buying this book while I was there, and am figuring out a way to get it to Australia for hopefully not an exorbitant price!)

5. Making connections
One of my hopes for my travels was to make connections - and I mean in terms of putting things in context. I learnt about history (I think I did mention this in part 1?) and as mentioned above, it was cool to hear about the same wars from multiple perspectives. One excellent moment in making connections I recall with great clarity: a reconstruction of the Babylonian Ishtar Gate stands in the Pergamonmuseum. It is an exquisite blue, with different designs, including a frieze of golden lions. It is probably the most ambitious reconstruction to be undertaken within a museum and a very impressive one at that. Imagine my surprise and excitement when, at the British Museum, I saw a panel with an exquisite blue and a golden lion, and remarked to myself, "I know what that is!!".
Another connection has come up in the past week: I'm doing a workshop this weekend of Australian choral music at the State Library of Victoria. In my correspondence with the lady there, her email footer advertises a free exhibition - Rome: Piranesi's Vision. "But I've read that name before....."I thought to myself. Indeed I have. There was a temporary exhibition of some of Piranesi's prints at the Sir John Soane Museum in London; Soane was a huge Piranesi fan and owned some prints. And there's this exhibition of Piranesi's work in Melbourne.....crazy cool.
Incidentally, when I turned up for work today, I met this woman (after corresponding via email for the last few days). I had asked her via email whether it was indeed the same man (affirmative) and had expressed my enthusiasm to see this exhibition. And she gave me a gift - of the book accompanying the exhibition. It was an extremely kind gesture. She said she wanted to give it to me because I was so enthusiastic and excited about it. Wow :)


Of course, I could list so many excellent things. I really really loved meeting up with my friends who now live overseas (or will be soon). I think in total, I saw just under twenty of them (even though some meetings were brief). Some are very good friends, some are not so close - but it was wonderful to see each of them! I also loved the random conversations I had with strangers/fellow travellers/local people (select appropriate category). Highlights include:
* the German woman who tried to help me with directions, though she spoke little English, and I little German (lots of gesturing ensued)
* the Australian man on the train to Prague who asked tentatively if I spoke English ("Oh, thank goodness, you do too...and you have an Australian accent!" or something like that)
* the Belgian man who was willing to show me his city and answer all my questions (and also his lovely friends too)
* the Prague tourist information lady who was helpful and wanted to know all about Australia (and monotremes)
* my Austrian host who answered my many questions and explained so much about Austria (and gave me some good tips too!)
* the American guy who had been travelling for eighteen months who offered to take my photo for me in Prague, and told me he was trying to get Lithuanian citizenship and wanted to settle in Kuala Lumpur
* the Dutch family who would have invited me to come stay with them if I had been going near to their hometown
* the Spanish couple living in Rotterdam who invited me to come stay if I was going there
* the guy on the overnight train who helped me put my suitcase at the top; in fact, all the super helpful people who helped carry my suitcase up and down stairs, and put my suitcase on racks. So many kind helpful people!
* the American woman who sat down randomly next to me who turns out went to the same little school in CT that I went on exchange to (cool story!)
* the German housemate of my friend who picked me up and talked to me for ages, and suggested we go for a nighttime wander to look at the city and the trains
...among many cute little exchanges....

Europe reflections Part 2 - it's the little things

I take so many things for granted at home, and assume them to be normal. Now, I'm not talking about comparing countries to prove that we in Australia are so fortunate (although we are, and I am pretty sure I don't need to go anywhere to know that). Rather, my point here is to muse about the quirky things I learnt, discovered and experienced - including ones that still baffle me.

* In Germany, people sometimes move house with their kitchen. Granted, I don't think they move house at a rate that Australians do (for some reason, we love doing it?!), but seriously, what happens if the kitchen (that is, the cabinets, the surfaces etc) doesn't fit?!

* In London, one stands on the RHS of the escalator, and overtakes on the LHS. I don't get this - but we drive on the same side of the road as them, but we do the opposite?

* The Parisians are super-concious about what they look like. So many looked so glamourous! However, in Germany, people don't look quite so glamourous. And I like that. Outward appearances don't seem to matter quite so much.

* Bathtubs with the hose thing with no point in which to hook it up like a shower? How is one supposed to bathe in this? (Honest question, not some outrageous query. Point: you can't put it down because otherwise the water will go everywhere. Does one sit in the bath? Or squat? Because I didn't really want to run a full bath. And anyway, a full bath is for relaxing, with getting clean the secondary aim, I believe.)

* Beer is cheaper than water in Prague. So when they say that the leader of the Czech Republic is an alcoholic, they must be very serious...

* Despite being a large city, I didn't get lost in London. Okay, speaking English was very handy. But there are these boards every 200 metres or so with a little map. Super helpful. In fact, amazing.

* The best coffee in Europe is made in cafes started up by Australians or Kiwis.

* Not all English accents are nice to listen to. Some, in fact, are pretty much impossible to understand.

* More often than not in my grocery shopping, one has to bring their own bags to pack goods into. None of this plastic bag giving-out business. Also, Germany has this cool system for recycling bottles, where you can get a refund. Like that SA thing we see on our bottles in Australia, but for real in all of Germany.

* Also, Germany has the  most amazing domestic recycling system. Four bins. Yes.

* They buy water in a bottle, with bubbles, for normal, everyday consumption. (Yes, people do drink water from the tap too, and thankfully I didn't get any funny looks for asking if it was okay, but apparently this is not everybody's preferred water choice.)

* Public transport. They do it well. I've turned a little bit German and get frustrated if I have to wait for more than five minutes.

* High density living - they do this well. Which also means that they do public spaces pretty well, including the provision of green areas.

* Germans don't jaywalk. Parisians do it big time. As do those in Brussels.

* There must be something about being good-looking in the requirements for being in the police force of Amsterdam...

* I saw heaps of really great buskers!

* Peanut butter doesn't seem to be a common breakfast spread.

* Pigeons are the same everywhere in the world.

* Paris has these free public toilets around and about; that's great. And they are supposedly self-cleaning. But this takes a long time, so one often stands in a queue wondering why it's progressing so slowly.


I am sure I'll remember more as I look through some photos, or recall stories and observations.

Europe reflections part 1

In one word, Europe was amazing.
How does one even begin to process all that happen in the last five or so weeks? Well, I started this blog about nine years ago to keep friends and family updated with news from Melbourne and my new adventure in this city, but increasingly, it's become a good space for me to reflect, process, document, muse and what nots, and whether people read or not (and like it or not!) is not for me to determine.
So here I am, processing. I think it will come in various stages, and probably not at all in a steady stream of thoughts. I suspect I'll be thinking about things and it'll come out in spurts - gushing about lots, and then a silence and break for a while, and then another lot of words.

But I've been thinking about this first post for a few days, and trying to capture the essence of each city. So I've decided to jot down some words, some of the things I saw and visited, some impressions, and some brief highlights (and regrets, although I usually don't like to have regrets, though I suspect in general they are positive ones, if one can have positive regrets) of each place.

Paris
Beautiful, landmarks, Eiffel Tower, Sacre Coeur, Champs Elysee, Arc de Triomphe, so many museums and galleries, rounded arches, running around
Highlights: Seeing so many landmarks that I've seen in films/photos and the like, getting by on schoolgirl French (and eventually falling in love with the sound of it)!
Regrets: Not eating enough French food (beyond pastries and macarons), lots of grey and wet weather (not that I had any control over that!)

