And if you’ve been fortunate, you may have seen patriarch Sim Yong Keong, matriarch Lee Boo Tan and their children Li Wei, Er Wen and Li Mei play their instruments and paint as an ensemble.
FMT Lifestyle recently caught up with the younger Sims to learn more about their love for traditional Chinese culture and why they believe preserving it is important.
Li Mei, at 26 the youngest of the siblings, plays the guzheng, liuqin and zhongruan. She also plays the Chinese flute as well as the guitar.
That’s impressive, but probably not surprising since her father plays the bowed Chinese instruments erhu, banhu, gaohu and zhongzu as well as the cello. Her mother plays the flute.
She said she was eight when she learnt how to play her first instrument, the guzheng. It remains her favourite.
Like her siblings, she also does Chinese brush painting and calligraphy. An architect by profession, she said Chinese music and art helped her find tranquillity.
“They help us to be calmer. When you play music or draw, you become focussed inwards. I think people nowadays are too easily attracted to material things, but music and art help us to look inward.”
Growing up in her unique family is also something that Li Mei has come to treasure. She said she enjoys their time together when they perform at corporate functions and events such as Chinese New Year celebrations. “It strengthens our family bond,” she said.
Li Wei, 29 and also an architect, has similar feelings. “In a usual family,” she said, “parents are parents. But we are really like friends, and we share a lot of things together.”
Li Wei plays the guzheng and flute and also does calligraphy. But she particularly loves Chinese brush painting, which she learned from her father.
Painting, she said, had taught her important values. For example, as she paints the bamboo, she reflects on its strength. And when she paints flowers, she is reminded that some of them can blossom in harsh conditions.
During performances, she paints while her parents and siblings play music. She said the shows were a way of showcasing the beauty of traditional Chinese culture and attracting the younger generation to it.
“I hope that people will look into their own roots and see the beauty of their cultures,” she added.
Like his sisters, Er Wen, 27, was also of the opinion that keeping traditional cultures alive was important.
He plays the guzheng, erhu, gaohu, banhu and zhonghu as well as the violin, guitar and ukulele. He also sings, composes and arranges music and conducts a Chinese orchestra. As if that was not enough, he’s a calligrapher and brush painter as well.
His daytime job is that of a corporate multimedia executive.
Er Wen’s favourite instrument is the erhu. To make the instrument appealing to the younger generation, he uploads videos on social media showing him playing catchy modern music on it.
“The erhu has a tone that is usually with sad music,” he said, “but it can also be fun and happy.”
He believes that music has the power to bring different cultures together. In fact, in 2018 he bagged the first prize in the Vision Petron National Art Student Competition. The winning piece was Melodi Malaysia, a song he composed with Li Wei featuring the erhu and guzheng and also the Malay rebana and Indian tabla.
“It’s important to preserve not only traditional Chinese culture, but Malay, Indian, Kadazan and other cultures as well,” he said. “It’s how we mix these that keeps them going throughout the generations.
“If we don’t like our culture, how are others in the world going to know about it? So, I think that as Malaysians, we have to really appreciate the traditional cultures of Malays, Indians, Chinese and others.”
Follow Sim Er Wen on his YouTube channel.