Music is about soul recuperation. The irritated, tired or depressed soul can be lubricated, lightened and lifted soon after you immerse yourself in music, either by listening to or playing it. It is no wonder that music becomes a trendy commercial therapy for many people. For me, music is a life-time companion through good or bad times.

            Music was first introduced to me by my father, who was a self-taught cello, guitar, Jinghu and keyboard player. He even hand carved a violin when he learned carpenter skills.  I grew up seeing that black enameled curvy four-string instrument hanging on the wall. He wanted to pass on his flaming passion for music instruments, melody and harmony to me. At the age of 6, I started to learn playing foot propelled reed organ from my father. (At that time, poor Chinese families could not afford the piano.) I remember at the very first lesson, I was instructed to play by both hands. It felt weird, stretching and harnessing my nerves to manipulate both right and left hands in coordinated movement.

In a sense, music is my closest childhood playmate. I spent 12 years running scales up and down, learning new pieces and bettering them over and over again. I would practice and play for hours, look out of the window, take a breath and refocus on the music or scales. I was mostly seated before the instrument during my childhood, my feet paddling for the wind and my fingers striking on the keys for, hopefully, music. I learned many pieces from a hundred-year-old yellow thick music book, published in Japan. When I was in my third grade, I gave my first on-stage performance for all my teachers and classmates from my elementary school. The piece was “On the Sea”, depicting a boat sailing on the sea. That was a huge fear for me and pride for my family.

When the time came I had to part with my dear reed organ, I cried in my room for a long time. I cherished the 6 years’ company of the instrument, the joy and the pain, the sun and the rain with it. The summer before I went to middle school, I finally had my own piano, a heavy black instrument with tranquil surface reflecting like a mirror and a long row of distinctive black-and-white keys. I had a hard time adjusting the finger muscles to the hard keys and to the subtlety of its volume fluctuation. It was like making a new friend. Not long after, I started to enjoy playing with this new friend.  I realized that people can develop a meaningful relationship with an instrument.

I treasure each piece I learned by different composers and try to relate to the composers by sympathizing with them and imagining how they might have felt when composing the music. Among all the 50 or so pieces in my repertoire, La Mer by Debussy is my favorite piece. After a repetitive perpetuation of western “metered” music, I find in this piece a freedom of breath. Its nocturnal, dream-like quality by its dissonance and motley of colors mesmerized me. Each time I played it, I had a new feeling and fantasy. I also admire Mozart and Beethoven for their virtuosity of classical music and their restless quest for the music from their soul.

Music mysteriously directed the path of my life. When choosing between science and art in high school, I went for art and humanities; when deciding on undergraduate major, I went for English literature; when I came to Hawaii, I gave up the admission to Master of Accounting program for Apparel Design and Merchandizing. Somehow, the music I played through the years led me to where I am today. But I never think of music as a major, because I don’t think I have that much talent. Music is something special in my life, more than a hobby, a skill or a profession.

 As I aged, my horizon of music expanded. When I was traveling, music by different instruments always fascinated me. I often bought a landmark instrument from a place for my father. I have bought Coconut Shell instrument from Bali and a Ukulele from Hawaii.

One unforgettable music experience during my traveling is playing drum ensemble with Bali beach boys. At twilight, the milky beach echoed the vibrate rhythm from four drums played by these tanned handsome beach boys. I was fortunate to find and join them in expressing our joy under the tropical sky. I played the lowest key drum, hitting alternately by right and left palms, then other drummers merged in, and I heard the interlocking rhythm from drums of different pitches woven into a luxurious piece, accompanying the breaking waves not far away.

My recent music zest is Chinese music. Oddly enough, I started to appreciate my folk music this late. Awakened by the urge of identification with my own culture, I plunged into learning a Chinese instrument, Guzheng. I had dreamed of playing the horizontal harp for a while, planning to play it after retirement as a way of meditation. One day, I came across the biggest instrument store outside Shanghai Conservatory of Music. The minute I heard the finger glided through the 21 strings in pentatonic harmony, like a tumbling stream, I could not resist but taking it home.