Frankfurt
Functional, inordinate number of museums, reminded me of Perth (seriously)
Highlights: Getting to hang out with  my friend (who I wasn't going to, but plans changed, and yay!)
Regrets: Not going to the architecture museum

Vienna
Charming, neutral (as a country), big village, old-world
Highlights: My Airbnb host was amazing, seeing concerts for not a lot of money, music being a part of everyday life
Regrets: Not spending enough time here, at all! Two days was not enough! Not seeing other parts of Austria.

Prague
Baffling, crazy, touristy, but beautiful! Cobblestoned streets, lots of wars
Highlights: The city is beautiful, and much of the architecture consistent, as it was largely undamaged during WW2. The crisp morning air.
Regrets: Possibly stayed one day too long; it's really not that large a city. 'The Prague Effect' of it being so hyped up that perhaps I was expecting more? Not learning much Czech, so resorting to being a tourist entirely and using English.

Berlin
Evolving, edgy, remembers, commemmorates and moves forward
Highlights: Learning recent history (so fascinating!), catching up with Australian and German friends, hearing the Berlin Phil
Regrets: not spending more time in the West (because the East was so interesting)

Hannover
Charming, not-so-touristy (able to perhaps blend in a little?!), a place to live and do normal life
Highlights: Being able to stay with, and hang out with Australian friends and see how they had set up life in Hannover
Regrets: Not being able to speak more German so that the kind lady that helped me with directions could understand me better. But really, communicating with her limited English and my limited German and many hand gestures was entirely amusing and excellent.

Hamburg
Port city - and therefore, quite wealthy! This was actually a brilliant day - it was cold and the sun was shining.
Highlights: catching up with a couple of friends, wandering around, seeing a port and sea for the first time in four weeks (I really didn't think that I'd miss this so much, but it was quite a nice shock to see it!)
Regrets: not spending enough time here, not doing a free walking tour

Amsterdam
Canal life, bikes, funny sounding language (seriously, Dutch sounds like an Irish person trying to speak German), looking through fingers
Highlights: wandering around, especially the Nine Streets area, not being hit by a bike! Spending so many hours in the Rijksmuseum, catching up with a couple of friends, hearing the Concertgebouw Orchestra in their home, Anne Frank museum
Regrets: not taking a canal ride (gotta save some things for next time!), not buying that book from the Rijksmuseum (going to see if I can get it online...)

Brussels
Underrated gem, Musical Instrument Museum (one staff member at my hotel so enthusiastically recommended it that I decided I should go and for it to be the only museum I visited in this city), fought my way through the Pride parade (massive street parties)
Highlights: possibly the most beautiful square in all of my travels, meeting locals, hearing French alongside Flemish (yep, bilingual, and my language is not one of them, though pretty much everybody speaks English anyway)
Regrets: not spending enough time here (or in all of Belgium!), not taking (calculated) risks (like just staying out all night because one always needs a crazy travel story, right?!), not eating enough Belgian cuisine (next time - and I'm sure there will be a next time, because I really need to explore this country!), not being converted to being a beer drinker as a result of (not) trying Belgian beer. Also, I want to go back to see the early Rodin sculptures at La Bourse.

London
"When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life" Samuel Johnson
Highlights: So many sights! The fabulous Underground trains, finally going to London after dreaming of it for more than ten years, catching up with a whole bunch of friends (including one whom I hadn't seen in five years, and also getting to see my cousin, who flew in the day that I was leaving!)
Regrets: not having more time and also getting out of London. I think the UK needs a whole trip in itself - I dream of one day spending time driving around the UK and stopping it at cute B&Bs.


I've learnt so much history - and there is so much more to read about! I've learnt about what sort of art I like. I've learnt more about myself and I think I've gained even more independence. I've discovered for myself a few truths that people had told me about.
And yet I still have much to learn.....

More to follow, hopefully soon....

Not so good at this thing

When I started this blog about nine years ago, it was with the intention of writing to keep friends and family at home up to date with what was going on with the happenings and supposed adventures of my life in a new city, and a new phase of life. Across the years, it's been a collection of stories, some photos, some thoughts and probably a lot of rambling. But people still seem to have mostly enjoyed reading it. And I realised that I hadn't written anything for quite a while. I feel perhaps I repeat myself constantly, as I catch up with various friends from different phases and places of life, while various family members ask what I'm doing now, as I send out my monthly newsletter to supporters of my musical career (or maybe they're just interested in how I'm keeping??). But here goes. Perhaps maybe without any sheen to worry about, no shiny publicity to be had, no keeping up appearances. It's on the web anyway...

So it appears that the last post was about the Australian federal election. You should hopefully know by now that I don't usually speak about these things too much publically. So much has happened since then.
I've finished being a student at ANAM, I've moved house, I've supposedly become (more) financially independent, I'm officially fully a freelance musician. Except that I am also a Fellow at ANAM. And because your next question might possibly be, "What does it mean to be an ANAM Fellow?" (or similar), I shall answer that. Fellowships at ANAM are granted to individuals or groups to undertake their own musical project of their own choosing, with educational goals (for themselves) and also contributing to the life of ANAM. We are not students at the Academy, which means we do not regularly participate in the programme (eg. orchestral projects, the regular classes etc) and also do not receive the generous tuition scholarship nor stipend associated with being a student there. My project this year is about collaborative piano; I am interested in the process of preparing large scale works for different instruments across the different instrument groups. This project is designed for me to learn some major works (primarily instrumental sonatas, which are more often than not, sonatas for piano and other instrument) - particularly ones that pose technical and musical challenges, playing with instruments across the different groups and learning how to do this (because a double bass is very different to a flute...) and also to learn more about music in general by learning not just as a pianist, but as a pianist in a role that supports, leads and makes music with other people. Also, it is a chance to form intense, deep relationships with the other instrumentalist and instrument, and repertoire. And hopefully with repeated performances, we learn more and more about the performances experience and the music. Does that make sense? I hope so; it's hard to qualify because it is so process-driven. The end product of playing the concert does not appear to be striking, as there are no threads of unifying, or interesting programming, but hopefully the performances are satisfying experiences for the audience and performers alike. If you're still curious, ask me, and I'd love to explain in more to you.

I also moved house, all ten or so blocks from my old house. This makes me more than super thankful for the one summer that I didn't have to move house. I always dread it, and I've done the equivalent of it far too many times, with many seemingly futile results (mostly because I was moving one corridor, or out and back into the same apartment....!!!). However, I have scored an even more excellent  location (if slightly noisy, which I've gotten used to - and if I could be even more convenient, given how excellent my previous location was!), a very fine housemate and a charming old house (read: is kinda awesome, but has so many odd quirks and awkwardness and problems of its own). However, it is going pretty well (except for when the ceiling decided to leak in several places last week), and my bathroom (yes, you read correctly, we have a bathroom each - just a bit luxurious!) probably wins the award for most awkward bathroom / most ingenious use of space. Or maybe both. Our stove needs the use of a knife to operate the (no longer existing) knobs for the gas, and trying to describe how to get to our house ("back street, this first alleyway, then you need to go up, but our doorbell doesn't work, so call me when you get here") is fairly difficult, but I've so far turned up mostly clean to everything and haven't passed out from starvation yet, so it must be okay!

