Lesson 1 Embrace Connections
A Band United by a Name
My name is Lee Saem.
My first name has an impressive meaning in Korean: “a source of power and vitality.”
Since Saem sounds like Sam, I decided to make that my English name.
Growing up, I thought Lee was a common last name only in Korea.
Little did I know that it’s actually common in many other countries, too.
When I searched “Sam Lee” on a social media website, I was amazed at what I saw.
There were so many people all over the world with that name!
Just for fun, I randomly chose several Sam Lees and sent them friend requests.
An Unexpected Connection
A lot of them accepted my friend request.
While looking through their profiles, I noticed something interesting.
Several Sam Lees of various ages and nationalities were interested in music.
There was a Sam Lee in his mid-30s from Singapore who enjoyed singing and writing lyrics.
And there was a 42-year-old Canadian Sam Lee who was a drummer.
According to her profile, everyone called her Sam even though her real name was Samantha.
Finally, there was an American Sam Lee who played the electric guitar.
Suddenly, I had a great idea.
I sent a message to all three.
Here is what I wrote: “Hi! I’m Sam Lee from Korea.
I write songs and play the keyboard.
How about making a virtual band called The Sam Lees?”
To my surprise, all three eagerly agreed.
That was the start of our band’s journey.
The Virtual Music Factory
We tried to practice once a week through a video chat app, but we encountered several problems.
First of all, we all lived in different time zones.
This made it difficult to pick a convenient time for everyone to practice.
Secondly, there were audio issues with the app, which caused us to be out of sync.
So we put our heads together and devised a better way of playing music.
We decided to assemble the songs as if we were working in a virtual music factory.
After we decided on a song, I would play it on my keyboard and send it to Singaporean Sam.
He would sing along with the keyboard and send the recording to American Sam.
Then American Sam would add his guitar part, and Samantha would finish the song with her drumming.
When it came to choosing songs to play, we took turns.
Since each of us prefers a different genre of music and comes from a different culture, we all ended up learning a lot about different kinds of music.
It was interesting and a lot of fun.
“Long-Distance Friendship”
Shortly after we started the band, a global pandemic began.
Since all of our normal lives were put on hold, we valued our online interactions more than ever.
At one point, Singaporean Sam became ill and needed to spend some time in the hospital, so the band took a break.
However, we still met from time to time by using the video chat app.
We talked about our lives and did what we could do to cheer Singaporean Sam up.
Since he had to stay in the hospital on his birthday, the rest of us recorded his favorite song as his birthday present.
When we played it for him, he laughed so hard that he cried.
That was mainly because the song was sung by the worst singer in the band—me!
It was good to see him laugh even though he was lying in his hospital bed.
After Singaporean Sam recovered, we decided to write and record our own song.
We called the song “Long-Distance Friendship,” and we posted it online.
The song didn’t get much attention, but we were proud of what we had achieved together.
Our band is something really special.
Never did we expect that we would build such strong relationships with one another.
After all, we don’t come from similar backgrounds, nor have we had the same life experiences.
Yet we now talk about almost everything together, including the hardships we face in life.
I think it’s been really valuable to get advice from people with such different perspectives.
We would all like to meet in person and play our music on the street someday.
But even if that never happens, we’ve still been incredibly lucky.
Four random people became great friends simply because of our names.
Life can be amazing sometimes!
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