17 February 2011 (Thursday)

8 students today, two of whom were new!

As I chatted with the new students at the beginning of class I asked if they have very many interactions with Americans.  Basically they do not: they live with friends from their home country, or alone, and are among the other international students all day at Seattle Central.  It's a shame that they are here in America, but have so little contact with Americans!

I know from my own experience living abroad how hard it can be to integrate with local people.  In the past I have tried to give my Language Of Music students a taste of local culture and I will do the same with this group.  I like the personalities I have in the class and I am sure I will find some fun things for the group to do.

One student wants to learn to dance Salsa.  In the building attached to where our class is The Century Ballroom (website), which has dance classes of all types throughout the week.

The theme for today's discussion was "love songs" in honor of Valentine's Day earlier in the week.  But before we started with love songs I asked the two new students to pick a song from their home country.

Sabine, from Cameroon started and chose Ca La (video) by Lady Ponce.  The style of music is "Bikutsi" (info) which is the most popular musical style in Cameroon.  Lady Ponce is a new singer on the scene and a rising star.

I asked what the song is about.  Sabine said it's Lady Ponce beckoning a man to be with her.  I asked Sabine if the men in Cameroon are good and she replied only about 20% of them are good.  So I guess Lady Ponce has to do a lot of beckoning ;-) .

Next Mohanned, from Saudi Arabia, chose a song.  Fortunately it was also in the theme of "love": "The Wedding" (video) by Qusai and Jeddah Legend (info) which is a Saudi rap song about getting married. It is interesting to hear the mix of English and Arabic and the mix of rap and traditional in the song and video.

At this point I asked the class how long wedding celebrations typically last in their home countries.  It was interesting to hear about the traditions.  Some places celebrate just for one day, other places for three days.

While we were talking about weddings I thought to ask the class if men are "romantic" in their culture.  I was asked to define "romantic";  I said "giving flowers to a woman" is gave an example of a man being romantic.  

We talked about in which ways men are romantic in different cultures for a while and then I asked everyone to say "I love you" in their own language so we could hear it.  Then we talked about whether a person says "I love you" to his/her husband/wife or to his/her parents in their cultures.

I found the whole conversation fascinating, but we weren't actually watching any music videos.  But that was fine: the point of the class is to practice speaking English and everyone was talking :-) .

Now I suggested we listen to a song.  Togtuun, one of the students from Mongolia, wanted to hear the song "Patient" (video, lyrics) by a rapper named Tulgat.  The interesting thing is that this rapper is from Mongolia but moved to the States -- to Seattle! -- as a teenager.  He has quite a story and is a good rapper -- listen to the song!

Haili, the other student from Mongolia, had brought with her a traditional Mongolian stringed instrument, a "morin khuur" (info).  She played two songs for us.  It was great!  How kind of her to bring the instrument and play for us!!  These kinds of experiences are why I love hosting this class!  Here is an example of a morin khuur being played.

I asked if there are any examples of songs where the morin khuur is combined with modern music.  Haili showed us the song "Mongolz" (video) by Jonon.  Very cool mix of traditional and modern!  I am intrigued to learn more about Mongolian music and culture!

This reminded me of when I learned about the Yoshida Brothers (吉田兄弟) (info) from one of my Japanese students when I first started leading this class almost 5 years ago; she had wanted to show me how a traditional Japanese instrument, the shamisen, was being played in a modern context.  I quickly showed the class two Yoshida Brothers videos: "Kodo" (video) and "Rising" (video) (which has a full rock band behind the brothers!). 

I would have never discovered the Yoshida Brothers if not for this class.  And I had the good fortune to see them in a small club in Seattle with my student when they came on tour in the US.  This was a special treat for her, as the Yoshida Brothers normally only play big halls in Japan.

By now we had been talking for more than 90 minutes and I hadn't been able to hear many picks of love songs.  It was time to close the class for this week, but we will continue with the theme of love songs next week.