Next week I shall embark on  my first solo holiday....to Europe...for the first time! Many people have looked at me incredulously as I tell them that I've never been to Europe. I know, I know, as a musician, haven't I gone on tour there before? Or been itching to go study there? Or already gone at some point, because after all, aren't I a classical musician? (Answers: No, yes then no, no. You're welcome.) I am very excited about this trip for so many reasons - in previous years I have had holidays, but this will be the first time in quite a while that I've had a pure holiday. Of course, there will be things to come back to and practise for, but I will think about that upon my return. Also, I'm excited about exploring these places that so many have talked about, and of all the pictures I've seen and dreamt about. Expect the usual cliched tourist snaps coming up on social media - I want my own! I am excited to see a few friends over there too, and looking forward to putting music, history and knowledge into context. I am most excited about visiting London, as it is a place I've been wanted to go for over ten years now; I'm worried about either of the following situations: i) that I have built it up so much in my mind that I'll be disappointed or ii) that I will love it so much that leaving it will be difficult and I'll plot some way of moving over there. I don't consider myself to be particularly Australian, but suspect that some Australian characteristics will become more apparent to me as I travel. Unfortunately the process of getting everything organised has been fairly marred, as there is only one business day left before I travel (because of the Easter long weekend) and I am still awaiting my tickets (all of them - flights and rail). Yes, I know most of them come as e-tickets now, but a rail pass still is a physical document; my travel agent has also not sent me any of the e-tickets (which I anticipate to come as the mail, platinum service - as requested yesterday...as the previous apparently got lost..!) nor confirmations, nor the items requested (for travel insurance purposes). It's a huge shamozzle. Unfortunately, my big thing about appreciating excellent customer service is that when I receive particularly poor customer service, they also hear about it. And wow, there's probably going to be a very direct and angry (yet insanely polite) letter at the end of my trip....

I am travelling much more than I anticipated this year. Apart from this maiden voyage to Europe, I have also already been to Sydney to do an ABC recording with an ensemble there, and have been invited back to play a concert with them, which should be fun. I have been to Sydney several times in the last number of years, but recent visits (I think three in the last five years or so?) have always been for work (which this was, obviously...but keep reading...) and haven't left me much, if any, time to catch up with friends, or gallivant and explore the city. So this time, I did, and it was lots of fun! I had not planned many things, which I think was a good step and introduction into letting go of some things (particularly with Europe coming up...) and it was a wonderful trip. I managed to catch up wtih a few friends, explore parts of the city, mostly successfully navigate my way around the public transport system (with a bit of help!) and take some touristy photos. Also, the sun was shining magnificently for almost all the days I was there, so it was beautiful. I shall return in June for another stint, and hopefully I might be less baffled by the city then! I will also be travelling to Rockhampton in Queensland in July to tutor at a festival for school children. The director of this programme is an exciting and lovely cellist whom I met last year at the Beijing festival we tutored at together. I am excited about this opportunity, and for the excitement value that festivals have. Plus, it'll be nice to escape part of the Melbourne winter. I will then be taking part in the Mietta Song Competition semi-finals (and who knows about the final?!) with a friend (after a mix-up about the results of the audition, or something happened, or oh well...point it, we're doing it). I must be pretty keen to escape Melbourne, as then I wil be heading to China during August for the month to take part in a tour, playing some two-pianos and orchestra repertoire! I think this will be tiring and full-on, but also very interesting!

So this year is already shaping up to be quite varied. I didn't expect maybe these sorts of things would crop up, but I'm really glad they have. There have been quite a few challenging things about this year so far. Firstly, the realisation that I am not largely financially supported by my institution is a large change; every gig is a potential source of income, and I don't really enjoy reducing music (at whatever level) to a financial means, but that is a large consideration of this year. I was having a conversation with a friend a few weeks ago, and I said that honestly, I sometimes did some jobs because they are easy money (by that, I mean that the work is not terribly difficult for me, and it pays well for what it is! Rather than necessarily being easy in other ways). Sometimes, I do some jobs because of the people involved in the project (nice people are always a good thing!). Sometimes, I do jobs because of the prospect of further work, or continued relationships. And I suppose all jobs are pretty much like that. Except that the company I represent is...myself. So everything is also personal, or a direct reflection of me, and my reputation. And in general, I'm pretty okay at separating what's personal from professional feedback/criticism and the like, but music, and the actual act of it, often tends to be highly personal and attached to a particular individual rather than their company. I'm also doing some teaching; my students are all young children, and mostly all beginners. It still freaks me out that somebody has deemed me responsible enough to teach their child about music and the piano. But as I keep being reminded by so many (including my students!), teaching is an excellent thing as I owe it to the next generation (of musicians) to educate them, it shows us what we really do know, and how to be able to explain things well. And it makes us sharper as performing musicians, because it questions why we do certain things. Also, I've learnt that stickers are excellent incentives. Even when the sticker itself is the only reward. Amazing.

I am still trying to figure out this freelance thing, with teaching, performing, working for others (individuals and groups), while trying to maintain practice. I'm also learning this year about how to make it work financially, and artistically. What pays the bills, which projects to pursue with great intent, which ones to invest large amounts of time and brainspace into. And also the fact that ANAM is a very privileged place to be, where the greater majority of financial burden is taken care of, and one is given the luxury to practise for large amounts of time. I'm finding that my time is limited (and must be), and am still learning about how to do things efficiently, and at what point one becomes satisfied given a limited amount of time (because it could always be better. For the rest of our lives.)

I've also found a new interest in cute dogs, as I have taken to adopting one at the home of a wonderfully generous couple I know. He is very naughty, but thankfully he is also very cute (which he uses to great advantage!). Incidentally, our neighbours have a dog as well, and its name is Pompom. True story.

So that's where it's at. As with every so often, I am pretty terrible with keeping in touch with old friends, but definitely do miss having them around lots. But everybody goes through seasons in life; the true friends will always be the ones you keep, and our circles will keep expanding, shifting and side-stepping as we go through life and its different circumstances.

Australia has spoken

Please know that the following is very out of character. Most of the posts on this blog are about my personal journey with life, music and friends, guided by God and a sense of curiosity. And anybody who really knows me knows that I don't have much to say about politics, though I usually listen. However, my first foray into the unusual shall be this, and while I realise the internet is a place for lively debate, I hope you will accept that I will not enter into correspondence about the political debate, and this post is merely my reflection on the reactions concerning the outcome of the election. I will point out here that I am a Christian, I am trained as an economist; I also care about society (including, but not limited to the arts and the environment), am deeply saddened by many injustices in the world today, am an immigrant to this country and am open to ideas and well-thought out arguments. Which does not necessarily mean I agree with you.

So on Saturday, Australia voted and we elected a Coalition government. The flurry of dismay, outrage and anger that has littered social media has been something I've found quite distressing. Then I saw two little glimmers of moderation, which the authors have been willing to share with their friends (or 'friends') and the wider world.

