Change: a brief history of my life

Recently a lot of people have been talking about the topic of change, on both big and small scales. For example, people I know moving to new countries for employment, people who are preparing for uni, people who have upgraded their fashion sense, people who are trying to change their music taste, people who want a new circle of friends, people who want to change something about themselves etc. All the time people are either hoping for change or complaining about others changing. I had a good think over this and thought that it was time to write a little summary of my life in the UK here.

Everyone, including myself, will have changed a lot over the course of their life so far. It's a natural process called 'growing up'. This includes appearance, personality, interests, directions in life. If you think about your life right now, you will definitely have experienced that awkward stage, that life changing moment when you realise who are the friends you treasure the most, what you wanted to be then, what you want to be now. To me, change is a constant process and is essential for anyone to 'better' themselves. People who never change will never achieve new things, because they will never see what is out there for them. It's honestly so easy to change yourself, you might have an epiphany one night and change completely the next day. A friend or event may change you. What I find frustrating though is why people have the urge to hide their pasts when they change. (For example, someone I know who is now an inspiring photographer keeps forcing the impression on other people that he was always an enthusiast for photography and visual arts ever since god knows when. I know this is not true and so it's really awkward for me when I'm around his artsy friends and I sort of have to 'keep his secret' that actually he was never an art enthusiast until very recently. I don't understand why he couldn't have just admitted that he got into photography recently.) For me, to be happy with our present selves is important, but we should also learn to be happy with our past, because every little thing that happened in throughout the course of our lives have brought us to where we are now. Even the sad things because they were the ones that you learn and grow the most from.

I'll be very honest here and tell you a bit about my life. From as far as I can remember up to around year 9, I was a very academic person. Being painfully competitive, I studied loads and topped the class in every subject except from sports (honestly). I was always the modal student, and it made me uncomfortable when others were better than me at something (which is why I hated sports haha). I studied classical music (violin maj+singing) at music school on Saturdays and I remember everyday I was happy but also trying to force myself to be better than everyone, which was extremely stressful. 

From year 9 onwards, a lot of things happened in my life and by the start of year 11, the awkward stage began to hit me. During the those 3 years, I had a lot of opportunities with my music school and music/performing arts department in my college which I took part in. They had me performing in choirs, orchestras and our dance troop locally and around London. I always had violin solo slots in the school concerts and performing became a very addictive thing for me. During that time I also met a lot of my life friends, who are amazing people that opened my eyes to performing arts; for example we set up a temporary band for a local competition in which we played jazz music, and I also got involved in performing Shakespeare plays to friends and local primary schools. Being a senior, I had the opportunity to choreograph (really badly but still) for our dance group, and seeing an audience appreciate something I've created was definitely something that opened my eyes to this field. Those were seriously my happiest days. Everyday I was doing something fun, and since my grades were flawless, a lot of teachers and students who I did not know knew about me and gave me a lot of respect because of my academic abilities and music performances, and I was very self confident (might sound so boastful but I am being completely honest here). Since I was doing well with my violin studies, I had set my eyes on being a professional classical violinist after sorting out my priorities.

Things changed from a trip to China after years of not going back, getting my first mp3 player and having my cousin select the songs for me. I remember really well that JJ Lin was one of the first Chinese pop artists I had listened to. Before then, pop music had never interested me as I was always immersed in classical, jazz and contemporary dance music. Mostly classical music I think. But after I found myself loving JJ Lin, I checked out a lot of music sites and discovered other great pop groups like Fahrenheit, Fish Leong etc. It wasn't long before I discovered Korean group DBSK, and my interest in Asian culture skyrocketed from then onwards. Back then KPOP was the new thing in Asia and it was an exciting new thing. Japanese culture was starting to become very popular in the UK with the broadcast of anime on television and even though I was never into the whole anime thing, I definitely got into Japanese culture and music. I began to grow distant with my old friends and embraced those who also loved Asian culture, who were rare in my area. 

