The Emotionless Mask - Asian Invasion Pt. 3 (三)

Growing up, I remember this one particular instance at a cub-scout camp:

A younger brother of one of my fellow scouts was also at the camp, and about halfway through the thing, he says to me something like "Jeremy, you're weird.  Your face is either happy or nothing.  There's no in-between."  Now, I'm smartening up the language (do you like that word that I just made up?), but that's basically what he was getting at.

This has been pretty much a 'story-of-my-life' instance, with various people telling me at various ages something similar ("oh, it's hard to tell what you're thinking," or, "are you upset?")

It's really interesting comparing the dynamic of my family with the snapshot dynamics of friends that I stay with during breaks at school.  Since I live in Hawaii but go to school in the mid-west, airfare gets to be a little too expensive to fly back and forth for summer, fall break, Christmas break AND spring break, so I just make do with Christmas and summer.  During the other breaks I find some way of entertaining myself, and that just so happens to be traveling and staying with friends, and it's so interesting to watch.

White people are so expressive!

Not just happy, or neutral, but everything in between - they use their faces so effectively with just the right amount of nuance that I am kind of like "what is happening and why can I not do this?"  It seems like whenever I THINK I'm making a nuanced expression, all I really am doing is just looking kind of introspective and slightly depressed.  The same goes for when I'm singing... As a performer I have to always look engaged in the music - and when I try to do that without outright pasting a huge grin on my face (or so it seems to me) I just look kind of out of it and slightly high...

I guess that's what "self-improvement" is all about, huh?  Anyway, I thought that I was kind of unique in that aspect until I came across "Paper Tigers."  In it, Wesley Yang interviews a bunch of Asian Americans about their experiences.  One of them, a college graduate by the name of Daniel Chu, explains some of the things he encountered once he got to university:

Chu remembers that during his first semester at Williams, his junior adviser would periodically take him aside. Was he feeling all right? Was something the matter?  “I wasn’t totally happy, but I wasn’t depressed.”... But then his new white friends made similar remarks. “They would say, ‘Dan, it’s kind of hard, sometimes, to tell what you’re thinking.’ ”

Chu... speaks in a quiet, unemphatic voice. He doesn’t move his features much. He attributes these traits to the atmosphere in his household. “When you grow up in a Chinese home,” he says, “you don’t talk. You shut up and listen to what your parents tell you to do.”

When he arrived at Williams, Chu slowly became aware of something strange: The white people in the New England wilderness walked around smiling at each other. “When you’re in a place like that, everyone is friendly.”

He made a point to start smiling more. “It was something that I had to actively practice,” he says. “Like, when you have a transaction at a business, you hand over the money—and then you smile.”

While my own upbringing wasn't completely iron-fisted (hehe), aspects of it were.  I was never told to shut up, or that I couldn't talk, but I could never talk over my parents or even really tease them.  At least that part of it was clear.  And doubly so if they were disciplining me.  While they never hit me, they had a way of telling me that they were NOT happy.

I wasn't disciplined that often as a kid, but I was a lot more timid and would bottle things up... so I learned at an early-ish age to hide my emotions - to turn my head down and fix my face into something neutral, and I guess it just kind of stuck with me.

Even now, if I am put in a situation that I am even the slightest bit uncomfortable with, I tend to draw up into a shell, and put up a front... This happened just a few days ago, actually.  I went to a festival in Chicago with a few friends and friends of theirs whom I had never met, and at one point during the night one of them said "So, are you just really chill or are you like, bored?"

That really was kind of a wake-up call, and one lesson that I think I can take with me for awhile to come.  However, once I get something in my head, it's really hard to get it out, and it's something that I will work toward and seems to be helping.  Last night I went out with one of my host's friends to go see Captain America.  And perhaps it was my host's charisma, or simply the fact that there was a lot of common ground, I was able to get out of my shell, and actually bond a bit right off the bat!

It was a good thing.

Why I conduct.

We will now break from our usually scheduled Asian programming to bring you this:

Just kidding.



I feel like whenever I tell people that I want to go into conducting that the first thing that pops into their head is "why?"  That, or "ok, weirdo."  I feel that it is doubly so at my school, where we do not have a conducting major, and many of my vocalist friends and colleagues seem to think that choir is a chore, and only go because it is required.

