I have met many teachers since I was a little child.
There are some who just taught me about subjects.
But there is one who taught me much more.
He was my electronic organ teacher during my extracurricular time on weekends when I was from 9 to 12 years old back in my home country of China.
His name is Haitian Cai.
When I first met him, he was already in his 50s.
I was very amazed to know that he would be my electronic organ teacher.
His hands were gigantic for me and on the keyboard, too.
How could he remember all those staves?
The first song I learned from him was the Song of Joy.
He taught me to practice with the right hand first then remember the chords on the left hand.
It was very exciting for me to use both hands to play a song, even it was the simplest one among all songs I would play.
Time and time again, I fell in love with playing songs since I learned more and more.
I enjoyed having classes with Mr. Cai, too.
Each time I knew it was time for the class I would beg my mom to take me to the class at least 20 minutes earlier.
During weekdays, I spent at least 1 hour every day to practice.
My parents even joked that I would be a genius to put the same amount of efforts into my regular classes at school.
Mr. Cai was very different from other teachers.
Most music teachers in China are gentle and young women.
But Mr. Cai was sedate, sincere and patient.
He had steps to teach us little children and told us about interesting stories about the people that he met in other musical schools.
There was a concert held by the institution and I got a chance to see my mates to perform on stage.
The first time I saw the beautiful song played by a girl and it just stimulated me to practice more and learn that song.
One day I would be able to shine on the stage.
I was 10 and I loved learning and playing so much that I didn’t stop during breaks.
I enjoyed interacting with Mr. Cai and listened to his feedback about my playing.
When he played I couldn’t stop looking at his hands.
He told us it was very important to know the principles first then to play.
There is one story that I remember the most.
He said us girls who played well would marry elegant boys because we would be matched.
At that time, all girls laughed and were shy but we all knew it was truth.
Mr. Cai once talked with my mom and got to know that I was so enchanted to playing the organ.
He expressed his compliments to me in front of all my mates.
I was shy and knew that I couldn’t be complacent.
I just needed to keep going and purse my shining dream.
As time went by, my skills grew better.
Mr. Cai invited me to join his “talented class “ in which are his most outstanding students.
I was so happy to be able to learn from other mates.
I kept learning more and grew faster than before.
Mr. Cai encouraged me.
For example, if I could finish a 4-page song in a week, he would say I can start to learn the next one.
However, it was not always good to grow too fast.
If he found some defects in my playing he would let me practice for a specific phase for one hour then play for him.
He also said playing songs is like eating the fruits that we bought before.
If we play old songs, we enjoyed the sweetness of fruits.
If we just forgot and let go of old songs, those fruits decayed over time.
Mr. Cai was not a strict teacher.
He would call us to go back to the room to practice when the break time was over.
But he never forced us to go.
He knew that everyone has his or her own pace to learn things.
There were other students who were taken by their parents to learn but not for their own interest.
Mr. Cai knew this deeply.
He encouraged every student in different ways.
To me, he had higher standards and was never mean to express his recognition towards me.
I liked the way the Mr. Cai taught me.
Not like other young teachers who just talked gently with children and lose temper easily, Mr. Cai was more sincere and calm.
I felt very comfortable to talk with him and learn from him.
He would find some beautiful songs to enable me to learn more than what I needed to pass the music level test.
Mr. Cai was versatile and he taught traditional Chinese painting, Erhu and flute, too.
By the time when I was preparing for the level 10 test (which is the highest level), he was ready to teach painting.
I decided to end my learning if I passed the test because I knew I would had enough knowledge and reached my goal.
So I didn’t accept the invitation to join his painting class a year before I took the test.
It turned out that after several months, another young teacher took over Mr. Cai’s classes.
It was said that Mr. Cai asked for a long leave.
I was only half of a year before the test.
I was sad but I didn’t know when he would be back.
I felt lost after he was not there.
I had a new teacher but she was young and didn’t give much feedback as Mr. Cai did.
I missed him but I had to keep going to pass the test.
Finally, I passed the test, which made me the only student who first passed level 10 among all his students.
I felt proud of myself.
It was a little sentimental that my mentor Mr. Cai was not there.
Even before I left, he never came back.
I don’t know what happen to him.
Maybe he was sick or he had something important to deal with.
I imagined that I wrote a letter to him to express my gratitude and appreciation towards him.
I thought about the words I wanted to say to him.
However, I never got the chance.
This experience opens my window towards the beauty of music.
My voice is deep and I was not considered as a good singer at school.
But learning the organ developed my talent in music and I started singing and playing.
Since I was 9, music has been my best friend.
It changed the way I look at the world.
It enriches me with the opportunities to find more beauty in life.
Those four years of learning music and playing was the most precious time in my life.
I didn’t get much happiness from study at school.
I paid all my attention and efforts into one thing I enjoyed and loved.
I got such a great teacher to guide me and motivate me.
Mr. Cai kept encouraging me to learn, practice and grow.
Now whenever I meet challenges, my memory will bring me back to the girl who was so hard-working and persistent.
It is always lucky to do what I like to and grow.
I hope Mr. Cai is still well and I will always make wishes for him in my heart.
