Quan

heart without run-in either the ideas, thoughts, and emotions present, but unable to be expressed. This is how I learn my grandfather when he first Immigrated to America with my grandmother and their nine children. Lost, he wanders around, hoping to bump into someone who can understand him. He raises his admit children to do it Vietnamese and hopes his future grandchildren would also be connected to the manner of speaking of their ancestors. and when I form my lips into unnatural shapes to chat these words, they come out patheti conjurey.I cannot speak Vietnamese. As a child, the conver sit downions between me and my grandfather consisted of feeble attempts at speaking each others language. Only a couple of familiar words could momently break the wall that divided us. Whenever I visited his house, I exchanged a shaky Choc Eng for his heavily accented He-Ill, and ran off before the shame from my inability to understand could affect me. At the time, I was unaware of the syn chronized heartbeat that beats in the hearts of me, my father, and my grandfather.My grandfather loves playing the violin. Although he is not classically rained and can hardly keep a beat, he loves It and I can sense It every time he plays. When my family came to America, my father struggled to counterbalance as any teenage immigrant would. Vietnamese was confined to his familys home and side of meat was difficult to learn, so instead, he picked up the guitar and taught himself how to play Yesterday by the Beetles. twoscore years later, he claims he still cannot get it down perfectly.On the subdued in our living room, he sings in broken English Yesterday, all my troubles seemed so far away Like my grandfather, music Is a start of my fathers design. By the unchangeable threads of heredity, I was also fated to turn in a connection to music. Just Like them. And it was music that could break the language barrier between me and my grandfather. A unity woodworking plane of music sat in front of me. It was a beautiful piece, no doubt, but we, the All-State senior Band, were playing it without any emotion. aft(prenominal) a couple of unsuccessful run-troughs of this piece authorise Hometown, our guest conductor Samuel Hazy told us to look at sum thirty-three, reflect on a personal memory that reminded us of that part, and import about It right there on our sheet USIA. Soon after(prenominal) instructing us to do the same In the other parts of the piece, everyones sheet music was filled with our lives in the form of tiny scribbles between the lines of melodies. When we compete the piece again, we were finally able to sing our life stories, as Mr..Hazy would call it. Every musical phrase became a vessel for retelling our most unique memories stories of first loves and recollections of childhood memories. No one had to say a single word. There In the music, I finally spoke to my grandparents. As I played measure thirty-three, I pictured them slating here o n that boat in the middle of the ocean, holding onto a faint twinkle of hope for a new life in America, looking for their own new hometown. I said thank you for their courage to come to the peculiar and unknown America and sorry for being unable to speak Vietnamese. After the concert that night, I received a bigger hug than unwashed from them and I knew that they had heard and understood me. Being a part of a family and culture Is more than Just knowing the language. Emotions are enough to Vietnamese, the language of our origin, English, the language of our new home, and music to connect everything together.