by Wendy Lin
What do all the Foreign Exchange newsletter writers end up doing the rest of their lives? Here’s an encouraging story for those of you who are still wondering what the next step should be after graduation. In 2000, Ying-Ying Shih was one of our staff writers. After graduation she did graduate study in gender and second language acquisition at Harvard University, but now in addition to working part time as a free-lance translator/writer, she is a singer in many projects. She sings with various jazz musicians and has performed in such musicals as I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change! (in a Taiwanese production of the Off-Broadway hit) and April Rain. Recently she has performed as a back singer for one of Leehom’s 2008 Music Man concerts, and she is currently starting out her own jazz band. She writes songs and is working on an album to be released next year. In June 2008 she played in the Taiwanese musical April Rain (四月望雨), which tells about the story of the Taiwanese composer Deng Yu-Shian (鄧雨賢), who wrote famous Taiwanese folk songs such as “Desire to the Spring Breeze” (望春風) and “Flowers in the Rainy Night” (雨夜花). The musical was a sensation, the first musical in Taiwanese, Hakka, and Japanese, inspiring both the elder generation as well as young hearts. Realizing that singing is and can be the thing she wants to do for the rest of her life wasn’t easy. During her days in high school and university, she had opportunities to make her own album and to become a pop singer. Yet her mother wasn’t ready to support her. She stayed in Boston for a year after graduation, and then went to Japan to learn the language. “It was more like soul searching,” she says. The days in Harvard and Keio University gave Ying-Ying a chance to explore a different self. She used to be almost anti-social at NTU, yet under another environment she found out that she could be something different. She came back to Taiwan, worked in an office, finding no passion in it. She wanted to give her dream a chance. She participated in a singing contest and won first prize. It was like a sign that this was what she wanted to do for the rest of her life. Now as Ying-Ying recalls it, sometimes there are times when we are suddenly able to do something we thought were not capable of. If she had become a pop singer earlier, she wouldn’t have had the chance to explore her potential at Harvard or Keio. She wouldn’t be able to perform with a deeper soul, knowing what she wanted to become as a singer. Now she just wants to make music and sing, her way. “Dare to Dream, Dare to Live Life to the Fullest” is the title of her blog. This is how she thinks of her story. Dreams are always worth waiting for. a
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Authors
The Taida Student Journal has been active since 1995 with an ever-changing roster of student journalists at NTU. Click the above link to read about the authors Archives
May 2024
|