The Family Gathering

29/10/2010, we had a family gathering steamboat dinner. (Steamboat family gathering dinner or family steamboat gathering dinner?)
We had it at a restaurant nearby. The Cheng families, including my lovely grandparents, uncle Mun and his family members, aunt Fung and her son, uncle Weng and four of us.

For the first time, we have steamboat separately, the 'youngers' table and the 'experienced' table. I was categorised as the youngster, therefore I was eating with my cousins and my siblings, total 6 of us.

We chatted while waiting the soup to boil. I noticed that almost all of our topics are music-related, of course we discussed about studies and exams too. Since my cousin brother, Hoe and I have already finished our exams, we were very reluctant to talk about it, even think about it. Hahahaha!! Exams are disasters. As I didn't have chance to talk to my sister and cousin sister, below I post more about cousin brothers and brother.

Chien, my elder cousin brother, he plays percussions, drums including chinese drums like 24 festive drums and western drums like timpani and many. He is the leader of the percussion family, he leads the family and guides the juniors, teaches the techniques of hitting, tempo and many many more.

Hoe, my younger cousin brother. I call him the multitask musician. He plays acoustic guitar, classical guitar, electronic guitar, the sax, a little keyboard, brass instruments and drum. Anything that I have missed out? Hahaha, he has many experiences in solo performances and band performances. He is a music student of youtube, no human music teacher ever teaches him, besides his guitar teacher. He earned money to buy his own musical instruments. He teaches friends to play instruments that he knows. Multitask isn't enough to describe him. Talk to him, I'll find my compassion to music are so far less compared to him.

Shen, my little brother. He plays trombone and euphonium. As he is a member of marching band of Soka Gakkai Malaysia's cultural group. He doesn't play instruments standing on a spot. He does formation and play at the same time. He said euphonium he plays isn't facing up to the sky, it is facing slightly forward. I asked why is it the matter of sound projection? He answered, the euphonium in brass family usually perform in an enclosed area, where marching euphonium in open space. If the marching euphonium is facing up, nobody hears anything from euphonium. Oh!, I said. Hmm, I learned something from my little brother.

Yi, my little sister. She sings in a choir. She sings, leads the group and teaches juniors to sing too! There is one thing that I envy the most about her, she got the chance to do her Christmas performances in Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra. The most glamorous stage in Malaysia! Please envy her.

Marie, my cousin sister. She dances and runs. She is so active in sports and she got so many medals and trophies to the extend that she can't carry all of them. Press had interview her and she appeared in the newpapers, not a small column, but for pages! She brings fame to her family. So proud of her!

In conclusion, all of us are artists. I hope our enthusiatism towards music will grow firmer and spread it to all around us!

Longlive! The artistic youngsters!