MLK Band back from China with new appreciation for home
August 20, 2008
Karen Bouffard / The Detroit News
Breanna Crews, left, hugs fellow MLK High School Band member Tantanea Modock upon their return home. (Daniel Mears / The Detroit News)
DETROIT – Corinthia Sims never thought Detroit water could taste so good.
Drawing a nice cool drink was one of the first things the 15-year-old baritone horn player did Wednesday after returning home from her whirlwind 10-day trip to China along with other members of the Martin Luther King High School Band.
They were reputedly the only American high school band to play in Beijing during the summer Olympics. They returned in triumph — to the joy of ecstatic parents, brothers, sisters and fans, who greeted them at Detroit Metropolitan Airport around 5:30 a.m. Wednesday.
As much as they loved China — the Forbidden City, the Summer Palace, the pandas — the teens came home with a new appreciation for the United States, said Corinthia Sims’ dad, Cornelius Sims, who also went along for the adventure.
“She appreciates the bathroom and regular running water and the freedom — and being able to go to school and not have to be concerned for the responsibility of the parents,” Cornelius Sims said.
“In China, the parents have to pay for it. And sometimes the child will go for maybe a year, but then they’ll be pulled out because they have to go to work and help their family.”
It was the trip of a lifetime for the teens — some of whom had never been outside Detroit, let alone flying to the other end of the Earth. They were treated as celebrities, ushered around with police escorts, Cornelius Sims said.
Tantanea Modock, 18, sobbed when she greeted her mother, Lisa Modock Hill, knowing the two would be parted again in just a few hours — this time for much longer. The trumpet and clarinet player was slated to get back on a plane Wednesday evening, bound for her freshman year at the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff where she was awarded a full-ride music scholarship.
“I learned, ‘Don’t be afraid to try new things’ ” Modock said. “I ate a fish with eyes on it, and I don’t even like fish at home. I had never flown before, and I went outside the country.
“At first, I was afraid even to go in a hotel room by myself, but I’m way more brave now — I’m not afraid to be by myself.”
At every one of several performances in Beijing, the city of Shijiazhuang and Shanghai, Chinese parents pushed through the crowds to have their kids’ photos snapped with the band.
They attracted so many fans when they tried to perform next to the Great Wall of China that police canceled their performance.
They were slated to play up on the Wall itself, but Band Director Victoria Miller nixed that due to overwhelming crowds and stormy weather. The kids took it all in stride.
The band, parents, school staff and officials worked eight months to raise the money to send the band to China. They raised more than $500,000 for the trip.
For a seasoned globe-trotter like Modock, performing in the University of Arkansas marching band will be a walk in the park.
“I think performing in China was bigger than any college performance I could possibly do,” Modock said. “– Or performing anywhere in the United States.”
You can reach Karen Bouffard at (734) 462-2206 or kbouffard@detnews.com.
Source: Detnews.com
http://detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080821/METRO/808210366
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