Dear brothers and sisters,
Firstly, as most of you already know, I would like to announce that I have received the letter from Ministry of Health few days ago, and I am going to start working tomorrow, in Penang General Hospital. I would like to thank you all for being supportive and caring about my career.
It was about one year ago since I first came to your practice. Since then, we have had several performances and events, such as the Gandhi King Ikeda prize ceremony, youth band concert, honbu malam mesra and band exchange. Apart from the musical skills that you all have developed, I also see your spiritual and personal development over this one year period. I must say, there are some that I am very happy, and indeed, impressed with.
Before I came, after I talked to Teng Hong, Leng Hong and Bee Peng, I have roughly drawn out my own personal plan, on what I want to do for the youth band and what I would like the band to achieve in this one year period. When I found out that you were going to have a concert in the near future, I decided to introduce and expose you to something different in music playing, with more feelings, expression and colours to the music. It was continued until the band exchange, where hopefully you would have a better idea on what you can do with music. I would love to bring you all to a professional orchestra concert but time and resources does not permit, and I am sorry for that.
After that, it was the idea of back to basic, as I feel that to be able to play music well, of course, you have to have very strong basic playing skills, which you all are currently practicing. As I know that I would not have enough time to spend when I finished studying and start working, I have planned to bring someone in to continue guiding you and further improve your playing. Hence, the idea of getting my teacher, the most senior music director in Malaysia, Maestro Woon Wen Kin to come to teach you. With your hardworking effort and his wisdom, I believe that surely you will be one of top band in the country. Of course, it does not mean that I stop caring for you. I will continue to monitor your progress and visit you whenever I can. Hopefully, I will get some updates from each of you on yourself, and also the progress of the band in general.
It is important for you to know that everything you do is important and each of you play some roles in different situation, in your family, in the band, and in your society. You must realize that whatever you do will, however trivial, might eventually affect other more significant matters. You never know, that even a good small change by you would have done many help to others, and you would never know how much benefits has it brought to others around you. I would like to share with you a quote in Life and enigma, a Precious Jewel, your sensei Ikeda, “Each human life, together with its environment, partakes of the fundamental life-force of the entire cosmos. It follows, that any change in the life condition of a single human being can, in the inner reaches of life itself, exert an influence on other human lives. And since nature and the cosmos are living entities, the waves emanating from one human life can not only shake the foundations of other living beings, but can affect things usually thought to be lifeless.”
Someone has asked me before whether spending time here has affected my studies and other things that I do. I don’t really have the answer, because I have never gone through the same year without coming here. However, I do believe that I have gained more than I have lost. As my professor always says, “teaching and learning is a two way process”. I couldn’t agree more with that, and that I trust that has happened between us.
What is important for you to do is to believe in yourself. There are many of you that when you are given some job to do, you did it well. Some of you are very creative and innovative. Some of you have shown great dedication, and most of you have shown much improvements. However, one of the values that you must have is your confidence in yourself and the confidence that you can tackle your task well, no matter how difficult you might think it will be. The most difficult task will be easy if you work very hard on it.
You have to find your direction and you follow your dream. Often, there are many opinions and suggestions around you. But you need to know your own direction. Mahatma Gandhi has said in Ethical Religion, “True morality consists not in following the beaten track, but in finding out the true path for ourselves and in fearlessly following it.” However, you have to cautious that what you are doing is right. If you’re in doubt, it is good to consult others with more experience. Both these statements are quite contradictory, but it is the balance that you have to find, and you will learn how to find the balance as you have more experience.
To achieve something in life, you have to have a vision. When you have the vision, then you must promise your dedication. It is your own passion that will keep you going. Yesterday, I watched “Road to Dawn’, a story about Dr. Sun Yat Sen. He has failed nine times but he still continued. He has gone through a tough time, seeing his dear friends sacrificed during the process. He himself has doubt whether he would be able to ccntinue. It is a group of workesr who reminded him why he has to continue to fight for the greater good of the country.
He maybe one of the few. Let’s talk about someone not too far distance ago, a violinist who I admire and everyone loves, Maxim Vengerov. He is one of the greatest violinist among his generations. He was practicing hard during his early life. He spent the morning in the school, afternoon napping because in the evening he has to start practicing until midnight. He couldn’t play like other children, so after midnight he went to play with his tricycle when everyone was sleeping. He has endure that for several years until finally he has some success, but still continue learning from everyone. That is the dedication that he had put in with his passion to be what he is today.
That day, I was watching ‘Date with Lu Yu’. There were two stories that has amazed me. First person had a dream to walk from Beijig to Tibet, on foot! He spent few hundreds day traveling by food, risking his life to do that. Second person had a dream to travel around the world. He has worked hard to earn money, and started traveling each continents few years ago. He is now earning for his next trip in next few years and he will then completed his travel to almost every countries in the world. All of these seems amazing and impossible, but they have actually done it. Another example would be another person who was born as amputee becoming a world wrestling champion.
Let’s take our attention to someone around your age. I was watching “Blackie’s Teenage Club’ and I was particularly impressed with two girls. They were only 14 years old but they have performed so well that everyone was very impressed with them. They said that they wanted to show people what they can do even at this young age. To do that, they have put in hours of practice everyday for a few minutes of performance. They have won 1st and 2nd prize respectively.
Of course, they wouldn’t have done it without their skills. Public speaking and strategy skills by Dr.SunYat Sen, violin technique by Maxim Vengerov, knowledge on traveling, wrestling skills for the wrestling champion, and so on. All of those were gained from their continuous learning. It may seems unfair to spend so much time for such a short performance, but most of the time, the success of life will come down to that few moments of performance that have make them such a great people because they have done something great. Behind all of those acts, there are months and years of hard works before they acquire the skills that they have. The dedication and commitment has given them the motivation, the drive to learn non-stop, and they are continuing to learn and achieving their dream.
It is not a question if they can do it but the question is if they want to doit. And if they can do it, I believed all of you can do it. You must believe in yourself. Spend that extra hours. That’s why they say 120% of practice, in Chinese, because only then you can achieve 100% in your performance. Put in those extra efforts in your studies, in your music and in whatever dreams you set for yourself. I hope to get good news from you all.
Lastly, I want to thank you all again for being so nice for the past one year. Good luck for those taking government exams and I wish you all the best!
Thank you very much!
