Without music, how would my retirement life be like? It must be dull and boring. Music is my intimate companion, an indispensable part of my life. I am a quiet person, I don't hike, I don't swim. Yet music brings me to the highest mountain and the widest ocean. The world of music has no limitations, it leads me to live a retired life a thousand times better than I could ever imagined.   My mother loved listening to Chinese Opera via radio when I was a young. I was influenced by her and too liked the harmonious melodies in the radio. I would even spontaneously used a wooden rod and a metal to play accordingly to any delightful melody. In secondary school, I was selected into the marching band as a trumpeter. I begged my mother to buy me a trumpet, and I can still feel the excitement when the trumpet was handed to me. Upon graduation, I devoted myself to working as a teacher and started a family. Such a busy life kept me away from music for half a century.

Thanks to a mistake I made in my younger age, I am lucky enough to encounter the flute. Our relationship however was not smooth nor easy – we were separated because of one failure I encountered. We met again 25 years later. My youth might have gone, but my passion for flute remained. I joined E Major Ensemble as a flutist, and since then my life of a routine office worker has turned into one that is filled with art and awe.   Influenced by my father and brother, I grew fond of music since a young age. During school years, I teamed up with classmates to perform Peter Paul & Mary’s “There is a Ship” in a singing contest. I fell in love with the flute accompany in the original version the first time I listened to it. I even begged my father to sponsor my flute classes. The funny thing is, I later found out that it was a recorder accompany in the original song, not flute. Yet I am grateful for this beautiful mistake, crossed my path with the flute.