“We haven’t come to show off, but to share our talents with you and to bring glory to God!” So said Gloria at their first concert, and that theme continued throughout the week, as they shared with us their amazing musical talent, playing a delightful range of wonderful pieces for piano and trumpet. Yes, a big welcome to Cynthia Lawing, her husband Bill, and her sister, Gloria Cook!

They also kept us well entertained (and on our toes!🤣) with all their adventures, all the while showing their deep appreciation for meeting old and new friends, and endless enjoyment of Taiwan tea, food and hospitality. We started out in Taipei, then across to the scenic east coast of Hualien, by train around the SE coast to Tainan and finishing in Kaohsiung. Along the way, we visited churches and kindergartens of the Taiwan Episcopal Church, and old friends too, including our previous bishop, Bishop David J. H. Lai and his wife, Lily now retired in Tainan. Ah yes, we loved having them all!

One of the highlights of all the concerts was seeing Cynthia and Gloria playing together at the piano – it was incredible, their fingers move so fast, over and under and around each other. I like noisy happy music, so my favourite piece was them playing together in the second part of the Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 in C minor by Franz Liszt, which goes really fast and I loved it! This is a short excerpt, played at Grace Church, Tainan:

Several people commented on how moving it was to see them playing together in perfect harmony, and how inspired they are to help their own children work more closely together, by arguing less and practicing more! We were also amazed by Bill playing his 2 trumpets – one was a piccolo trumpet, and he carried them both around in a special suitcase; it wasn’t until the last night that we found out that his foot pedal was nothing to do with volume control or tempo but was actually a page-turner for his Ipad!

Bill, Cynthia and Gloria’s last visit to Taiwan was in 2018 (see that blog post here) for a series of ‘Love and Peace’ Thanksgiving Concerts, arranged by Bishop Lai and co-sponsored by the Taiwan Episcopal Church and the Christian Tribune 基督教論壇報, commemorating the 60th anniversary of the 823 Artillery Bombardment on August 23, 1958, part of the Second Taiwan Strait Crisis, which saw about 480,000 artillery shells dropped on Taiwan’s outlying islands of Kinmen. Bishop Lai had the vision to make the remains of these artillery shells into crosses, symbolizing the transformation of objects of war and hatred into objects of love and peace (hence the ‘P’ in the middle)….

Cynthia and Gloria were brought up in Hong Kong, where their family were members of St. Paul’s Church, whose rector was Rev. James T. M. Pong, who was also their close family friend, and godfather to their younger brother. He left St. Paul’s in 1971 to become Bishop of Taiwan, and in 1974, to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the Taiwan Episcopal Church, Bishop Pong invited Cynthia to come and give a concert tour all around Taiwan (see the programme below), which she can still remember to this day – the fields of rice and water buffalo, the heat, humidity and lack of air-conditioning, and even being taken to have tea and play the piano for Madame Chiang Kai-Shek. Not only does she still remember that trip, but so does Bishop Lai, he attended her concert in Tainan, and got to shake her hand!

Fast forward to 2011, and Bill and Cynthia, by then at Davidson College, North Carolina, USA wrote to enquire whether there would be a possibility to return to Taiwan to offer some concerts to the Taiwan Episcopal Church. YES! So Bill and Cynthia came in 2011, again in 2014, then in 2018 with Gloria and some of their family, and now in 2023 again with Gloria, who’s at Rollins College, Florida, where summer temperatures and weather events seem comparable to Taiwan, so she’s well at home in Taiwan! We could have been quite daunted by having 3 such highly-esteemed music professors among us for a whole week, but in fact, they’re so down-to-earth, modest, considerate, kind, and appreciative ~ and always kept us laughing; check out this photo of Cynthia in action!