Comment 1:

Comment 2 (in two parts because snipping tool didn't let me scroll down):

What they have said captures what I have been thinking about, that we are indeed all different, have different preferences and have the freedom to vote in whichever way we like. In addition, I would like to add the following thoughts:

1. It is a privilege to have mandatory voting in this country. In other parts of the world, you are not allowed to vote, for example, if you are a female. Our system, however flawed you believe the results to be, is also a system that is quite good. It is governed by a body that is separate from the government so that corruption and election fraud is not an issue. I am thankful that my country sees me as a valuable member of society who is entitled to a vote in a democratic nation.

2. Even if I don't agree with the policies (and the only thing I'll say here is that I think it very sad that foreign aid is to be cut), I am thankful that I don't get shot by the government for disagreeing. I don't fear for my life for saying in a public forum that I don't agree, or even hate something.

3. "But that's why we shouldn't be cutting foreign aid, because there are other people in this world who don't have this luxury! We shouldn't be turning boats back!" I hear some cry. I believe that running a country is extremely complex. There are so many issues. I'm not advocating one policy over the other. But I hope you know that it's super hard, and I wouldn't want to attempt to run this country with so many complex issues that all vie for attention, funding and solution. I know this won't be a satisfactory remark for some. But consider how complex the issues are. I don't believe there are any easy solutions when asked to run a country.

4. I find it utterly deplorable that so many of my friends on social media have descended into calling their fellow citizens awful names based on their political preferences. We're all different. We all vote differently because of a whole host of reasons. To pass judgement on individuals based on that one choice is fairly narrow. To call people disgusting, stupid, appalling and all sorts of other names that are not worth repeating (and offend me) is childish and unhelpful. We are still a nation together. Just because others don't agree with your views does not make them any less of a human. We're all created equal and all humankind deserves and demands respect. If you wish to delete me because I disagree with your political views, you can; I would like to express my sadness at losing such a friendship and suggest that maybe you'll be worse off for it.

5. I find it disturbing that a comment left on a swinging voter-friend's FB status was, "The only Christian way to vote is Labor." I am disappointed that one feels the need to demand a particular voting preference if one is to identify as Christian. There are many factors that go into voting. John Dickson wrote a fab article on the factors that a thinking Christian (which should be ALL of us!) should consider when casting a vote.

6. I would like to point out that unless you are in his electorate, one does not vote for Tony Abbott. Or Kevin Rudd. We vote for a party to represent us. Perhaps some of the Liberal candidates were better. Perhaps people didn't want their Labor candidate to represent them. This is the preferential system. We're not electing a supreme leader. I am thankful for this - we're not electing a dictatorship (consider the irony of this statement!!).

7. I am confident that most politicians do not get into politics to get famous. Nor use it as a platform to say whatever they like. Politics is obviously a very public and scrutinised life. I very much appreciated Julia Gillard's resignation speech, particularly when she spoke of politicians who work extremely hard and for the service of this country, which I believe to be true. Sure, perhaps there are some who are giving politics a stab who aren't ready for that life, but I'm confident that nobody in such a high position such as the role of Prime Minister is there to do anything except serve their country and to lead it forward in a way that they, and their party, see fit. 

8. To all those who now wish to leave this country or stay elsewhere that allows you freedoms X, Y and Z: you are allowed to do so. Because your government lets you. Unless you pose a significant criminal risk or something else highly dangerous or suspicious, we as Australians are fortunate to be able to go outside our borders to explore the world and see what it's like. I am disappointed that people think that somehow their government is the sole reason for the shame that it is to be Australian. I might not like the government nor its policies, but I am also a citizen of Australia and a beneficiary of many good things of this country. I enjoy a high standard of living; even as a 'poor student' I still have my basic needs more than adequately covered, do not worry about when I will eat my next meal, have a bed to sleep in and do not fear for my safety beyond taking appropriate caution (as one would anywhere). I can hear the protests. See point 3. My point here is that I am still thankful for this country, so for those to say, "This country is stupid (replace with strong language as necessary)", I urge you to be thankful for what you do have, because it's pretty good. And use your privileged position to fight for those who don't have a voice.

9. And for the Christian point on this, 'slavery' here as alluded to by Mr Rudd last week might be a good point to be brought up now. Because slavery in the Bible is not referring to the slavery of the African-Americans that we immediately conjure up and abhor and condemn. It also refers to the relationship between a master and a worker, and to those with and under authority. And we are commanded to submit to authority, even if we do not agree with it, providing it is not wrong (I know, big word and vagueness abounds here, but I hope its meaning is captured and understood). This does not mean we might not disagree, or protest, but it does mean we need to respect and honour still.


If for some reason, you read this and decide you no longer want to be my friend nor connected to me because of my opinions, I refer to you the end of point 4.

Learning

If there was something good, Stephanie Bannister was right when she said that we've all got things to be learning everyday. Terribly awkward interviews exposing lack of knowledge aside, I've always maintained that I could be learning lots from every day, regardless of age, prior experience or situation. It's been nice to have quite a bit of time to myself recently, to reflect, ponder and think.

A few of the things I've been thinking about, are not limited to, but include:

1. Seeing performances where there is joy.
Don't get me wrong, I love what I do. I love the physical sensation of actually playing the piano and music; I love the rehearsal process; I love the process of getting inside the music and knowing it so well; I love the interaction with other musicians; I love the buzz of performing; I love seeing the enjoyment gained by an audience. Among other things. But it's geared towards perfection and execution, or giving an experience, or saying something profound. Which are not bad things in themselves.
But so often we forget to also have fun, because it's such a privilege to be able to do this.
I recently have been to a number of performances - which of course were not perfect, because nothing is truly ever perfect - where it has been so obvious that the performers have been enjoying themselves so much. You can see it on their faces - their smiles, their sparkling eyes. And the audience reacts in an equally positive way.
So while I'm still striving for musical and technical proficiency and depth, I'm going to try having fun too.

2. Resting.
This is a constant hard one for me! I have lost track of how many times others have made comments to me about doing lots of stuff, being busy, saying no (big one!!) and the like. On Saturday, ANAM was shut and I therefore couldn't practise there; so instead of finding an alternative, I decided to have a day off. It was wonderful. It meant that I could stay up on Friday night pottering around (having several really wonderful conversations with various friends and clearing some things around my house) and sleep in the next morning. And then slowly cook breakfast and clean my house (long overdue!) and then toddle off to a friend's concert, chill out over some food and drink and catch up, and then go to another concert with some other friends whom I hadn't seen in a while. It was great! Also, coming back from Beijing was quite a revelation re. Rest. While I was working, I realised that I wasn't doing lots of playing, nor was I sitting at a desk nor computer for many hours a day. Yes, I was also off adventuring to tourist sites and watching and listening to concerts, but I came home extremely relaxed. Probably for all those reasons, as well as having an amazing time (which I will not repeat here, for fear of this turning out to be very far from the original intended post!). I came home extremely relaxed, with pretty much no tension at all, no aches (apart from the muscles that are underused most of the time and worked hard to walk through large palaces and the Great Wall..!). So yeah, rest is important. As is not feeling guilty about not always doing work. Because I'm pretty sure we weren't made solely to do work for the entirity of our lives!