RISE NEWS is a grassroots journalism news organization that is working to change the way young people become informed and engaged in the world. You can write for us.
Cover Photo Credit: Kris McGuire/ Flickr (CC By 2.0)
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Charlie Sheen Reveals That He Is HIV Positive
UPDATED: 8:27 AM EST
Charlie Sheen announced this morning on the Today show that he is in fact HIV positive.
Sheen, 50 made the announcement during a sit-down interview with Matt Lauer.
“I would like to admit that I’m HIV positive,” Sheen told Lauer. “It’s a hard three letters to absorb. It’s a turning point in one’s life.”
Sheen also said that he has stopped using drugs but that he continues to drink.
“Perhaps the freedom of today might lead to that as well,” Sheen of the potential of him ceasing to drink said after Lauer pressed him on the topic.
Sheen also said that he has paid out over $10 million in settlement money as a result of lawsuits from his having sex with women without revealing his medical condition.
Stay with Rise News as we follow this developing story.
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Background Checks Don’t Work. Why? Blame The Bureaucracy
In light of the recent terrorist attack in Orlando, one subject has dominated American political discourse: the subject of gun control.
One of the most common arguments made by advocates of gun control is that we need better background checks.
While in some cases that may be true, as loopholes do exist in current federal gun laws that allow criminals to obtain their weapons (such as dealer license exemptions for gun sellers who sell weapons for the purpose of buyers collecting them as hobbies), the goal of reducing gun violence through mandated background checks will be virtually impossible to achieve through legislation alone.
There is a second, much more serious problem that would need to be addressed prior to the passing of any new laws, and that is an incompetent bureaucracy.
Per the Daily Beast:
“…(Omar) Mateen had purchased a Sig Sauer .223 caliber assault rifle at a firearms shop near his Florida home, St. Lucie Gun Sales, on June 4 and then a Glock 17 at the same store on June 5. Mateen had returned to the store a third time on June 9 to buy magazines for his weapons. The store is a federally licensed firearms dealer. Under law, the seller would have had to notify the Federal Bureau of Investigation of Mateen’s purchase so that his name could be checked against the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, or NICS.
Mateen was actually listed on two federal watch lists, a U.S. official tells The Daily Beast: The Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment, which contains classified information, and the Terrorist Screening Database, which is the FBI’s central watchlist. The gun background check would have run Mateen’s name against that second database, but he had been removed from it in 2014. The sales were approved and early Sunday morning he used the weapons to fire round after round after round at defenseless people at the Pulse nightclub. Mateen left a third weapon, a revolver capable of firing only a mere six shots, in his van.
An FBI spokesman didn’t respond to a request for comment about whether the gun seller made the required check. However, it’s unlikely it would have raised any red flags.”
Assuming that the gun seller did make the required check, it would have been impossible for him or her to have received any information regarding terrorism-related investigations, as Mateen had been removed from the TSD, and the TIDE would have been inaccessible due to its possession of classified information.
This right here should be a red flag.
According to the National Counterterrorism Center:
“Each day analysts create and enhance TIDE records based on their review of nominations received. Every evening, TIDE analysts export a sensitive but unclassified subset of the data containing the terrorist identifiers to the FBI’s Terrorist Screening Center (TSC) for use in the USG’s consolidated watchlist.”
In other words, there are two possibilities explaining the fact that the FBI did not keep investigating Mateen after 2014: either it ignored unclassified subsets of data regarding him that was forwarded by TIDE, or TIDE kept Mateen’s files as classified information. Either one of those possibilities reflects poorly on the state of our bureaucracy, and are problems that need to be remedied as soon as possible.
I’m not a government insider, so I have no proof as to why this breakdown in communication between different federal agencies has occurred, but I wouldn’t be at all surprised if it was just another instance of agency rivalry, which has been a defining factor in relations between federal agencies (particularly the FBI, the CIA, and the NSA) for decades.
This factor is perhaps best summed up in Mark Riebling’s book Wedge: The Secret War Between the FBI and CIA, which highlights examples of national traumas that could have turned out differently if cooperation had existed, from Pearl Harbor to the McCarthy investigations to the mishandling of Soviet spies and defectors to the JFK assassination to Watergate to 9/11.
This book was first published in 1994 (an extended edition was later published in 2002), but if the events of the last few days have proven anything, perhaps little, if anything at all, has changed regarding this matter over the last 22 years.
I have one question to ask: How many more people must die before we take action to reform our bureaucracy?
If we are to have gun laws, or any laws for that matter, we must make sure they are enforced properly before we take action to create new legislation.
It is not enough that the legislative branch works to keep us safe.
The executive branch must do its part as well.
RISE NEWS is a grassroots journalism news organization that is working to change the way young people become informed and engaged in public affairs. You can write for us.
Cover Photo Credit: mrwynd/ Flickr (CC By 2.0)
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Female Genital Mutilation Is More Widespread Than Previously Thought
Female genital mutilation (FGM), or “cutting,” is still occurring in 30 countries, and the situation is worse than previously estimated, despite worldwide efforts to abandon the practice. A new statistical report from UNICEF supported by current data from Indonesia claims at least 200 million women living throughout the world in 30 countries have experienced FGM. It’s… Read More
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