I would like to offer this explanation (not that any of you care - I'm just writing this down so that I can come back to it later).

This summer has been a wonderful experience.  Since, as I pointed out earlier (hooray redundancies!), my school does not offer a conducting major aside from music education, I try to do all I can to fill up and load up on classes (hurrdurr I'll load YOU up...).  I have been very busy with workshops and internships and what have you, and it didn't really strike me until tonight - as I was conducting along to bad Youtube recordings and some good ones - of this fact.

Music flows through me.


Quite literally.  When I am up on the podium and I start conducting, I am the happiest man on the planet.  It flows through me like blood through my veins.  It reminds me that music is all about COLLABORATION, and that together, we are all creating something as special and as magical as when it was first composed.


I conduct out of love.


The same goes when I am a singer in a choir.  When we all know our music, and can connect to the conductor, I can almost see the music flowing from his fingertips and infusing me with the ability to give all I can to make the performance as wonderful as possible.  It is like the conductor is the catalyst with which the music flows through.



I felt this at our concert two weeks ago.

This feeling is something that I don't quite get out of solo singing.  Yes, it is a wonderful thing to bond with your accompanist, and exploring the nuances of the music and the text, feeling the give-and-take in the music is something that I adore - but it just doesn't FEEL the same.  And while it does give me a sense of accomplishment, the feeling is NOTHING compared to the joy of completing a concert that you designed and rehearsed and worked and worked... And this was all last semester, BEFORE I got really in tune with myself!


This is something that I will strive to accomplish with any group that I have the privilege of conducting and directing.


This is my dream.

So am I a Duck or a Wheel? (Asian Invasion Pt. 2 (二))

“'The loudest duck gets shot' is a Chinese proverb. 'The nail that sticks out gets hammered down' is a Japanese one. Its Western correlative: 'The squeaky wheel gets the grease.'” -Wesley Yang, "Paper Tigers"

I've noticed many things different between what I'll call the Western School of Parenting vs. the Eastern School.  Most notably the difference between U.S. parents and East-Asian ones.

Some people may be aware of the meme called the High Expectations Asian Father:

Less famous is the "Tiger Mom:"

It is a stereotype (remember, they ARE based on fact), that the children of Asian parents are to always get A's in their schoolwork, play either the violin or piano, and have almost no social life.  This is true amongst a few of my Asian friends, although not so much in my own personal experience.

On the flip side, though my parents have occasionally tried to do some tiger mom-ing and Asian father-ing, they have stayed pretty Western in their styles.  When I was a junior in high school I was choosing between majoring in music and majoring in psychology.  My parents, very practical and looking out for my long-term future (as most parents, not only Asians, do), told me to consider going into psychology for the job stability.  However, instead of pressuring and forcing me to do so, they supported me when I decided to go into music.

Though they were never very "Asian" in their parenting styles, there is one thing that I got from them that is decidedly not-Western: The idea of keeping ones head down, and leading by example rather than making a fuss.  Whenever there was a problem, instead of telling somebody about it or confronting the issue, I would bottle it up inside and store it away - which is quite opposite of my Western friends' upbringing.

I am quite good at compartmentalizing.

In the "Paper Tigers" article, Wesley Yang writes, " “White people have this instinct that is really important: to give off the impression that they’re only going to do the really important work. You’re a quarterback. It’s a kind of arrogance that Asians are trained not to have."

Going to school in the midwest was quick to teach me this - as a result I have gotten much better (I think) about talking of myself - althought I still share a sense that if I try to "talk myself up," that I will come across as arrogant or dumb - I am in the mindset of the nail that is about to be hammered down, to blend with everyone else.  Ironically, everyone (almost) in the midwest is in the mindset of the squeaky wheel!

Growing up and looking at future grad-schools and jobs have taught me that I really need to start learning to talk about myself.  I've always been content to be in the background - to be kind of a fly on the wall of the conversation - but I'm starting to realize that in this economy/job market, people are not looking for flies... They are looking for someone who will get things done no matter the situation - they are looking for confidence in a sea of humility.

And I'm working on it. 

The Asian Invasion Pt. 1 (一)

This has been a topic that has been long in my mind.  I've been struggling with the right words to write, but have been helped greatly by NYMagazine's article "Paper Tigers" http://nymag.com/news/features/asian-americans-2011-5/ as well as Amy Chua's Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother.