3. Going with the flow.
Again, those who know me will know that this is also hard for me. One of my friends regularly tells me I'm a control freak, which I accept and know, and laugh about. Being in places at festivals where things change, there were many unknown factors would often strike fear and stress into my heart, because I like to know what's happening as soon as possible so that I can think about it and plan around it accordingly and the like. But sometimes that's just not possible, and the worrying about it causes even more stress and fear. So when I decided that it was just easier to take each day as it comes, and go with the flow, it was suddenly chilled and really enjoyable. I'm not saying don't plan at all, but it would be helpful sometimes for me to not have to have a plan all the time. Like when I'm on public transport and I think I'm cutting it fine, and I'm sitting there looking at the clock, willing the minutes to pass by slower, or that the tram would just be able to beat the lights, or just go a bit faster, or that nobody will ask for the next stop. Because I obviously can't influence those decisions! So now I just get there as fast as public transport will take me. And that's not to say that I try to just leave it to the last minute, because we know that I wouldn't do that anyway...


I don't attempt to suggest that I am suddenly enlightened, nor have some sort of self-satisfaction about my recent experiences, nor hope to garner a few pats on the back because I've been making "progress" (whatever that might mean). In this instance, I blog because it's a useful tool for self-reflection, for articulating my thoughts in something more than concepts and waving my arms around while making gibberish sounds. Which I am sometimes inclined to do when words fail me. What are some of the things you've been learning about recently? Are you like me and struggle with the things above?

Ni hao

I have recently returned from a ten-day trip where I was the piano tutor at tutti world youth music festival, a musical and cultural experience for high school ensembles in Beijing.
I admit prior to the adventure I was extremely apprehensive and nervous about the entire thing: travelling overseas (not really by myself, but also kind of..), being a very inexperienced teacher, feeling like I was somewhere between student and professional (so what really am I??), not really knowing who my students were going to be (and what level they were), and having heard all sorts of stories about the crazy things that only China does so well. Prior to this trip, I had no desire to travel to China, despite many friends telling me that it was a crazy, fascinating and incredible place to visit.
But now having returned, WOW. I get a small sense of what my friends were talking about. What an adventure! So much has gone through my mind about the entire trip, which blogging might be useful to process, so here goes. This warning here tells you that this post is EPIC long. Seriuosly long. I don't really expect you all to read it, but you have been warned if you decide to embark on it all!

These stories will hopefully be divided into various parts, which may not be entirely chronological.
But when friends have asked me, "How was China?" I have chewed off their ears!
In brief, China was an amazing trip: musically, interpersonally, pedagogically and culturally. And more!

Musical
Pretty much all the other tutors that made up the faculty are musicians who I consider to be my teachers. And I know that learning (should) never stop, at whatever age or stage of life one is at, but you must understand that I felt pretty daunted by the idea that I might be their equals, at least in the eyes of the students. But this is the wonderful thing about tutti - it is a festival where competitiveness is seriously downplayed, and our great aim was that everybody - students, teachers and tutors - would just have an excellent week of learning. And learning not just about music, but also about other people, cultures and life in general! There were a couple of tutor lunchtime concerts through the week, so I had the chance to play some music with these wonderful people. I played the first movement of Schumann's excellent piano quintet with the wonderful Michele Walsh, Yum Williams, Jeremy Williams and Louise King. What wonderful musicians! We had lots of fun; there were spills and moments of some uncertainty, but I think the spontaneity of the music making is what I've come to know about festivals: you don't often get lots of rehearsal time so you have to be as prepared as you can be, and trust your, and the others' musicality, experience and good nature enough to let go and have fun! The tutors also played at the Welcome Banquet, in a mish-mash of pieces designed to show us all off. The last movement of Weber's Grand Duo for Clarinet and Piano definitely tested the tired and out-of-tune upright piano! All the performances that the tutors did were wonderful - they were, risky, on edge and lots of fun. There was a rendition of Haydn's trumpet concerto with mixed ensemble like you've never heard it before - including one-per-part strings, a clarinet playing the oboe, a wind section that included a recorder and saxophone, a flugelhorn, and some assorted brass. There was Telemann that had a guitar. There was Butterfly Lovers concerto with the odd assortment of us all - and it was lots of fun! It was also really beautiful to watch the conductors in action and also to talk with the other tutors about teaching methods and about the progress of their students.

Interpersonal
This is such a terrible heading, apologies...but the only term I could come up with. I had a wonderful time meeting all sorts of people. As alluded to above, it was really wonderful to meet and work with the other tutors. The teachers from the schools were also really wonderful - they have such a hard job taking their school groups on tour as they have a musical responsibility as well as a pastoral duty outside of class times! I met teachers from Queensland, Western Australia and South Africa, most of whom were just so wonderful and eager to learn themselves. One in particular that I met was actually a girl who went to the same high school as me! We had no years of cross-over but discovered that we had quite a few mutual friends! The greatest joy, however, I think, was definitely meeting so many students.They were so enthusiastic and full of excitement and were so excited to be in Beijing. The students in my class were just beautiful too. It was really wonderful to meet them all and get to know them - musically and personally. I had some excellent chats about the music that they liked to play and listen to, learnt about their schools, their cultures and some of their perceptions about music and life, including some about what they wanted to do when they got older (so full of enthusiasm and promise!). One moment in my class also happened to end up talking about toilet paper and the different types of toilet paper in different countries!

Pedagogical
The teaching experience was extremely fascinating. I was very nervous about the experience as we were unsure about what level all the students would be - we would only know when we got there. This, as you can imagine if you know me, did cause a bit of panic in me - I like to know what I'm getting myself into. This proved to be a valuable exercise to me also in letting go and going with the flow! I had five 'formal' students in my class, plus a few additions across the week, ranging from extremely competent and technically secure to those who struggled a bit with rhythm and reading forwards, and some in-between. What a mixed bag! One of the biggest challenges was finding things that might be applicable to all levels, but also in some ways it is also not hard to find things about playing (musical, physical, conceptual etc) that are applicable to all levels of students. We learnt some figure-8 warm-ups that made us look like swimmers or seriously uncoordinated humans with swinging arms. We did some breathing exercises (strangely enough applicable to playing music!). And we did some improvisation, David Dolan style! For almost all the students, this sort of improvisation was extremely new, daunting and had to be prefaced with "the world will keep on turning when you finish"! A few fabulous comments from this exercise were that it was actually quite fun, and liberating! Some students were even game enough to do it several times as they gained confidence, or wanted to experiment some more.

One of the greatest challenges for me was teaching my two Chinese students. Firstly, they were both technically extremely gifted, both young (12 and 14), and had little English! Not that this festival was about competition at all, but it was interesting to watch the two of them and to see their strenghts and weaknesses, especially in comparison to each other. I had been told by other teachers that in their previous experience with Chinese students that more often than not they were extremely competent especially technically but sometimes lacked the emotional impulse of making music (not to say that they didn't love what they did, but that their playing was mostly driven by technical mastery).  I would say that this was certainly true of my two students, and I took a fairly different approach to teaching them. They each played a solo segment in the student concert evenings, and it was interesting to see how each played and it was fairly evident what was valued in their music-making. It was also interesting to watch the reaction of the audience to their respective performances, which was very different. In the Grand Concert, we allocated them a piano duet, Ravel's Mother Goose Suite. This was, I think, a huge challenge to them as they had never played with other people before, so there are things to negotiate, like physical space, how to start together, what happens if you make a mistake and so forth. Their first read-through was very good - they read and picked up on things very quickly but it was interesting to see their personalities on show. He charged through, easily understanding complexities while where she was unable to execute, she sung along. They worked hard to put it together, finding time where they could to practise together.

