03. The language of music!

[말레이]

03. The language of music!

When I came to Seoul after finishing high school and living there, if I had not had a religious life at the time, my life and life would have gone in a completely different direction. However, the pastor of the church I attended in Seoul watched over me for several years and heard that I had made a vow to God in my third year of high school. He gave me the first tuition so that I could attend seminary, even though I was not in a position to attend school, and guided me through the school. He continued to show me love and concern, and after several years, he even adopted me as his son of faith. I thought that I should repay the love I received by being filial to the elderly in return for their love, but then I unexpectedly left for a country called Molliyshya as a missionary, and they continued to show interest in my missionary work until the day they retired. Now that they have retired, they have moved to a quiet region and are living a devoted life by helping churches for the disabled and nursing homes in the area. Thanks to them, I was able to attend seminary and study hard with gratitude, and that became an opportunity for me to have an identity in life and living.

While I was studying hard at school, a professor who was teaching at that school said,

“Now, instead of studying for four years and becoming a pastor,

I think it would be better to study general studies that would help in ministry in college,

and then go back to graduate school and become a pastor.”

I also liked what he said during the lecture, and I took a leave of absence from that school after that semester. And when I thought about what kind of studies would be helpful for ministry, three came to mind. The first was philosophy, the second was language (English), and the third was music. However, at that time, I didn’t know what philosophy was or how to study it, and I had no talent for language. However, fortunately, I was quite interested in music and liked it, so I decided to study church music. There was a small reason why I became interested in music. When I entered middle school, I had no talent for music (especially singing), perhaps because I was a country bumpkin who had never experienced cultural life. So, singing always felt difficult to me. No, it would be more accurate to say that I didn’t know how to do it. Moreover, the music teacher in middle school had a chronic illness, so he recorded a harmonica accompaniment and had us sing along to it, but eventually, in the second semester, he quit school for health reasons, and since then, we had to study on our own during music class for the entire semester because there was no music teacher. I didn’t know how good it was to be able to escape the pain of music and study on our own. And that year passed, and I became a second-year student and started a new semester. During the first day of the second-year class, the new teacher greeted us. He was a small but pretty person who had just graduated from music college and was assigned as a teacher for the first time. Three days passed and Wednesday morning, the third class was music class. When I opened my bag to prepare for class and took out my books, I realized I hadn’t brought my music books. I thought, “Oh no!” but it was already too late. Since music was a self-study class during the last semester, I had completely forgotten about it because I had become accustomed to it. So I had no choice but to console myself with that fact, and also thought that the frail female music teacher, who had just started, could anything happen during her first class?

There were many others in that situation, not just me. At the time, I was a naive and kind boy from the countryside. Although I sometimes made mistakes like not bringing books, I thought that they were really mistakes, not malicious or tricky, and that nothing bad could happen because of one small mistake.

But what happened? My expectations were completely wrong. The female teacher, who had just started and seemed so weak, spoke to the students who had not brought their books from the first class with a sense of historical mission as a teacher and deep affection and love for them.

“Students who did not bring books,

All of you, get out!”

Until that one word, I thought, “What the hell could happen?” Our expectations, whether we thought this way or wanted to believe it, were completely shattered early on. We wondered if our frail music teacher really did music? (It’s the same in other fields, but especially when you study music a lot, you become more sensitive. Only then can you catch the notes and eventually become good at music… But if you study music at a late age with dull nerves like me, you’ll naturally have a hard time.) She was extremely strict. That day, for the first time in our lives, we were able to experience walking around the flower bed for an hour, holding our ears and doing duck walks and rabbit hops, thanks to the orders our teacher gave us in a very sharp and loud voice. I had never realized before that duck walks and rabbit hops were so hard. When I returned home that evening, my legs were swollen and full of eggs, and it was so painful that it was hard to walk… At that time, I developed a feeling of resentment toward that small, strict female teacher. It was like this.

“Just wait and see! (To myself)

I will raise my music grades to a good level

and prove that it was not intentional but a mistake that I never brought my music books!”

