Land of Tomorrow : "Ilya-san!"

It's overwhelming how diverse the world is. There are so many languages that I don't know, so many spoken words that I don't understand. And each culture has their own accent. Playing with a Russian orchestra, meant playing in a completely different style. Deep in the string, intense vibrato, slow bow, nasal woodwind sound, bright brass, conducting that eludes a pulse. To an outsider it's a different type of music, one with it's own cultural accent. That things aren't together, seems to be no matter. It's hard to understand how it works, how it holds together, but somehow it does.

And when the Russians entered through the back of the hall I suddenly felt that they were coming into my home, as though I, myself, were Japanese. Suddenly I felt so much closer to the Japanese members of the orchestra, and so much more comfortable hearing Japanese than Russian. I wondered if the Russians liked Japan, and I suddenly realized the feeling behind this question that is usually directed at me when I first meet a Japanese person. A very small part of me is starting to feel like this is my home.

The conductor, Vladimir Fedoseyev, smiled inwardly and trusted the orchestra. He said very little, and while his beat was indecipherable (seemingly to the Tchaikovsky Symphony Orchestra, as well) the intent was unmistakable. How does one translate the feeling of a harmony into a hand movement?

It was a novel experience in the midst of novel experiences. I now have a desire to go to Russia to see where these people came from, these people that speak another language, and look in a different way. They have another world, different from any I've yet seen, one with it's own explanation for things, with its own understanding of the world and people. Even their music sounds like them. It's familiar but colored very differently.

What does it smell like in Russia, how are things spaced, how does time feel? Things are so different in Japan from America. Little things in daily life, things to which I am becoming accustomed. How many different ways can one live?