-- An excerpt of conversations with the children of the Singing Summer Camp on July 7, 2009

Hello, my young friends!  I have three children, 12, 18, and 24.  The eldest one graduated from college two years ago.  With such a big age difference between us, how do we communicate with each other? 

So, I started looking for what we have in common.  I was in the student choir in high school and in college.  After coming to Shanghai, I was in adult choir performances.  Like you, I love to sing and am a music lover.

Little Person Big Heart

I see that all of you have dreams and all your dreams are different.  Some of you want to be teachers, scientists, and some of you want to be show hosts, singers, pianists, and dancers, while others want to be lawyers.  Even though you are very young, you all have big dreams.  This is a good thing.  The bigger your dreams the better.

The Chinese character "Yi" is a combination of two characters meaning "notes" from the "heart".  How can the heart sing beautiful music that touches people?

Beautiful music comes from a beautiful heart.  A heart full of love, kindness, patience, public welfare, and conscience is a beautiful heart.  Our heart has the power to move people.

The kind of heart you have determines the kind of person you are.

We can see the leaves, branches and the trunk of a big tree, but we can't see the roots underground.  Leaves wither and fall in winter and new ones grow in spring, all because the roots retain the nutrition to keep the tree alive.  Without roots, the tree cannot survive.

What is our root?  It's our "heart".  Our heart can't be seen but it's very important.  A human being is a priceless treasure, and the value of a person is not in its physical appearance but in what cannot be seen.

Some people pay dearly for cosmetics, facials, hair-coloring, face lift, and plastic surgery to improve their appearances.  Actually, money is much better spent on something much more precious and much more important, which is our inner beauty, our "heart".

Heart is Our Compass

A compass may have slight movements but it points to one direction at all times and gives us a sense of direction.  We also have an invisible compass in our heart.  If it points in the right direction, it will lead us to the right destination.  If the direction is wrong, we will be led down the wrong path.

Keep an Open Heart

An open heart broadens our view and enables us to accomplish big things and makes our dreams come true.

Every one of you is unique.  Even twins are not totally identical.  No two leaves are the same and neither are two snowflakes.  There is only one of each one of us in this whole world, and every single one of us is precious.  However, we should not be self-centered and look down upon others.

How do we keep ourselves from being self-centered?

Through mutual respect
If you respect others, they will respect you, too.  It goes both ways.

Happiness is Helping Others
Research shows that, when we are happy, our body produces a chemical called Dopamine.  You feel happy when you receive a gift.  Likewise, when you give someone a gift, you also make that someone happy.  When you witness his or her happiness, your body produces Dopamine, which makes you happy, too.

Team Spirit

"Buddha Jumping over the Wall" is a famous delicious dish.  Its many ingredients include what fly in the sky, swim in water, and run on the ground.  All these delicacies going into this one dish created such an aroma that even a Buddhist monk was lured to stop chanting his scriptures and jump over the fence to his neighbor's to try the dish.  If you ask those who have tasted this dish to name the most delicious ingredient, no one can really tell.  What makes the dish delicious is the combination of all the ingredients.  A bowl of mixed salad is the same.  It tastes great from all the ingredients mixed together.  These are the best explanation of what team spirit is all about. 

In a choir, it is not enough that one voice is good.  It is necessary for all the voices to sound good together.  When one voice does not follow the tempo, the entire choir is affected.  Like a bowl of mixed salad, if one vegetable is spoiled, the entire bowl becomes inedible.  If one of the ingredients in "Buddha Jumping Over the Wall" is bad, the entire dish has to be discarded.  Therefore, in a choir, it is not important to know which member has the best voice, but it is essential for all the voices to sound good together.

Team spirit means maximizing our strength to make up for our weakness, working together, helping each other, and sharing the experience together as a group.