I think that was what I was thinking. At that time, the most difficult thing in the world for me was music, including theory and singing, so I developed such an arrogance. (However, this arrogance was never a good thing. Because of this arrogance, and because of that, how much did I suffer to learn and develop a sense for music that I had no sense for and knew nothing about?) So I, who had no talent for singing, thought that I would compete with my teacher in music theory, and one day, I, who had no interest in studying music, started to study music theory diligently. Was that why? Surprisingly, I scored over 90 points in music on the first music test that year for the first time in my life. After being a top student with similar average grades in the first grade of elementary school, I had been arrogant and immediately started playing around and immersed myself in it, leading a free life throughout elementary school? This was the first time I had gotten such a grade. With that confidence, I continued to focus on studying music theory. Thanks to that energy, I learned how to study, and when I finished my second and third years of middle school and went to high school, I was proudly accepted to Yesan High School, which operated a special class within the high school, because my middle school graduation exam scores and high school entrance exam scores were good. Furthermore, I was assigned to that special class (although it was just a passing grade) and studied in a special class located in a different building from the regular classes. (I actually thought I had a great talent at that time.) However, as a child, I wanted to ease the hardships of my mother, who worked as a peddler to support the family and traveled far away to the countryside carrying a bundle of clothes on her head, but it seemed impossible to beat out strong competitors and become a scholarship student with good grades through studying. Fortunately, however, a senior who lived next door was in the wind band club, and they said that if you were a member of the club, you would receive a work-study scholarship, so I, who also liked music in middle school, applied to the wind band club with a simple thought. To put it nicely, it was a naive thought that was beyond my station. Of course, the music teacher who once led the wind instrument club was proud of me, who was probably the first and last person in the history of the wind instrument club to apply for the wind instrument club, and he liked me as if I had a special affection for him. Also, since I was a very weak-looking junior, the seniors who were tough didn't seem to treat me rudely. But even if that were the case for me personally, how could I be exempted from group activities? At that time, the wind instrument club's internal discipline was very strict due to its nature, and if I broke it, they would always hit my butt with a baseball bat!, a pickaxe handle!, a mop handle! (This is not an exaggeration.) It was common to get my butt kicked frequently during the dance. However, if I spent the whole week without doing this until the weekend came, and Saturday came, I would feel uneasy and my anxiety and fear would reach the extreme. If we had been beaten once or twice a week, our seniors would have had a conscience? They would not have done more? That would have made us feel better. Nevertheless, if that had not happened during the week, we would have felt uneasy and anxious as if we had not done anything. Even when we were beaten, it was much more comfortable to go ahead and get beaten. This is because at first, the person hitting us would have been stronger, so it would have actually hurt more, but while 30 to 40 people were all beaten, everyone’s heart would have been beaten that much, so when we left after seeing all that, it would have been no different from being beaten 40 times, so we would have groaned in pain inside and actually had to endure more real pain. (It would have been difficult to live this way on purpose, but since it was something that was coming, I think it became the foundation of the strength to endure and persevere through those things.)

Also, what I couldn’t understand at the time was how hard it must have been for them to be beaten by their seniors like that. But then I was shocked to see that they passed that tradition on to their juniors. So when we became third-year students, we really reduced that tradition? (I think everyone tends to think that they did it themselves...) In return for being beaten with sticks like this, we were able to receive a discount on our tuition as working-study students, and our musical skills? were naturally honed.

Even though we were exposed to music like that, we weren’t polished enough to be good at singing, so even if we applied to a music school, we probably wouldn’t have been able to avoid being rejected. However, as the saying goes, “If you have the intellect, you can move heaven.” Despite that, while we were looking for an opportunity to study somewhere, we found that the Anyang Weekly Department of Daehan Theological Seminary was recruiting new students, and there was a church music department there. Now that they are recruiting new students for the third time, I thought that even someone like me who is not familiar with vocal music would have a chance to learn here, so I applied. As expected, there were not many students with good skills who would come to a school that had only recently started, so I was able to get a chance to study there.

I entered the school late for one reason or another, but I felt that the older students were studying harder than the younger students because they were so diligent in studying and practicing.

While studying like that, I packed a lunch box and went to school with a pass that allowed me to ride the subway freely from Hwayang-dong in Seoul to Anyang for a month. And in order to save even a penny, I didn’t cut my hair and let it grow long, so I cut it short again and didn’t cut it until it grew long again. People probably thought I was a strange person, or an artistic person, or a dirty person, and they thought of me as they saw me. Maybe that’s why I didn’t have many friends. Think about it, with his skinny body, long hair, sharp eyes, and wearing a Burberry inherited from his cousin to beat the cold weather, he must have been quite a sight.

But what I am thankful for is that I met good friends here and made friends. I didn’t have any friends during the first semester of my freshman year, but during the second semester, I went to Cheonggyecheon during vacation to buy used books and offered to buy them for anyone who needed them. There was a friend who asked me to do this, and I became really close with him. And why I didn’t have any friends? Later, as he put it, he had a body as skinny as a log and wore a Burberry. He looked like a gang leader made of rags, so I didn’t dare to get close to him because I thought I would lose my bones if I messed with him. But then I found out that he was completely ‘water,’ and he was strong. He completely lifted and lowered my body, completely toying with me, who was light in weight.

When I didn’t have any friends, I would study at the library until it closed at 10 p.m. and then go home. In my second year, I joined a drama club called “An-ul-tari” and practiced hard in the practice room until late at night. Then, when I heard that the last student organization, the Student Defense Corps, was closing and starting next year, it would be operated as a student council, I made a plan with my friends to run for student council president. I registered my best friend, who was most trusted by the students, as a candidate for student council president and jumped into the election together. Until then, the so-called military servicemen had been the leaders of the Student Defense Corps, but it seems that those who had at least a little bit of life experience had higher thoughts, actions, and recognition. Now, let’s change the atmosphere and come up with an idea. We suggested that we should bring about a youthful wind, and bring about a youthful wind. So, I decided to use the slogan of “Cheongpung” as my election slogan, and I persuaded students during the day after class, and at night, I planned the election strategy at my friend’s house, and as a result, I won a landslide victory in the election and became the first student representative in the school who had not completed military service. After that, when the executive committee was formed, I was appointed as the head of the culture department as a music major, and from then on, I was able to naturally build up my basic knowledge of culture through my major, circle, and student council. Someone once said that you need to have a lot of dating experience to get a good spouse. When I was in college, I didn’t have enough money to go out and have a cup of tea with my friends, so I just packed a lunch box and went to school every day, studied in the library until late at night, or burned my youthful passion in the drama club’s practice room, and although I later became a student council officer and a graduation committee member, thinking back now, I only gained a little experience through this. However, fortunately, I was able to meet good friends through these activities, and it is truly fortunate.