With Asian culture obviously came the 'Ulzzang' era, and even though I was not obsessed I definitely became very influenced. I grew very image conscious and my self confidence lessened a little. My style of clothing changed, I took more notice of my appearance and became interested in the whole social network thing. I remember having a little tousle of hair up as a ponytail with a green bow everyday for almost 2 years. The only music I listened to was Asian music, mostly DBSK and some other artists from Korea, China and Japan, and also classical music due to my study requirements. However, even though I might have missed out on some great music in the Western scene, I was still aware of them because I had friends who listened to all those amazing Western musicians, which didn't interest me then but I had still downloaded such as Pink Floyd, Deep Purple, Belle and Sebastian, Bark Psychosis, Iron and wine, The Strokes, Velvet Underground, Steve Reich etc. And I will never forget growing up with DBSK because through their promotions in Asia and collaboration with other artists I became familiar with a lot of great bands, solo artists and cultural insights from watching the variety shows they went on. I also met a lot of life friends then who are also fans, and life was exciting when I always had new music to look forward to. 

During 6th form, I still listened to a lot of Asian music, but since I moved to a different school a lot of people influenced me with new music. A special someone who is a singer from my music school also introduced me to old skool hiphop, electronica, synth rock, chillwave, new wave, alternative, funk, garage rock, dream pop, folk, more modern indie rock/folk/pop and new age music. The time when DBSK split was a very sad and depressing period for me, because not only had lost such an inspiration in my life, I was also faced with really important life choices such as having to decide between music and maths at uni. There were dark times when I wondered why I had not pursued Visual Arts further during secondary school (I went to art school when I was in China and also got 100% in GCSE Art), as around then fashion started to interest me too. After I settled on maths as it was always my fort and interest beside music, I realised the need to expand my knowledge beyond school level mathematics and so I found myself reading and doing maths in every spare moment I could squeeze out from between college and music school. My KPOP interest naturally died down and was almostly completely gone for a very long time, as I put all my effort in getting all those A*s I wanted. I endured a lot of emotional hardships in every sense of the word, but now I'm just glad I eventually managed to reach my goals. I'm extremely thankful for all the friends I talked to then, and all the music I listened to that helped ease the stress.

Now that I've finished my first year of uni, I am so happy and proud to have met so many amazing and inspirational people, and am even more happy to say that I am now balancing music out with my maths much better than the past year. I always attend concerts and gigs of all sorts, play when I have the chance to, so that I know that even though I'm not doing music now, that professional is still not far from reach. Meeting loads of new Japanese friends was a great plus as I had so much fun learning about real Japanese lifestyles and listening to all those mindblowing underground artists that they have introduced me to. Truthfully, my knowledge of new artists increases day by day. Now that I also know what a maths degree can offer me, I am much more confident with my goals and a great deal more positive about life. A lot of my friends who I have met in the Asian culture hype days are now pursuing careers in fashion, media and design, and through uni contacts also I have met a lot of people in the fashion field which have inspired me on my style greatly. Fashion doesn't speak to me naturally, but it's just getting the right clothes and at least I have these friends to help me out when I'm clueless. Sometimes I even think about working in the industry not as a designer but in the financial side of things in the near future if my maths degree takes me there. 

Throughout the year, I have kept up playing my violin in some local venues, and being around people who also love the music I love, be it dorm mates, course buddies or people pursuing careers in music, I have learnt a lot about music styles and composition. Actually pretty recently I also discovered the new Korean group EXO which strangely reminds me a lot of my happy but reclusive DBSK fandom days. A lot of my uni friends and the ones that have grown out of KPOP hate them, but I really don't care, because EXO is a fandom/network/family that makes me happy, and that's what matters. Besides, I still listen to a lot of music outside of KPOP so I don't know why there is so much hate. Now that I have spare time on my hands I often find myself reminiscing about the old days, and have also met up with some of the music/dance/drama people that I used to jam with. They, like me, have all changed too and it's pretty fun to think back, talk and laugh over all those amazing memories. 

I know that next year, my life will be more focused toward my career in maths/finance/investment/banking etc, but who knows what I will become. I'll definitely change and I'm really looking forward to meeting new people, going to new places, experiencing new things, creating more memories with people I love. I believe that everyone who wants to change should bravely step forward and stop thinking too much about what how their friends and family will judge them. Most people make the most transitions in their lives in their 20s to 30s, as career choices can change rapidly with new interest and opportunities, and since I'm 19 now, I'm really looking forward to what this path can take me. However, I will always treasure my past as well and not be ashamed to tell everyone who I was back then. I also hope that everyone out there can stay true to themselves and never regret the life that they had which has brought them to where they are now. 

Long ass post today so early in the morning, but I always knew I needed to post about my life sometime on this blog so here it is. For all of you that have bothered to read this and leave a comment, this is for you :)

ciao xx