The trip to Nansha was a great experience and was a very good opportunity to understand music more in other countries and get together to make music and improve our music skills. It also, showed me more about the way music is taught in China and how kids about my age play it.

The night before the trip I was not just over excited but there were a lot of thoughts going around my head thinking what new things will I learn on this trip? What difficulties will I meet and how will I conquer it? These thoughts just stayed in my head for the whole entire night even when I woke up it was still in my head but at the end I managed to keep those thoughts away and relax myself.

The mode of transport we took was first by ferry from Hong Kong to Nansha then by coach to the school for orchestral practise for about two hours. Then, dinner was arranged for us at a nearby restaurant to our hotel. Afterwards, we went back to the hotel to get ready for the next day. The hotel accommodation was fairly good and the food was quite good, clean and hygienic.

In the morning after a good nights sleep we had breakfast and went to the school playground for rehearsals. We spent more than three hours rehearsing --- a bit intense but well worth it.

The rehearsals at the beginning were a bit difficult not only because of communication problem as I cannot speak Putonghua and also the number of students were greater this time perhaps because more people joined the trip. Finally, we had dinner with the home students and we took the opportunity to exchange our experiences.

The next day was the performance; we had rehearsals for a few hours and started half an hour early preparing for the show. We tuned our instruments and were ready at backstage; the performance went extraordinary well and the audience response was very loud and was received with exuberance and loud cheers--- clearly satisfied with the performance. Then, we said our goodbyes to China and left for Hong Kong. The journey back to Hong Kong did have some unforeseen events and obstacles but the problems were solved and all was well in the end.

This trip gave me a life lesson learning in teaching me what music is like in the Mainland compared to Hong Kong. The children in the Mainland can play their musical instruments well as they are very hard-working but they don’t understand the music and can feel it, while on the other hand the children in Hong Kong can feel and understand it but the melody of the song may not sound as smooth as the Mainland’s children.

Finally, last but not least, I would like to say a big thank you to MOY for organizing this meaningful and memorable exchange trip interacting with different people around our age group with a common interest and participating in what we like to do best.

By Tanya Massar
EDCO LIUQIN 柳琴 莊明柔