I had learned the instrument from a Yangzhou teacher in Shanghai for a couple of months. After two classes, I attempted the classical piece “Fishing Boat Song at Sunset”. I felt like finding my musical home, finally, after so many years of wondering in western classical music and playing the piano. The tunes I heard since childhood finally came to live and to anchor my life floating in a foreign land to my root.

The Piano can display intimidating difficulty in ten-finger limitation, while the Guzheng, with continuous pitches by pushing down and loosing up the strings by the left hand, has its own charm, by simulating human’s voice and nature’s sound. I would think Piano more mechanical and Guzheng more natural.

There are times, at a quiet moment, when it is raining or the wind is blowing, the music flowing from Guzheng becomes One with the natural elements. And I feel the harmony between me, music and nature. I feel the joy and peace deep down from my soul.

Music is for the soul, from the soul and in the soul. For me and I believe for many of us.

General Statement

Sophiee’s Space records and presents my life with texts and images.

The contents are somewhat personal and private, and prepared for the audience I consider the most intimate public to me, i.e. my family and friends, scattered around the world with the majority in China.

The purpose of the blog is to efficiently inform my circle of family and friends about how I am doing and thinking, especially after moving to Hawaii and being a full-time housewife.

The purpose behind that is to have a lifelong contact with all my friends. Time slips away and we grow old. I want to share some of my best, worst or average moments in life with those who care and whom I care.

Strangers are not welcome to the space. Please keep the blog to yourself. Without my written authorization, please don’t invite any third party to visit this website.

The update frequency is flexible. I recommend once in a month, you jump in and see what happened. Any urgent issue will be brought to you by email or phone. J

The copyright is fully reserved to Sophiee (Sun, Xing). Again, without my written authorization, no one is allowed to copy or disseminate the contents of the website.

Photo Album

The photos, image-format contents, are all taken at Oahu, Hawaii and mostly around Manoa Valley, where I live. I promise to bring photos of other places on the planet into your vision. But so far, that’s the best I can do. After all, Hawaii is actually a good selling point, uh?

I group them into the following:

-         Garden: The details around a residence that impressed me. Life is about detail, right? Garden is an essential part of a house and a home here. What I see and show on the photos demonstrates how people living in Hawaii cherish their life.

-         My Moments: Pictures taken and self-taken (by turning the camera toward myself, resulting in distorted faces sometimes, but fun to do so) for all family and friends to see ME. You may comment and ask about a particular photo.

-         Ocean: You can find different expressions of the ocean, like wave, sunlight and color. Ocean is mysterious, forever changing, and charming. It depends on my time spent on the seashore. So it’s likely the volume will grow.

-         Creatures: Hawaii has no snake. For other species, I am discovering. If lucky enough to catch the moment of a bird or a gecko, I will surely bring it here. There are plenty of roaches at my house. You have no desire to see that.

-         Residence: That’s the best part of all pictures, I think.  I am never tired to glance, stare and daydream in front of the same houses. Real estate is the third largest industry of Hawaii. Many gurus choose to live here. Got to be pretty houses.

-         Flower: My father would love this part. He tried to cultivate roses at our cold Northeast home. At Hawaii, lots of delicate indoor flowers grow in garden, like jasmine, “turtle back” and “tiny bamboo”. Hawaii is a wonderland of flowers.

-         Haiku: Simple. Just illustration photos for my haikus. It may not be adorable for the eye, but a visual tool to show what I am trying to poetize.

-         People: It’s the soul of Hawaii photo gallery. People are what make a place unique. You will find the manner, air and temperament on the faces and dresses of the people. But I cannot guarantee they are local instead of tourist.  

-         Landscape: Hawaii is not all about ocean, sunshine and palm trees.  It has volcanoes and rainforest, not to mention many mountains and valleys. I cannot determine I am ultimately a mountain or ocean lover. But I love them both.

