Sitting on a Metro Train station waiting for my ride to our Greenwich (CT) office, many thoughts and afterthoughts repeatedly linger my mind. Yesterday afternoon I arrived in New York City, and realized immediately the urgency to get back quickly to normalcy. With our large youth project at the United Nations headquarters with 959 registered delegates from around the world underway (the 5^th Annual Youth Assembly at the United Nations, August 12-14, 2008), there is no Time Out! space for me at all. With unresolved emails and limited internet access while abroad (not to mention the sleep deprivation), last minute emergencies beyond one’s control, music lessons to give immediately upon my return, bills to pay and many mundane tasks to attend to, the most that I could be afforded now is time to recover from the 12-hour time difference that I’ve been living in for three weeks now.

Despite all, I won’t regret being in Asia for three weeks. In fact, this had been one of the best times of my life, one that I haven’t experienced for a very long time, and I am eternally grateful to FAF for allowing me to go during the busiest time at the office. With a senior staff taking a maternity leave during my absence, a new replacement undergoing the learning curve during my absence, our Hungarian senior staff coming over to take over the UN project, an incoming concert tour in New York, and several pending 2009 cultural exchange projects, it had not been easy. But thanks to the great support of our staff and interns in the US, they had been able to take care of things that I would’ve otherwise not been able to attend to while traveling.

Yesterday, our executive director Patrick personally picked me up at the airport. I met some of our interns Sabrina and Vanessa at my apartment, and they all smiled beamingly and hugged me upon seeing me. These are images and gestures that will be impressed in my mind forever.

Once in a while I wonder why our staff (Julia, Ildiko, Szilvia, Davina, Grace, and all the interns) and I work so hard to create memorable experiences for people other than ourselves. And then, when I experience the joy and friendships that are made during these tours, the reason becomes clear and apparent. In the current world of barriers, solitude, fear and sorrow, there is a strong need to fulfill this mission of cultural exchange through the performing arts. And I am very glad to be part of this mission.

Many times the people we travel sweat in such small stuff, such as a delayed flight, a misplaced seating or rooming arrangement, a fuel surcharge, or the lack of a music stand or two. But we hope they remember the grander scheme of the programs, which is to make memorable performance experiences that have deep and meaningful people-to-people exchanges. Once in a while we find such a group of people who understands, and I am very grateful this time around I met another one of them- Synergy 2008.

The very first tour that I facilitated was a reclamation tour in New Orleans on April 2007 by Eagle Song, a middle school choir based in Illinois led by a volunteer parent, music director, Gary Fry. This tour was the embodiment of the spirit of a Friendship Ambassadors concert tour program. The choir performed 13 concerts in the span of 5 days with the purpose of bringing back hope and happiness into the lives of Louisiana residents who have lost family, friends, and their homes during the aftermath of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. They performed in shelters, schools, FEMA trailer parks, and volunteer centers. At every venue they were to perform, the audience members would burst into tears and tell us that we are the first ensemble that visited Louisiana after the storms. One time they performed for Common Ground Relief, a group of university students from around the country who had volunteered their time to rebuild New Orleans. The CGR students lived in tents for many months, removing the debris of many sites in the area. After a performance, the volunteers shed tears, “What you have done, nobody else can do. All of a sudden, the debris looks beautiful. Thank you for coming.” At the FEMA trailer park, the largest park for evacuees in Baton Rouge, the residents were so desolate and hesitant to listen to the concert. But the choir decided, “Let’s crank up the volume and sing at the top of our lungs, and hopefully they will come to the tent.” At the end of the concert, the children at the trailer park were singing and dancing with EagleSong, piggy-back riding, hugging and sharing contact information to continue their friendship.

Did you know this choir gathered over 50 musical instrument donations in the Chicago area prior to the tour to give to middle and high school students in Louisiana who have lost theirs during the storm? Because this tour is a story of hope for Louisiana, the local media followed them in many performances. I was honored to be part of this tour.

The next great tour that would match EagleSong’s would be Synergy’s. While this was not a volun-tourism project, their performances had touched the lives of thousands of Taiwanese who had showed up to Synergy’s shows. Every performance hall was packed, and Synergy’s concert had broken the record of any choral participation at the Taipei Philharmonic Foundation’s Annual International Choral Festival. After each Synergy performance, many autographs were signed, photographs taken, and numerous friendships were made. The media anticipated the arrival of Synergy, and followed Synergy almost every where they went. Here are some of the links to various media articles of Synergy in Taiwan:

http://news.pchome.com.tw/living/cna/20080728/index-12172530071219618009.html

http://www.tccg.gov.tw/sys/msg_control?mode=viewnews&ts=488577c8:7b54&theme=&layout=

http://times.hinet.net/times/article.do?newsid=1622749&option=topic&topicid=200708161146caaa17a53f&cate=recreation

http://www.wretch.cc/blog/qvince/11909392

http://cms.www.gov.tw/NewsCenter/Pages/20080723/8d65b6ef-da24-4a1d-b2e1-bccd423e7857.aspx?CurrentNode=11&NextNode=0&QueryType=1&ShowOrgMenu=0&TranslateMenuName=34269_25991_25945_32946_&Page=4

http://www.sco.gov.tw/Synergy/index.html

http://news.sina.com.tw/article/20080728/626085.html

http://news.sina.com.tw/article/20080728/622799.html

http://udn.com/NEWS/DOMESTIC/DOM4/4440861.shtml

While there are many things to be desired from all the concert tour programs I’ve led, EagleSong’s and Synergy’s are two of my favorites to date. I will never forget the friendships made and memories shared in these travels. These participants are all true friendship ambassadors.

