Making China their second home

The melody of Hua Hao Yue Yuan, or Flowers Are Full, the Moon Is Round, is familiar to generations of Chinese listeners, evoking the full moon, family reunions and the warmth of returning home.

On Sept 9, the familiar tune filled Tianjin Juilliard's concert hall ahead of this year's Mid-Autumn Festival, which fell on Sept 25.

Yet many of the musicians performing it were far from their families. Among them was Travis Springer, a 21-year-old second-year viola student from Texas, thousands of miles from home.

For Springer, the recording offered an unexpected connection to China, where he has spent nearly the past two years.

"So many people go home and spend time with their families during the holiday," he says. "I already have the homecoming feeling."

Then he adds: "This is like another home."

When Springer auditioned for Tianjin Juilliard, the first overseas campus of New York's Juilliard School, China was not necessarily where he expected to end up. He could have auditioned in New York or Seoul, but chose Tianjin because he wanted to experience the country for himself.

"I wanted to see what it was like," he says.

At the time, he felt that China remained a place many people in the United States knew little about. A year and a half of living in Tianjin has given him a more personal view.

He has traveled to Guangdong, Henan and Hainan provinces, learned to navigate everyday life through apps such as WeChat and Alipay, and spent time learning Mandarin.

"Culturally, China is very different compared to the US," he says.

Language has become one way he tries to bridge that difference.

"For some of my friends, it's hard for them to speak English. And it's hard for me to speak Chinese, too. But I want to make it easier for us to communicate," he says.

Music provides another common language.

Although Springer is studying Western classical music, he has become increasingly interested in Chinese repertoire. Earlier this year, he performed an arrangement of Chinese folk songs by Chinese-American composer Zhou Long. He listened to recordings and watched performances, including those by the Shanghai Quartet, trying to understand more than just the notes.

Chinese music, he says, has a distinctive "song-like quality", reminding him of traditional Chinese opera.

For Springer, learning the music has also become a way of learning about the country itself.

That process of listening and learning extends beyond the students.

Lee Allen, 44, an American trombonist who has taught at Tianjin Juilliard for eight years, arrived in China after teaching at Oberlin Conservatory in the US. He had previously toured China with a student brass ensemble, visiting 19 cities and giving 17 concerts. What stayed with him was the enthusiasm he encountered among young Chinese musicians.

When the opportunity to join Tianjin Juilliard came, he was ready for a change.

"I was looking for a drastic change, and I found it," he says.

But it was not one-way.

Allen brought his American music education experience to the classroom, encouraging students to ask questions, discuss ideas, and eventually become independent learners. At the same time, he learned how to communicate with students shaped by a different educational environment.

He began studying Mandarin while his students learned his teaching style.

"I was learning a language alongside them and learning how to teach them," he says.

Eight years later, he sees the classroom as a place where different musical and cultural experiences meet. Students from China, the US, and elsewhere rehearse together, bringing different expectations into the same room and learning, in the most literal sense, to listen to one another.

"Music does not need perfect words," Allen says. "It needs openness."

For some students, that exchange does not end with graduation.

Bethany Lawrence arrived in Tianjin with little idea that China would become part of her future. The oboist from Houston had spent her entire life in Texas, studying, teaching, and beginning her professional career. China was familiar mainly through relatives who had visited Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou, Guangdong province.

Then, a former classmate asked whether she would consider pursuing a second master's degree in China.

Lawrence had already completed a doctorate at the University of Texas in 2016 and thought she was finished with school. But the COVID-19 pandemic brought her concerts, teaching and other professional opportunities in the US to a halt.

"I was like, well, why not give this a try, take a chance to see something new, see where this leads me," she recalls.

She arrived with almost no Chinese competence, despite spending about six months studying the language before arriving. Once in Tianjin, her curiosity about life beyond the school pushed her to keep learning.

"I got to see what's going on here. I'm too curious," she says.

Her student life included karaoke, barbecue and hotpot, as well as long hours of practice. She initially planned to return to the US after graduation, but COVID-19 travel restrictions kept her in China and prompted her to look more closely at opportunities with the country's orchestras.

She eventually joined the Shanghai Opera House Orchestra and is now its associate principal oboist.

China also became personal in another way. During her second year at Tianjin Juilliard, she met a Chinese man working in Tianjin, whom she later married.

"I've landed in a good place," Lawrence says.

Today, China feels like her second home.

Contact the writer at chennan@chinadaily.com.cn