Take your time. Click through. Give me feedback (by clicking on the comment and typing your honest opinion).

2006 Resolution

The five listed, writing, speaking, fitness, guzheng and accounting, are the identified areas I want to improve in 2006. As humans are naturally lazy and resistant to progress, I publicize my New Year Wishes to discipline myself and realize most of them. I will write a summary report on the five targets by the end of 2006, my own annual report. J

Blog

That’s what it is, the text format content of this website, where you can find the latest news from me, whether it’s a transitory thinking, an anecdote, jokes I laugh, books I read, movies I watch, or short poems I scribble.

Glimpse through. If you laugh, sigh, frown at anything, do let me know. It will make me feel so good about sharing.

Categories

As stuff pile up, the website has an automatic way of organizing them into categories of the entries. Actually, I define and decide how to categorize them. Here they are:

-         Murmur: My life. What happened (to me) and how I feel about it. It’s the most private part of this blog. But I will make sure it does not become a diary, where all my darkest thoughts so blatantly kept. Only I have access to my diary.

-         Chatter: Book review. What I read and how I think about it. It comes from chapters of a book. Since it is a luxury to read through any good piece, the entries in the category will be lowest, unless I regard magazine and newspaper as book. Generally, it’s about how I think about other’s life or the world event.

-         Fumble: Film review. What I watched and how I think about it. As a movie is more easily consumed, I think it will be bigger than Chatter. I pick up weird names of murmur, chatter and fumble to relieve myself of any pressure to write good stuff. Just think it as crap from me and I can write peacefully.

-         Hawaii: Hawaiian facets. What I see and how I feel about it. As this is my first long-term sojourn in a foreign country, naturally those catching my eyes are different from China.

-         Haiku: Short poems. This is partly for one of my 2006 Resolution, writing. I need to practice handling of words and images. Incapable of a sonnet or any poem longer than three lines, I am undaunted to try this one.

-         家书：Chinese Contents.(中文内容)全是说给故乡的亲人朋友听的，或者不希望这里的洋人了解的，比如我如果说基督教是胡扯又去吃人家的免费餐就很不厚道。

-     People: Achiever Review. I am always interested in studying people, where they come from, how they grow up, what they achieve, when they shine, and why they are who they are. 

Archives

Easy. If you want to read the old entries, click through. But since the blog is only two month old, you don’t have much to click around.

Profile

Surely, you know much more than that about me. You can skip that part. This is just a label of my rights for the space.

Have you ever eavesdropped two birds talking? Most likely you heard of birds singing sweetly in the woods and never bother to guess what they are singing about. That's our boundary with birds.

But one morning, just awakening from sleep, I heard two birds dialoging: one makes a tune first and the other echoes exactly. The tune is somewhat like 3-3-3--1. Each time, the falling tone of the last syllable (3-1) varies a little bit, by its rhythm, rate of decline, and purity of the voice, by which I mean whether there is a raspy quality added into the smooth sound line, just like some pop singers intentionally grating their voice to load on a certain pain or struggle. How amazing to hear birds do likewise!

Their duet is in an even pace at the beginning, but when the singing becomes more complicated, the latter bird falters and cracks. The lead repeats to allow the follower imitate correctly. Oftentimes, the poor bird cannot do it right in the first time. And the more repetition, the more uncertain of her voice. Soon later the lead grows out of patience and repeats the last syllables with much emphasis by lengthening and amplifying the details. The follower bird imitates cautiously meanwhile trying to stay calm.

By now, I see that this is not their morning greeting between neighbors, but a pains-taking learning progress of a little bird from her parent.  Again, how similar to our human experience!

I am sure the birds have their language, customs and even social orders.  Just we know so little about them. It's said that the Polynesian people used to be able to dialog with the birds on the island, but when the western colonists swarmed in, the birds turned away and never said a word to the rude newcomers.