Add to that the complication of me not being able to speak Chiense, and their mostly lack of English! We had one of the student volunteers from Dulwich College (where the festival classes were being hosted) translating for us, but obviously the need for a translator slows the process down, and also many things are lost in translation, including nuances and the beauties of language, which I love! For example, I suggested, "You could take more time here" which the translator then asked, "So do I say 'you should go slower here'?". "No no no!!!" was my very hearty response! So given that the Ravel is so pictorial and descriptive, I got really good at singing (well, good might be a bit enthusiastic. I'm not using it qualitatively here..) and acting and dancing around the room! I also discovered that the way that Chinese students are taught piano is very diligent and somewhat prescribed. I quickly learnt that what I sang or said was taken on with great enthusiasm, so either had to give many options on how to do something, or none; never just one, because otherwise that would be the way it was done. In asking them how they wanted to do something, I suggested, "Like this? Or like this? How do you want to do it?" I was met with a stunned revalation of, "You mean I have to choose for myself?!" I was shocked but also pleased! The other revalation of Chinese teaching was when I asked if there was anything else they wanted to play, and one of them said, "Yes, but I have to read from the book". Nothing wrong with that in my opinion!

What a pleasure it was then to hear at the end of the week that apparently they had really enjoyed my teaching, and that while their teachers usually focussed on the technical aspects of playing, I had focussed on the emotional parts of the music (what I'd like to think of as just 'the music'!) and hopefully introduced them to another way of approaching their music. Also wonderful was when students made small changes to help them in big ways. Like thinking about different fingerings, or using breathing in our music (even though we don't need to breathe to operate our instrument per se), or thinking about the pedal and how it's more than just 'on' or 'off'. The other beautiful experience for this young teacher was to have a few students return to my masterclass out of their own will - particularly those who had come with their school ensembles as another instrumentalist, or vocalist. Though they didn't have much prepared to play, we discussed music and life anyway, and they stayed anyway. In my limited teaching experience, I don't demand that students stay but invite them to if they think they can learn something from it or contribute to it. One particular student came on the last day and stayed for three hours worth, even though he didn't play much, but was able to give some feedback for other students and hopefully found some insights and thoughts to take with him in his own music-making. Another came back on successive days to just listen and learn and to discuss music and piano. I hope that I was able to inspire them all at least a bit, to consider great possibilities, to think about other ways to approach and make music and to enjoy and listen to as much as possible!

Cultural
Wow. Where does one even begin?! I think this festival is truly unique - the musical aspects are given equal importance to the cultural tour that everybody came on. And it's all about learning and sharing. This environment was incredible and beautiful - and not that my normal environment is particularly competitive or pushy (only self-driven, admittedly pretty hard) - but this had almost no trace of it and was  just a time to meet different people and experience their culture.

Beijing itself is an incredible and baffling city. Since the Olympics, so much has been built and modernised (and also in the last 20-30 years!). But at the heart of this bustling modern city is an old civilisation steeped in tradition and history. The reign of the emperor and the imperial system still looms in the Forbidden City and the Summer Palace, while the rise of Communism and the various political tales have played out in Tiananmen Square. Old sits next to new in the hutongs and you forget that you are in a modern city while lost in gardens and courtyards and halls. You feel the sense of grandeur, also your insignificance, and wonder at human ingenuity and conflict as you walk The Great Wall. You try your hand at your best bargaining skills at markets as you try to get to get the lowest price on clothes, shoes and the like. They yell at you, shouting for your business; they appear offended when you offer a significantly lower price.

Also culturally surprising was what each school brought to Beijing. The majority of the faulcty were Australian, and a few from elsewhere, like North America. The biggest surprise to me was meeting so many South Africans - students and teachers. I sometimes get lulled into this false sense that if a country also speaks English, they must have the same cultural experiences and values as me. The largest group of them was from the most exclusive school in South Africa - an all-boys all-boarding school in the English tradition. Wow, what another world they come from too! Their boys are gentlemen - they all call their teachers and elders Sir or Ma'am, and they hold open doors and stuff for others. Not done out of obligation or mockery, but out of respect and discipline. Most exemplified for me on one occasion where the faculty were a bit late to the soundcheck at the China Conservatory in Beijing and so we slipped in, and stood on the steps while there was a briefing. All the students were seated. I was happy to stand as I knew I'd probably be sitting around for much of the morning. With no prompting, two of the boys from the school got up, exited their row and said to me and another, "Ma'am, please have my seat". No questions asked.  I was very struck by them and their school - so much that I'd like to visit South Africa and visit their school and also another school in Cape Town where I had a couple of students.

Their music-making was also extremely different to ours in many ways. While it was not perfect (nobody is!) it definitely had so much life and joy that was so obvious to the audience. So much of what they performed made everybody want to dance along. Their marimba ensemble had everybody grooving. Their choir was beautiful, even though apparently they were feeling a bit nervous and apprehensive and did not expect such a overwhelming receptino from the audience. It was very funny, then, at the Farewell Banquet when a rock band from one of the Australian schools played and all the Australian students started dancing. By dancing I mostly mean standing in a group and jumping up and down in very vague time. In contrast, most of the South Africans, who obviously have groove built into them, stood awkwardly at the back trying to figure out how to dance to this music! I sat down next to one of the teachers from the school and remarked at how funny this was, and he replied with, "I have to get a photo or video of this! People won't believe it back home!". Haha.


Back to China. Maybe more chornologically here on in....

Now the whole story....(warning: is very long, just in case the above wasn't long enough!)
We travelled with China Southern Airways and were seated in Premium Economy which was actually a bit better than normal Economy. The bathroom was like a suite - there was so much space! The long plane trip provided great opportunity and time to get to know my neighbours, including the saxophone tutor who chewed my ears off! (It's okay, we became friends and I even sat next to him all the way home, so he mustn't have been that intolerable!) The layover in Guangzhou was also a meeting point for a few other tutors and it was nice to spend a little bit of time meeting and getting to know them.

The first couple of days were spent just with the faculty: to get settled into Beijing and to have some rehearsals and a bit of a plan of how we were going to run things. We were bussed to Dulwich International School, which is about one hour out of the city and has Beijing's only cricket and rugby pitches. The school has lots of space, but with the city ever-expanding, the land will probably be prime real estate very soon! We were also bussed to have lunch and dinners at various local restaurants, which at first served a Chinese cuisine so Western (maybe in anticipation of Western tastebuds?!) that we protested that we wanted real Chinese food. I will point out that our party pretty much used chopsticks for the entire trip; we're real cultured and stuff.

On the first day we met with all of the school teachers to set the tone for the entire festival, and to introduce all of us. There were so many of us, it was somewhat overwhelming to have everybody go around the room and say what their name was; I have a really leaky head so by the time we got halfway around the room I had already forgetten a lot of the names and where they were from and what ensemble they took! I targetted a couple of teachers from the schools from which I had some students. We talked a bit about their music programme, and I asked what I could be helping their students with.

