Arts is NOT Instant Noodle, but Be Aware Don't Kill the Interest!

As a translator in a law firm, I often translate press reports. Today I ran into an article about a training program in the United States. Their selling point is to teach traditional Chinese culture to local Chinese American children. I was shocked by one sentence: "After two weeks' training, the children performed what they've learned, singing, stage speech, dance-acting and combat of Peking opera." Wow, only two weeks and now you can perform Peking opera? If you have watched the Chinese film "Goodbye My Concubine", you would know that the Peking opera performers usually start at a very young age, and endure extreme physical (and sometimes psychological) challenges in order to master one skill. I don't know if this harsh training scheme still hold true today, as today you rarely see teachers as strict as the Shifu in the film, nor students as hardworking and enduring as those in the film.

The other day I went to a music school for a trial singing lesson. While I was sitting outside waiting for my turn, I heard the sound of the piano inside, which was slow, not fluent and not at all melodious. As the door opened and our ran a little girl, the teacher came to the waiting Dad and praised his daughter profusely: "She makes progress each time she comes. She knows to start slow instead of going unsteady. She is doing a fantastic job!" I was gasping disbelief in my heart: Come on! If you continue to let loose the discipline, the girl will never learn the piano well. The bar is too low. As the Dad went with his daughter, the other door was open, and another little girl ran out, who I don't think was any better than the previous one. 

I feel I am thinking Tiger Mom. Compared with those two, I do think another music school, The Academy of Arts, Music and Science, which was run by a Korean lady, would offer more serious music training. The Director told me that she didn't want me to start and then quit. She suggested I think thoroughly before joining her school. I felt the familiar pressure which I experienced when I was learning the violin. Compared with the no-discipline vocal teacher I'm currently having, I feel more secure with strict disciplines. I am yet to discover which method is better. Perhaps for different people, there is a better way of teaching. 

I found that I have drifted from my original furious title "Arts is NOT Instant Noodle!"So here it is, I added a second part to the title to make my drift not so obvious.