Lesson 1 Embrace Connections
An Unexpected Connection
A Band United by a Name
A lot of them accepted my friend request. While
My name is Lee Saem. My first name has an
looking through their profiles, I noticed something
impressive meaning in Korean: “a source of power
interesting. Several Sam Lees of various ages and
and vitality.” Since Saem sounds like Sam, I decided
nationalities were interested in music. There was a
to make that my English name.
Sam Lee in his mid-30s from Singapore who enjoyed
singing and writing lyrics. And there was a
Growing up, I thought Lee was a common last
42-year-old Canadian Sam Lee who was a drummer.
name only in Korea. Little did I know that it’s
According to her profile, everyone called her Sam
actually common in many other countries, too. When
even though her real name was Samantha. Finally,
I searched “Sam Lee” on a social media website, I
there was an American Sam Lee who played the
was amazed at what I saw. There were so many
electric guitar.
people all over the world with that name! Just for
fun, I randomly chose several Sam Lees and sent
Suddenly, I had a great idea. I sent a message to
them friend requests.
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 “Long-Distance Friendship”
We tried to practice once a week through a video Shortly after we started the band, a global
chat app, but we encountered several problems. First pandemic* began. Since all of our normal lives were
of all, we all lived in different time zones. This made put on hold, we valued our online interactions more
it difficult to pick a convenient time for everyone to than ever. At one point, Singaporean Sam became ill
practice. Secondly, there were audio issues with the and needed to spend some time in the hospital, so
app, which caused us to be out of sync. So we put the band took a break.
our heads together and devised a better way of
playing music. We decided to assemble the songs as However, we still met from time to time by using
if we were working in a virtual music factory. the video chat app. We talked about our lives and
did what we could do to cheer Singaporean Sam up.
After we decided on a song, I would play it on my Since he had to stay in the hospital on his birthday,
keyboard and send it to Singaporean Sam. He would the rest of us recorded his favorite song as his
sing along with the keyboard and send the recording birthday present. When we played it for him, he
to American Sam. Then American Sam would add his laughed so hard that he cried. That was mainly
guitar part, and Samantha would finish the song with because the song was sung by the worst singer in
her drumming. the band—me! It was good to see him laugh even
though he was lying in his hospital bed.
When it came to choosing songs to play, we took
turns. Since each of us prefers a different genre of After Singaporean Sam recovered, we decided to
music and comes from a different culture, we all write and record our own song. We called the song
ended up learning a lot about different kinds of “Long-Distance Friendship,” and we posted it online.
music. It was interesting and a lot of fun. 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!