Bill and Cynthia arrived on a 5:05 am flight on Friday July 21, and Gloria had arrived the night before, so the first stop was for traditional Taiwanese breakfast (shao-bing and you-tiao of course!) at the diocesan office with Bishop Chang and his wife Hannah. Since they were last in Taiwan, the third floor of the diocesan office has been remodeled into a meeting room and also a base for the new diocesan Trinity School for Christian Ministry (TSCM), and Cynthia for one was most impressed. She had brought with her mugs and letters of greeting from her 2 home churches in the USA to give to Bishop Chang and to the clergy in each church ~ and was busy taking photos throughout the trip to take back and share with the folks in the churches back home. Such enthusiasm, the rest of us had a hard time keeping up with her all week!🤣 This was all followed by a special Holy Communion service in the diocesan office chapel to welcome them to Taiwan…

Their first concert was at St. John’s Cathedral, Taipei on Saturday July 22 at 2:00 pm, and they spent much of Friday and Saturday morning in preparation, well looked after by the dean, the Very Rev. Philip Lin and the priest in charge of the English congregation, Rev. Joseph Ho. We started the concert with an opening prayer from the dean and then a closing prayer from Bishop Chang. The concert was not only full of beautiful music, but was also wonderfully MC’ed by Joanna Fu who introduced each piece and kept the whole event flowing beautifully. She also kindly acted as advisor for the other MCs later in the week! It was all followed by a tea party and then a delicious cherry duck dinner, hosted by Ms. Amy Lin, the cathedral senior warden…

It was moving that so many of the church members who came to the cathedral concert had invited friends and family as visitors, so I didn’t even know many of the people there – that’s just as it should be and just what the Lawings were hoping for!

On Sunday July 23, off we went to attend the combined Chinese / English service at Good Shepherd Church, Taipei where Bill, Cynthia and Gloria played for 20-30 minutes at the end of the service, followed by lunch at the American Club (my first ever visit!) with retiring chaplain to the English congregation, Herbert Barker. They also met Tim Pan, TSCM dean and his wife, and then Mrs. Pang from Hong Kong – they were all so animated speaking in Cantonese!

Monday July 24 was the start of their Taiwan Concert Tour, and I was honored to accompany them the whole week. First to Good Shepherd Kindergarten to perform for the children…

And then by train to Hualien. This coincided with the annual Wan An Air Raid Drill, set for 1:30-2:00pm for Taipei, which didn’t affect us as we were on the train; if we were still in Taipei we’d have been grounded where we were for that 30 minutes. Everyone’s phones went bleep at the start of the drill with a message to remind us it was all happening.

At St. Luke’s Church, Hualien, we were warmly welcomed by the vicar, Rev. Antony Fan-Wei Liang and his family. We had a concert scheduled for Tuesday July 25 at 7:00 pm, the first time they had performed in this church. By then we also knew that Typhoon Doksuri was heading in our direction. Though not expected to make landfall, we were still worried about Wednesday’s train journey south to Tainan. But for now, we made the most of the blue skies and sunshine. Often the few days immediately before a typhoon are ones with glorious weather, and this proved to be the case for Typhoon Doksuri too.

On Tuesday July 25, I was up early to head down the river to the beach to see the dawn. Spectacular!

Later that same morning, with Mr. Hong-Ren Chien of St. Luke’s Church, plus Antony and priest friend Harry from Hong Kong, (just finished 3 years working at St. Martin-in-the-Fields, Trafalgar Square, London) we all went to visit the ever-stunning, always-beautiful Taroko Gorge. We had just the best weather that morning, first for Buluowan Suspension Bridge, then for the Eternal Spring Shrine, built in memory of the 212 veterans who died in the construction of the Central Cross-Island Highway, 1956-60.

In the evening, St. Luke’s Church hosted the concert, with a pre-concert performance from the Hualien Wind Band, a group for retired people – including lay church leader Mr. Yang Jie. They were very lively and it was nice to see so many people coming along to the concert. It’s not a big church, but it was almost full. Thanks also to Antony for doing such a good job as MC!

Antony presented Bill, Cynthia and Gloria each with a piece of local pink and black rose stone, ah they were so happy, followed by a smiling group photo….

The typhoon rain started during the performance, and that was the last mainly dry weather we had until Saturday morning. On Wednesday July 26, we said goodbye to Hualien and caught the 10:25 am train to Kaohsiung, then changed there and arrived in Tainan at 4:12 pm. Although it rained all day, the line to Taitung was open all day, and the Taitung to Kaohsiung line that goes through the mountains from the east to the west coast closed at 5:00 pm, so we got there just in time! Thanks everyone for your prayers, I really didn’t want to be stuck anywhere, especially in Taitung on Taiwan’s SE coast for what could have been a long night!

