In this memory, I’m five years old, just a month before my sixth birthday. I’m participating in the annual showcase of the local YAMAHA music school with my two best friends and classmates. Wearing the same outfit as last year, the only difference this year is that two of my family members are missing: my mother and my little brother. Tomorrow happens to be the day of my brother’s major heart surgery, and the two of them are currently staying at the hospital. But my father and grandmother are here with me on the venue.
Several electronic organs are placed on the stage along with microphones and colourful cubes. During the stage rehearsal, our teacher tells us to sit on the cubes facing the audience whenever we are not performing.
The showcase begins, and we start performing the pieces we’ve been practicing one by one. There are songs we sing all together, then there are electronic organ performances done in smaller groups. I’m in the first group to perform, and once I finish playing, I sit down on one of the cubes next to the organ. One of my best friends sits on the cube next to me.
It’s so funny to look at the audience from the stage. When I tell that to my friend, she agrees, giggling.
“Why are we sitting on the stage staring at them?”
“So weird!”
“Are they watching us?”
“Sitting on the cubes, doing nothing?”
We burst into laughter. Once we start laughing, there is no stopping it. We cover our faces with our hands, trying and failing to hide our hysteric giggles throughout the other group’s performance.
Once all the performances are done, somebody hands everybody a flower bouquet, and we all walk to the room with a professional photographer to take the group photo. On the way, all the adults in the audience come to celebrate us, but nobody mentions my friend and my laughter madness on stage. Even so, that’s the best piece I will always remember about this showcase.