We then headed off to tour a hutong and have lunch at a local family's home. The hutongs are a remaining part of old Beijing, where modernisation has not encroached. There are all sorts of alleys and roads connecting the labyrinth, and are where families used to live together in little communities. Our hutong tour guide Alice (riding a bike) led our party (following in rickshaws) through the maze and we had a home-cooked lunch, and then met the father of the family. He told us a bit about his family, and showed us some of the hand-cut paper cut-outs that adorned the ceiling of the main room. They were beautiful and intricate! We then headed off to see a tea ceremony. There were all sorts of different types of tea: jasmine, hand-rolled flower, white (NOT tea with milk!), tea that was good for skin or losing weight and so forth. Each was brewed in a different manner, in a different pot. For example, we learnt that one is supposed to pour hot water over the clay teapot to warm it up. Also, the outside is smooth but the inside is rough, in order to absorb the flavour of the tea; and one flavour of tea is for each teapot so as not to cross flavours. We were each allocated a teacup and another taller cylindrical cup into which the demonstrator poured the tea. The teacup is then placed over the cylinder and then inverted (very hot!). Then you can smell the flavour of the tea from the cylinder and roll it around in your hands to warm your hands. They were all beautiful! Of course, purchases from their shpo ensued...

We had a Welcome Dinner at the ballroom in our hotel that night where we could be in the same room as everybody: other tutors, the teachers, the students, and some supporters (mostly parents who were also on the trip. They had activities organised for them every day, and they also came to the concerts. Good holiday, huh?) There were a few speeches to welcome everybody and the faculty performed a few pieces to show us all off. We ended with a Ross Edwards piece where we were all stationed around the room.

The next day we started classes proper - I got to meet my students and they got stuck into tutti ensembles. We ate cafeteria lunch (serious downer after a few days of really good food) and then were off to our next adventure: the Summer Palace. It is as it sounds: the summer residence of the emperor. This has a long and messy history; the Summer Palace was built by the emporer to celebrate his mother's birthday but through time, had been burnt down several times. We learnt about the Dragon Lady, Empres Cixi, who was a power-hungry imperial concubine who bore a son for the emperor. She went on to control two other emperors, doing everything in her means to retain power. She killed lots of people, bankrupted the nation, dismantled the navy and unwittingly paved the way to the end of the imperial era. The Summer Palace is huge - about three times as big as Forbidden City! There is a lake, and as you walk around, you forget that this is still in Beijing, a bustling city! There is also a beautiful long corridor with paintings depicting all sorts of things, including Chinese stories and scenes, nature and traditional Chinese designs, the longest painted corridor in the world. 

At night we went to Wangfujing Street, which is a big mall with all sorts of shops - including big international chains. I have to admit that as it was so hot, we treated ourselves to Haagen-Dazs ice-cream. We wandered around as the sun set, poked our noses into a few shops and avoided getting hit in the head with flying lit helicopter toys. We also saw the Wangfujing food market, which was serving up all sorts of meat including scorpions and snake. On our way back we drove along the Avenue of Everlasting Peace, which is a road that stretches for a while and runs through the centre of Beijing. We drove past the Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square and the concert hall and all sorts of fun things in the city centre.

The next day was a full day of teaching. We definitely deserved the drinks at the end of it all! This was a long and tiring day, but also fun. Due to the nature of the programme, there would be classes in which students would be coming and going, and also students were at some liberty to pick which masterclasses they wanted to go to, particularly if they play several instruments and sing. I felt a little bit like a broken record through this day (and also the other full day of teaching) but hopefully it wasn't too boring for the students! At lunchtime, we had the first of the two faculty concerts, where I played the first mvoement of the Schumann quintet. What fun it was to revisit the piece. We unfortunately had to endure cafeteria food for dinner but enjoyed a fun student concert in the evening. We were treated to the ensembles from three of the schools. It was a long evening, with many stage changes and talking in-between, but it was also so wonderful to see the work that the students had put in and just to enjoy having music played for us. I already raved a bit about Hilton above, so needn't say too much more except that by the end they had a whole bunch of people flood onto the stage below and start dancing, and then at the end they launched into a school cheer. How's that for brotherhood?! There were also a number of ensembles from St Stephen's School in Perth and it was really lovely to see one of my students performing in so many of their groups - choirs and bands.

Tuesday was thankfully just a half day of teaching. All the masterclasses were in one hour blocks or so, with ten minutes inbetween to shuffle between activities. Each day the students also had combined tutti ensembles: either orchestra, band, vocal ensemble, big band, mixed ensemble, or guitar ensemble, or in my case, tutoring the the Piano Duo made up of the two Chinese students working on Ravel. In the afternoon we went to the Silk Market, but that day it was raining so the traffic was pretty horrendous. The journey that should have taken about an hour took almost double that! Most of the tutors this year have already been to Beijing for this festival two years ago, so many didn't want to join in (and couldn't stand the idea of more cafeteria food). Those wishing to go shopping were in the minority, so we hopped on some of the student buses to go there. Thankfully I was not the lone female tutor on the all-boys school bus! Aimee and I hit the shops eager to try out our bargaining skills. We were pretty fresh at it, sometimes doubting whether we made a good purchase or not, and getting better at our, "Oh no, too expensive" and walking away act. Only to be yelled at: "Lady, you come back here!" when they really wanted the sale. I think we did pretty well for our first go. We made a few purchases and were sporting a few shopping bags. We ran into a few of the girls around the markets, who surprisingly didn't have that much shopping. The boys on the other hand, as we clambered back onto the buses, sported shopping bags galore full of shoes, clothes, headphones and the like. It seems that the girls were in general a bit uncomfortable about bargaining but the boys seemed to take on the challenge, egging each other on: "How much did you get that for? I got it for 30. I bet I could get the next thing down to 20."

We then had dinner en masse at a restaurant and then went to see an acrobatics show. If you get the chance to see one of these in China, go! They are pretty amazing. We saw a tightrope walker (who did all manners of tumbles and even unicycled on the tightrope!), a deft juggler, dancing girls who made formations while throwing and turning diablos, a contortionist so flexible it was difficult to tell whether she was forwards or backwards, gymnasts who tumbled through hoops, guys who clambered up poles and jumped around (sounds silly, but they were rad), and the same girls with fans who also rode bikes around the stage and even stood up on the handlebars and seat while the bikes were in motion! It was an incredible show!

A second full day of teaching was up next, broken up by a quick rehearsal for the faculty for our item in the grand concert a few days later. We thankfully re-negotiated the morning masterclass times to be a little bit shorter as the traffic was pretty bad and we were late. An even longer student concert in the evening made the post-epic day drinks very well-deserved, but again, it was great to see our students perform, and hoepfully have some fun doing so! Thus ended our time at Dulwich College, which played fantastic host to us (despite the lacklustre cafeteria food).

On Thursday we had a day at the China Conservatory. The morning was taken up with soundchecks for the various tutti ensembles. The hall at the China Conservatory is beautiful; it has a beautiful sound, the sound and feeling is quite true on stage and while it is fairly sizeable, it still feel quite intimate and doesn't feel too big. We had a fairly quiet rest of the day, with a brief rehearsal in the afternoon for the faculty ensemble for the Butterfly Lovers concerto, complete with cuts and all. The Grand Concert was that night, and the product of the hard work of so many people. It was really wonderful to see the tutti ensembles, to witness my piano duo ensemble perform (debut!), to hear the new composition written for the recorder and marimba ensemble, to see the primary school from China and their wind and percussion orchestra (this was amazing. So tight! So diligent! But also a small level of creepy haha). It was also extremely warm to play on the nice stage!