We were met at Tainan Station by the vicar of Grace Church, Rev. Deledda Ching-Yi Tsai in their kindergarten minibus. Our first stop was to meet up with Ben, one of Bill’s music students who was in Taiwan for some performances and had come to Tainan to meet up, so we all went together with Bishop Lai and Lily to visit their home for tea drinking and then for dinner. Such happy reunions, oh yes, and delicious duck!

At 8:00 pm that evening, the local Tainan City government and other cities and counties in the south of Taiwan declared that the following day, Thursday would be a typhoon day, with all schools and work cancelled for the day. On Thursday July 27, we were originally scheduled for a performance at Grace Church Kindergarten, then sightseeing and a evening meal, but that of course was now all cancelled. Seeing as the weather on the day was actually not bad, with some rain but not much wind, and not forecast to get really bad until the evening, so Cynthia, Gloria and Bill kindly offered to do a concert for clergy and members of Grace Church, including Bishop and Lily Lai. We arranged for it to be at 3:30 pm, to be followed by a shared meal in the clergy home, where Rev. Tsai lives. While all this was being prepared, the kindergarten principal Hsiang-Lan and church member Hsiu-Chin took us all shopping at the Hayashi Department Store, looking for gifts for them to take home. The building is quite historic, built by the Japanese in 1932 with a Shinto Shrine on the roof, plus bullet holes from the American bombing in 1945, and among the first elevators in Taiwan. Yes, it was fun, and the Great Tainan Shopping Expedition was declared a 100% success!

That afternoon, we had 18 people at the Grace Church concert, followed by the shared meal and it was great! So much delicious food, mostly homemade, and of course, a plate of duck too! Not many churches could organize such an event with only a few hours notice, but Grace Church pulled it off wonderfully and we had such a good time together! Thank you Grace Church!

That night, the rain came down in torrents all night long, particularly in the early hours of the morning, and on Friday July 28 at about 7:00 am, the Tainan and Kaohsiung governments suddenly announced that Friday would need to be another typhoon day, with all schools and work cancelled again – as there was a lot of flooding and damage (news reports afterward said that estimated agricultural losses totaled about NT$92.57 million, with banana and watermelon crops affected most heavily). We had rescheduled the Grace Church Kindergarten concert to that morning at 8:30 am, followed by driving to St. Paul’s Church, Kaohsiung for a performance there, but that all had to be cancelled too. Instead, we left Tainan at 9:00 am in the heavy rain and drove to St. Timothy’s Church, Kaohsiung where the final concert was to be held the next afternoon at 2:00 pm. Thanks to Rev. C. C. Cheng from St. Paul’s Church, and St. Timothy’s Church senior warden, Jane Ou for a great welcome and lunch!

It poured with rain all day long! This was the view from their hotel on the 29th floor…

On Saturday July 29, the sun shone for the first time in days, and St. Timothy’s Church hosted the final concert of the tour at 2:00 pm, with a pre-concert performance of a robed choir from our southern deanery churches plus ecumenical members from other churches in Kaohsiung, so well led by Ms. Lynn Liu. Rev. Richard R. C. Lee was the MC and did a great job – thanks to Joanna Fu and Antony Liang for sharing their experiences and advice, making all 3 concerts such a success! We finished the evening with a meal at a restaurant owned by one of the church members, then high-speed rail at 9:05 pm to Taoyuan, arriving there at 10:44 pm, and so to their hotel for a very early departure the next morning.

A big thank you to everyone in the Taiwan Episcopal Church for your hospitality and welcome! An especially big thank you to Cynthia, Bill and Gloria for coming and sharing your musical talents with us ~ we have loved having you and are already looking forward to the next time. And an even bigger thanks be to God for His many blessings, and for safety in the typhoon!

This is the YouTube grand finale (with thanks to Nichole Kiew!)…..