The summer I was 15 my family
hosted an exchange student from Japan. Her name is Erika and to this day she is
one of my very best friends. When we picked her up from the host program and
headed home, we had an interesting car ride home. My family does not speak
Japanese. Her English was really great compared to most of the students we have
hosted in the past, but she was definitely out of her comfort zone trying to
communicate. We giggled at ourselves trying and failing to communicate for a
while, and then Erika started singing Disney songs. The deal was sealed. We
were friends. We had a language barrier, but music is the universal language.
We became friends through Frozen and Tangled.
It was even more amazing a year
later when we visited Erika and her family in Nara, Japan when she remembered the
tune and some of the words to a song my mother and I had taught her without
realizing it. We stood together in a public bathroom on the other side of the
world singing one of my favorite songs because it was a powerful memory of me
for Erika. Now it is also a powerful memory of Erika for me.
A year after that I was a teen camp
counselor for the same exchange program that brought my best friend Erika to
me. At this teen camp, there were over 300 Japanese kids spending a week
together in Utah before they were sent to host families. They performed amazing
cultural presentations and taught us about the home they dearly love. They
taught us a song and dance about fishermen catching giant fish. I didn’t
understand the words, but I understood that it was important to my friends, and
they are important to me.
Throughout my high school choir
experience, I have sung amazing songs from all over the world. Brazilian-Portuguese
songs about lace-makers, Catalan pieces about floods, Latin songs about God and
happiness, Chinese songs about nothingness and Mongolian songs about horses to
name a few. I love the experience of not only learning a new song, but learning
part of a new language and learning about the culture that accompanies it. Chinese
songs about nothingness become a lot more meaningful when you learn the story
behind it, monks that learned to meditate and communicate with their own
selves. Creepy sounding Catalan pieces become much more moving when you learn
the story of a flood, tragedy and death and then rebuilding. I never
experienced those things myself, but I sang about them. I told the stories and I
felt them. The music and the stories made me think about life differently, even
though I don’t speak the languages. Music is the universal language.
One of my favorites I have ever done is a
French piece called ‘Ouvre Ton Coeur.’ It means “Open your heart.” When
translated correctly, it is a romantic love song, but “Open your heart” can mean
so much more than romantic love. Opening your heart means accepting others
regardless of their differences. It means standing up for those that are
bullied and oppressed, regardless of where they live. It means forgiving those
who have wronged you. Opening your heart can mean gathering your courage,
stepping up and doing something that scares you. For me, one of the best
examples of opening your heart is traveling, meeting new people and
experiencing new cultures. The language of music has inspired me to want to
learn more. To experience more. To help more. To become more.
Many times, we think of culture as
the way people dress or the kind of food eaten in a particular place. The
culture of music isn’t quite as tangible. However, it is more universal. One of
the biggest things I have learned through hosting exchange students is that
people are just people. We have many differences, but we are all just trying to
live the best life we possibly can. We’re not as different as we sometimes
think. We come together through the things we have in common. My favorite one
is music.