Because I have so many things and topic that I'm thinking about, I think I'm gonna split it up into multiple blog entries and call it a series (of potentially unfortunate events).

So yeah.  Asians.  I don't think I became fully aware of what it meant to be an Asian-American until I came to school in the midwest.  Not that I have encountered any racism, I've actually been very fortunate to find myself a wonderful group of friends and a very friendly atmosphere/environment.

However, when I was growing up in Hawaii, I didn't really notice much of anything - partly because I am by nature pretty oblivious, but mostly because, quite frankly, Asians run rampant there.

I don't consider myself to have a particularly Asian upbringing - both of my parents are quite well-assimilated into American culture, and as such have not fallen into what Amy Chua calls the "Tiger Mother" style of parenting; the type that Family Guy loves making fun of:

In fact, from Ms. Chua's account, as well as accounts from certain friends of mine, this really isn't much of an exaggeration.  But more on that later.

I think that it was because of this upbringing that in high school a majority of my friends were Caucasian.  On the flip side, I think that it's hilarious that in college, where white people are the majority, I am seeking out the friendships of the Asian Americans.  I don't really have an insightful post for that, I simply wanted to make the situation more funny.

Actually though it is an accurate representation of the way I was brought up - a weird amalgamation of Asian and American values and mores, with none really being more superior to the other.


Hm... My mind is especially wander-y today.  I think I'll go grab some lunch and then come back perhaps.  Or maybe not.  At any rate, stay tuned - more to come from this banana (yellow on the outside, white on the inside)!

Music, the Beach, and Life Itself

Gosh it sure has been awhile.

I have really meant to be writing more, but... I haven't.

ANYWAY...

Two nights ago I decided to go for a walk on the beach.  I should probably preface that I've been in Cannon Beach, Oregon for the past week doing a conducting workshop and it has been BEAUTIFUL.  Four out of the five days have had sunshine and high-60's weather.  In fact, Thursday was the only day that was pretty overcast, and even that was wonderful.  The mist hung in the air as if in a romantic movie, and only intensified at night.

Thursday night we went to Rod's beach cottage (he was the guy doing the workshop) for a wrap-up party.  After all the party-goers left, I lingered behind along with my roommate and a high school teacher from California.  As we stood out on the balcony looking at Haystack Rock, we all decided to go out onto the beach.

As we stepped on to the sand from the beach access I was struck by how different the sand really is.  Growing up in Hawaii, I've always been pretty accustomed to coarser sand... This was anything but.  It was so cool to the touch and basically enveloped my feet, and it was so fine!  And I don't mean fine as in "oh gurl, you so fine" fine, but very very smooth - so smooth in fact, that it squeaked as we walked on it.

After I got over the sand, I looked out into the ocean and was struck dumb.

For you to get an accurate representation of what it was like, you need to have a frame of reference.  If you've never seen haystack rock before, here's a picture:

Imagine if you will the dead of night, with a fog that was just heavy enough to reflect the few lights in the town up to the sky, and shrouding us into the dusk (wow look at me being all poetic).  The tide had pulled all the way back PAST the rock, leaving us free to go all the way up to the rock all the way to the left of the picture to explore.

The sights were incredible.

Covering the rocks were a bunch of shell-looking things that, in the dim light looked to be moving.  There were also spongy moss-like things that looked really cool in the light.

Oh, and the water was like freezing.  Nbd.

Anyway, my two companions felt so compelled by the night that they decided to take a quasi-skinny dip.  I did not join them, if only because I didn't feel as compelled (I know I know, using the same word twice like this is a grammar no-no... But I couldn't think of any other word.  Sue me), so instead I started turning my thoughts inward.

I started watching the gentleness of the waves rolling in, and, amid the screams of "Ah! COLD!!!" from my compatriots, started trying to feel the rhythm of the waves, and (this is about to sound very zen) consequently, the universe.

In music, we all have our own interpretations of rhythm, and especially so if one is the conductor.  On that particular night, I started trying to feel the beat of the ocean.

When I was taught conducting, I was told to act as if my hands were immersed underwater so as to convey both relaxation, but also clarity in the pattern. 

I was reminded of that fact that night, not trying to control anything, not trying to evoke anything.

I simply was.