There is no question in Meejung Kang Park's mind that music is an essential part of education for children. She is from South Korea and has been playing the piano since she was four years old, and is currently teaching the piano for six hours a day from her home. Her students come from various expat and Saudi families, and for all of them the benefits are the same: “I believe that music is the best start in life for a child. You know, our thinking comes from our brain and if you don't know music, you cannot be creative in every part of your mind. That is what I think,” she says with complete conviction. “If music lessons are started when children are young, it is very good for them, especially the piano which is all about finger moving. This co-ordination and these movements are good exercise for the brain. It is also good for the concentration. If children begin music when they are young, everything else is easy for them; it makes it easy to concentrate and work hard. They learn to discipline themselves.” If anyone wants to study the piano at University level in South Korea, competition is tough. Park was naturally drawn to the piano and quickly became interested and competitive without being pushed by her parents. “I worked hard all the way through school, because if you don't work hard at the piano, you will not be able to study it at University level. I also find playing the piano very relaxing and if I am stressed or angry, I just practice. In University, I began to play in a lot of concerts in Korea. I like being on the stage and I really like to play in concerts; I am not nervous, I just enjoy it. The piano makes a lot of very subtle and different sounds and I love it.” At University, she combined her music degree with a degree in Music Education and once she had graduated in 1986, she began teaching students in Middle & High School: “Because I was so young, I asked my professor to come and check up on my teaching. In Korea, there is strong emphasis on piano technique, and there is a special technique that we use here. I teach the same method that I was taught - when I was young and practicing, I found it was the easy way. With competitions, the technique is also important – you can hear the same piece of music played by different students, and with their different techniques, the music will sound different.” She still continued to play in concerts, both duets and solo performances. During her years of teaching in Korea, Park had been having a long-distance romance with the man that she was to marry. They had met in South Korea when he was working for Korean Airlines and then in 1987, he moved to Saudi Arabia to work for Saudia as a computer programmer. At the time, there were direct flights from Jeddah to Seoul so he flew back to see her every three weeks. They were eventually married in January 1990 and Park came to join him in Jeddah. When she first arrived, she knew little about Saudi Arabia and had a tough time settling in. She found there were huge cultural differences between her home country and Saudi Arabia: “I was not used to wearing an abaya when I went out. There were no concerts, no culture, no music. In Korea, women are working and we can do everything. But here in Jeddah, I found that it was very restricted for women. If you were not working, you were confined to the home. In Korea, even if I wasn't working, it is a very busy place with a lot of cultural things going on. I found that there was nothing to do here and so I was very unhappy. Now, I like Jeddah – I find it very peaceful and easy for me. I have got used to it.” On arrival in Jeddah she ordered her piano from Korea and started teaching piano in Jeddah in 1995. By then, she had three children. She is now in great demand, with a waiting list of forty-seven students. “I love my work. In Korea, they are very surprised that I teach privately for 5 or 6 hours straight, but the time goes very fast. With some of my students who have been learning elsewhere, I find I have had to all over again. They have had lessons for five or six years, but they don't know about technique, they can't sight-read, and they don't know musical terms. It is difficult for them, but I really like to see the improvement when they follow good technique.” A lesson is for a full hour, something that her students initially find daunting: “It is a very concentrated session, and the time goes fast. At first, the students say ‘An hour for a piano lesson! That is too long!' But it is not too long. I say to them: ‘Follow me!' and then they soon learn to sit for one hour, with full concentration. Some students find it difficult at first but after a few piano lessons, they change a lot. The parents are also very pleased, because since they began their music classes their children are very good at concentrating on other things.” Park enjoys organizing concerts for her students so that they have a chance to perform. Preparation includes teaching them stage manners and how to behave as a concert pianist: “They have to work very hard when we are preparing for a concert and I am so proud of them when I see them on the stage, performing. My youngest student is four and a half years old, and my oldest one is about fifty-seven. So it is never too late to learn, but it is more difficult when you are older.” Arranging her first concert was a challenge as Park was used to what was on offer in Korea: “In Korea it is very easy – you just rent a venue, and everything is there, the piano, the stage, the décor, everything. We held our first concert here in one of the recreation centers in Saudia City, so I had to do everything myself – with my husband's help. I had to make curtains, and get some spotlights, and create a stage. I wanted to give the concert a professional look.” Since then, expatriate international schools, such as Jeddah Prep and the British International School of Jeddah (Conti) have hosted several concerts. Park has another concert ambition: to hold a family concert. Everyone in the family plays a musical instrument, but ten years have gone by and the concert still hasn't happened: “I am always so busy!” she says with a laugh. As she poses for a photograph beside her piano, Park briefly runs her fingers up and down the keyboard, producing a magical, rippling sound. It is time for me to go, but I would far rather stay and ask her to play Beethoven's ‘Pathetique' – a favorite Sonata by her favorite composer.
