Hello, 大家好~

Here’s my two cents about this tour:

It’s going to magic.

If you’re there, you’ll know.

See you soon.

“Home isn’t always a place, is it?”

Well, sometimes it is. Other times, it’s the people. The smells, tastes, sounds, memories, stories. A longing, a desire, perhaps a loss, perhaps a pain. Perhaps a bittersweet warmth.

What is home? What does home feel like?

After repeated attempts that fell flat, time and again - unable to connect, unable to embody the music, unable to express or engage or understand why our message was not delivering, I finally began to grasp what it’s all about.

We were stuck in our own heads. Our own limitations, fears, doubts, hopes. But what are we actually trying to do? Why share this music? Why bother telling our story? Why does any of it matter? Sure, it matters to us, these stories of homecoming, but why you? Why people who might not even know or care about us?

So we began redesigning the experience. To turn you, the audience, into our storytellers. To remember what we always wanted to do: co-create, foster connections, build community. To really listen, and hear, and pay attention to each other.

And then, during our salon concert, we finally had a taste of that hard-earned magic. That spark of emotion when it does work, when our intentions do translate something untranslatable about our shared humanity. We could feel the laughter, we could see the evidence in your tears, in your voice, your heart-wrenching stories, your handwriting, your eloquent poetry. It was the most tender and endearing feeling, the energy, atmosphere that filled the whole room. This is it. This is what we worked so hard to facilitate, to channel, to play a tiny yet beautiful part in.

It’s quite simple, really.

Experiencing this music is about exploring what home means for each of us individually, and allowing ourselves to be moved collectively by that feeling. By the nostalgia, the joy and the pain, love and grief, happiness and sadness. Everything. Allowing us to notice and remember again what we miss, where we want to be, how beautiful that all is. Even if we don’t find the answers, even if we cannot return to that place, or if home was never a safe place to begin with … we can still all bond over this deep longing for home. That in itself is more than plenty.

If we can imagine it, we can create it. Even if only in fractured pieces, in moments, even if just here together during this hour of musical utopia, we can grow towards the values and principles of home. Of kindness. Of simply existing together. Company, community, kinship.

Music allows us
to remember a feeling,
and to feel that feeling.

So, hello everyone, hello home.

Nice to hear you, nice to feel you, nice to remember you, again.

Dear home, with your complexities and paradoxes and shortcomings and unpredictable mood swings and all, thank you for allowing us to redefine, rediscover our magic - stronger, bolder, more real, more ridiculous, more free and rooted than before. Again, here’s to our growth, our continuous, endless, infinite journey.

It takes both sides (or a multitude of sides) to co-create a home. So please help us spread the word. We promise to show up, and we hope you will meet us halfway. And let’s see what happens.

All my relations,

Tong