Oh yes, you’re reading it right!

Two weeks ago, somebody popped me the question, “Will you marry me?” with bended knees (okay, it was just one knee, to be exact), seemingly sincere blue eyes in the public lobby of a temple where dozens of Taiwanese teenagers were asking for autographs and photographs from their American idols. This man was young, and was somebody whom, although I met last year in New York for a day or two and exchanged a few dialogues, I’ve only really known for seven days.

What is going on?? Is it really?? were the thoughts I remember going through my mind.

Probably it was my exhaustion that led me incapable to react properly to such an attractive proposal. All I could think of was the special one back home. What to do? This guy can’t be serious. He just met me a few days ago, was what I thought. And so I convinced myself that this must be the rationale of it.

Yet days from that historic moment, here I am, still wondering what had prompted this man to take such an action. It was so sweet and memorable. Is this some type of a habit or practice that particular groups of men do? If so, it certainly is cute and charming humor, isn’t it? I repeatedly told myself.

After mentioning this incident to a few of my friends, they scolded me, “You should’ve just said yes!! If I were there with you, I would’ve just been your voice and said YES to the man!” When shown the photo of this good-looking man, one of my friends questioned, “Are you a lesbian, girl??? How can you not say yes to such a handsome man??”

And the bizarre thing is- I find myself sometimes wishing I had just said Yes, and see what would’ve happened, just for the heck of it!

But I didn’t. How can a girl joke about saying yes to an important question like this?

I am writing about this phenomenon. And what had led me to write it, I will perhaps only really comprehend in the next few years after I myself am married. Probably the people involved in this will hate me for writing about it. Maybe it will lead to some speculations about me. Most likely it will be just an intriguing fact to gossip about Yin-Chu that never became actualized.

I will never know what had happened and what should’ve happened. Call me crazy beautiful and dumb! But this will always be a moment I will never forget in my lifetime.     

A staff writer at the Greenwich Time wrote a nice article about our ensemble's concert last December 15--

Playing at Home
Three town students return with orchestra for GHS concert
By Andrew Shaw

It's one thing to perform in a school orchestra in front of friends and family.

It's quite another to play in front of international dignitaries and ambassadors.

As part of the Youth Philharmonic for United Nations, three Greenwich middle and high school students have played at the United Nations headquarters in New York City, in Louisiana for Hurricane Katrina victims and elsewhere, all for humanitarian gain.

Compared to his performances at Greenwich High School, senior Steven Bryn, 17, said it's daunting playing at U.N headquarters.

"I'm a lot more nervous. There's really important people I'm trying to impress," said Bryn, a violinist who joined the group last winter.

The philharmonic was created in 2006 and, for now, features about 30 Westchester and Fairfield County students, with plans in the future to expand membership to the audition-based group elsewhere in the world. In conjunction with Greenwich-based Friendship Ambassadors Foundation, a nonprofit group that promotes peace through cultural exchange, the students perform benefit concerts to help causes like recovery from natural disasters and civil wars.

Tomorrow night at 7:30 pm, the philharmonic will perform a "Concert for Peace" at Greenwich High School, 10 Hillside Road. The suggested donation is $10, and students are admitted free of charge.

Music draws the crowd in, Bryn said, and people get to hear a humanitarian message at the same time. The music itself can be part of the message, he added.

"Music can really bring hope," Bryn said. When the group traveled to New Orleans this summer to donate 70 instruments to the community and perform, Bryn said he could see how music helped the residents who had lost everything in the hurricane find some semblance of peace.

Greenwich High School freshman Lauren Mascioli, 14, agrees with Bryn.

"Music can be influential. It's a different way of going about getting things done," said Mascioli, a violinist, who along with Elisabeth Bloom fills out the trio of Greenwich residents in the group.

It's a familiar concept. On Tuesday, the New York Philharmonic announced that it would perform in Pyongyang, North Korea, in February.

"I think it's something people can experience all over the world," Mascioli said. "They don't need to have the save language."

Patrick Sciarratta, executive director of Friendship Ambassadors, said he's impressed with the humanitarian focus of the the students.

"These are very intrepid young kids to be interested in such global issues," Sciarratta said. "They do seem to have a grasp of it."