SIS musicians understand that music plays a powerful role in bringing communities together. At school, these students from all over the world learn to communicate and connect with each other as they create beautiful, meaningful sounds. As these students grow up far away from their parents’ home cultures, they also benefit from opportunities to connect to their roots. One such event took place recently in a Shenzhen park.
On a warm March 1st, 2014, the Korean community in Shenzhen, China, assembled a flash mob performance of “Arirang,” a popular Korean folk song, on a grassy park in Hong Shu Lin Gongyuan. Approximately two dozen SIS students joined this group of more than 80 instrumentalists and vocalists. The event follows a similar performance that took place one year earlier.
In 2013, on March 1st, on the street Ssamji-gil in Insa-dong, central Seoul, about 40 young musicians gathered. As a flash mob, they performed “Arirang.” By the end of the song, the numbers reached more than 100 as others had joined in singing. To date, the video of this performance, “This is Arirang,” has been viewed more than 350 million times on YouTube and has inspired others to recreate the event.
YTN News Channel in Korea came to the Shenzhen performance to record it and gather interviews. The crew interviewed many people asking them to express their feelings after watching the performance. SIS student Min Jun and Se Jin expressed that “it was a pleasure to inform others from different cultures about this Korean traditional song on memorial day.” Sung Eun enjoyed participating and was impressed by the audience turn out saying, “it was really cool that almost every Korean in Shenzhen met together and played music.”