The final full day was an excursion to the Great Wall of China. I had been looking forward to this excursion very much, with the anticipation that I was going to be quite overwhelmed by the entire experience. We went to the popular site, Badaling, which is probably the closest part to the city. Thankfully we went pretty early, so it wasn't too crowded by the time we got there, but it definitely filled up quickly! We started out with a performance by the tutti choir (all the students!) of Demot's piece "My love is greater than the great wall" at the wall, which was a pretty cool experience for the students, and onlookers and probably Dermot too! A couple of great moments captured on video are two things Dermot yells out:
i) "Smile, you idiots!" mid-piece, and
ii) At the end, "Now scream and go crazy"
Climbing the Great Wall was really tough going. It was a hot day, and there is no shade until you get to a tower. The wall was built by slaves (lots of them!) and often when they died there was not enough time to have a proper burial or anything like that, so many bodies were built into the wall. The towers were used to send smoke signals back to the Forbidden City if they saw enemies advancing; the different smoke signals indicated how many troops there were, and could be seen from the city (unlike some days in Beijing that are obscured by smog!) and from there, the army in the city could get ready for battle in half an hour. Efficient communication method, huh? The steps to the Great Wall are all of uneven size, some very large - up to my knee. Makes life especially difficult for small people! Some of the steps have parts that are worn away, so there is no regularity as you're going up. Some parts are very steep too, so there was a lot of self-talk and will to get me along! I only made it to the first tower; I had wanted to go further, but my lack of fitness really didn't permit that. Next time I will train for a year in advance! When I got to the first tower, my back was drenched in sweat, my heart was pounding and my gut a little bit queasy. But I was pretty happy with my effort and was rewarded with some pretty good views. Coming back down was possibly even harder - the hardest being the very slight downwards slope at the end, just when you think you've completed it, the shins complaining and all! An ice-cream (or two, in Bevan's case!) were good treats.
PD says that the experience of climbing the Great Wall never gets old for him. I think I can understand that. I hope next time I will have the energy, fitness and will to go further!

We then bussed off, all sweaty and exhausted, to the Silk Market again for another time to try our hand at more shopping and bargaining. This time I was armed and more than ready. I went in with a plan and a list of what I wanted to buy, and came out fairly successfully! I stood my ground on multiple occasions, doing a little bit of shopping that friends have talked about as an experience in China. We clambered back onto the (tutor) bus with all our wares and excited cries of "what did you buy?!"

The Farewell Dinner was held on the Friday night at our hotel's ballroom. Such a strange feeling to be at the end of the festival, being ina  room of lots of people that we now knew a bit more. There were lots of photos being taken, much more inter-school interaction and a feeling of great relief that we'd gotten through the week and also bittersweetness as we knew this was the end of the week. There were a few speeches of thanks, lots of hugs, exchanges of emails, and a few musical performances including a fun gumboot dance from a small group of Hilton boys. What a fun way to end the formal part of the festival.

Celebrations went late into the night, but I was exhausted and slightly hysterical (to the point of crying haha) that I went back to my room to pack as there was yet another early start to the next day. No tour of Beijing is complete without visiting the Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square. What an incredible place this is. Tiananmen Square is right in the middle of the city, and is the world's largest public square. Obviously, due to the political events that have taken place there, there is tight security. But many people still flock to it. Particularly to see Mao's Mausoleum; there already was a cue at about 8.30 in the morning, and people sometimes queue for hours to get in. To be honest, I don't really see the point of seeing a dead body, but each to their own. And I also am somewhat baffled about the Mao-worship that still remains a sentiment among some of the people. We walked through the square, and then headed to the Forbidden City.

The Forbidden City is at the heart of Beijing, the former residence of the emperor and his family and entourage. The emperor had complete power, almost as a deity; what he said, happened. There are three main halls and a series of many gates to enter before even getting to the centre. There are a large series of courtyards for all the different people, including the emperor's private courtyard (very big!) and also a courtyard each for each of the concubines! The main square in the Forbidden City is large, and is where the people used to congregate. The emperor could sit in the throne room on his throne and look out, but people cannot see in. The bricks underfoot are fifteen layers deep to prevent anybody tunnelling in. Woe betide those who attempt it!!! We learnt about the life of the concubines: they were selected every year during a selection period, from a set of girls who came from the royal family. They were wihsked away to the Forbidden City where they would fight for their chance to be the favoured concubine, often by bearing a son. Those who found favour with the emperor had significant improvements - not just for themselves, but also their family, who would be granted more land and money and their relations promoted to higher offices. But those concubines who fell pregnant would also be plotted against by the other concubines, who would attempt to kill her and/or her child, by poisoning or 'accidental' falling. We also saw the private courtyard of the Dragon Lady (of Summer Palace infamy), including the throne room where she sat behind a screen with the Dowager Empress as they tried to control a young emporer. The Imperial Garden is the only place in the Forbidden City to have trees, and was the garden for the concubines to enjoy. It was hard at times to imagine that we were in busy Beijing as we wandered around the Forbidden City, steeped in history and tradition.

We were then off to the airport to catch our long flight home, to rest and recover and for me, to re-live all the moments of an incredible adventure.

There were great moments of 'lost in translation' through the trip: often they were signs that were mistranslated, particularly at the breakfast bar at our hotel! Also, being of Chinese ethnicity, I was often mistaken for being able to speak Mandarin. This was only handy infrequently, as I was sometimes not harrassed in the same way to buy things. However, it worked mostly against my favour, starting out at Melbourne Airport where the security lady said to me, "xie xie" (thankyou) and I replied in a very Australian "ta". Things continued on the plane were the stewardesses would come around with food and drink and start talking in Mandarin to whcih I had to pull blank faces and sheepishly ask, "Can you please repeat that in English?". There were moments of gesticulation at the hotel reception and business centre to try buy stamps for postcards to send home. Even the arrival card I was handed on the way back home was in Chinese - I thought I could fill it out anyway, but realised that I didn't understand any of it! At shops, when I mumbled, "English....", I had a few comments: "But you look Chinese!" I had to reply with, "I am...but Australian!" and while trying shoes, "You have small feet, like Chinese feet!". "They ARE Chinese feet!" was my quiet protest.

We were so fortunate to have such an excellent tour guide in Amanda. She kept us entertained on bus rides with many stories of her childhood and growing up, her family, how Beijing and China have changed across time - politically, demograhpically and socially, many funny stories of everyday life in Beijing now, and the many 'lost in translation' English stories! Let's just say that concubines are  not cucumbers! To the organisers and people that did so much work: Peter, Xiaolei, Bevan, Aimee, the Dulwich College helpers, their work, organisation and enthusiasm was incredible. The other tutors, led by Chairman PD, were a joy to meet and work with. The students and teachers I met were beautiful and such a pleasure to teach and learn from.

If you've made it to the end of this post, congratulations. You definitely deserve a medal. I hope I will get the opportunity to do this festival again - so much has been sparked and I need another fix of fascination, bafflement and wonder!