Оглавление (стр. 3 )

In 2000, when Sophia was seven and Luluwas four, I got a call from New YorkUniversity Law School, inviting me to visit. Ihated the idea of leaving Duke, but New Yorkwas a lot closer to New Haven, so we packedup and moved to Manhattan for six months.

It was a stressful six months. To “visit” inthe law teaching world is to join a faculty ona trial basis. It’s basically a semester-long interview where you try to impress everyonewith how smart you are while sucking up tothem at the same time. (“But I have a bone pick with you, Bertram. Doesn’t yourparadigm-shifting model actually have evenmore far-reaching implications than youthought?” Or: “I’m not sure I’m fully persuaded yet by footnote 81 of your ‘Law andLacan’s article, which is downright dangerous—would you mind if I assigned it to myclass?”)

When it came to schools, Manhattan livedup to its hair-raising reputation. Jed and Iwere introduced to the world of third graders prepping for the SAT and toddlerswith trust funds and their own photographyportfolios. In the end, we decided to sendSophia to a public school, P. S. 3, which wasright across the street from the apartmentwe’d rented. For Lulu to get into preschool, though, she had to take a series of tests.

At the preschool I most wanted Lulu to getin, which was in a beautiful church withstained-glass windows, the admissions director came back out with Lulu after just fiveminutes, wanting to confirm that Lulu couldnot count—not that there was anythingwrong with that, but she just wanted toconfirm.

“Oh my goodness, of course she cancount!” I exclaimed, horrified. “Give me justone second with her.”

I pulled my daughter aside. “Lulu!” Ihissed. “What are you doing? This is not ajoke.”

Lulu frowned. “I only count in my head.”

“You can’t just count in your head—youhave to count out loud to show the lady youcan count! She is testing you. They won’t letyou into this school if you don’t show them.”

“I don’t want to go to this school.”

As already mentioned, I don’t believe inbribing children. Both the United Nationsand the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development have ratified international conventions against bribery; also, ifanything, children should pay their parents. But I was desperate. “Lulu,” I whispered, “ifyou do this, I’ll give you a lollipop and takeyou to the bookstore.”

I dragged Lulu back. “She’s ready now,” Isaid brightly.

This time, the admissions director allowedme to accompany Lulu into the testing room. She put four blocks on the table and askedLulu to count them.

Lulu glanced at the blocks, then said,“Eleven, six, ten, four.”

My blood ran cold. I thought aboutgrabbing Lulu and making a run for it, butthe director was calmly adding four moreblocks to the pile.

“How about now, Lulu—can you count those?”

Lulu stared at the blocks a little longer thistime, then counted, “Six, four, one, three, zero, twelve, two, eight.”

I couldn’t stand it. “Lulu! Stop that—”

“No, no—please.” The director put herhand up, an amused look on her face, andturned back to Lulu. “I can see, Louisa, thatyou like doing things your own way. Am Iright?”

Lulu shot a furtive glance at me—she knewI was displeased—then gave a small nod.

“There are eight blocks,” the woman wenton casually. “You were correct—even if youarrived at the answer in an unusual way. It’san admirable thing to want to find your ownpath. That’s something we try to encourageat this school.”

I relaxed, finally allowing myself tobreathe. The woman liked Lulu, I could tell. In fact, a lot of people liked Lulu—there wassomething almost magnetic about her inability to ingratiate. Thank God we live in America, I thought to myself, where no doubt because of the American Revolution rebelliousness is valued. In China, they’d have sentLulu to a labor camp.

Ironically, Lulu ended up loving her NewYork school, while Sophia, who’d alwaysbeen a little shy, had a harder time. At ourparent conference, Sophia’s teacher told usthat while she’d never taught a better student, she worried about Sophia socially, because she spent every lunch and recess alone, wandering around the yard with a book. Jedand I panicked, but when we asked Sophiaabout school, she insisted that she was having fun.

We made it through that semester in NewYork City, just barely. I even managed to getan offer from NYU, which I almost took. Butthen a series of unexpected events unfolded. I published a law review article on democratization and ethnicity in developing countries, which got a lot of attention in policy-makingcircles. Because of that article, Yale unrejected me, offering to make me a tenured professor. Seven years after I couldn’t make itthrough lunch, I accepted, even though itwas a little bittersweet. Nomadic no longer, Jed could finally stop commuting, andSophia and Lulu settled once and for all intoa grade school in New Haven.

By that time, Lulu had also started takingpiano lessons with Sophia’s teacher Michelleat the Neighborhood Music School. I felt likeI was leading a double life. I would get up atfive in the morning and spend half my daywriting and acting like a Yale law professor, then rush back home for my daily practicesessions with my two daughters, which inLulu’s case always involved mutual threats, blackmail, and extortion.

As it turns out, Lulu was a natural musician, with close to perfect pitch. Unfortunately, she hated drilling and wouldn’t concentrate during practice, preferring insteadto talk about the birds outside the window orthe lines on my face. Still, she progressedquickly through the Suzuki piano books andwas a great performer. At recitals, she wasnever flawless like her sister, but what shelacked in technical precision she more thanmade up for with a style and musicality everybit the equal of Sophia’s.

Around that time, I decided that Lulushould start a different instrument. Friendswith older children had advised me that itwas better to have my two daughters pursuedifferent interests, to minimize competitionbetween them. This made especially goodsense because Sophia had really started totake off in piano, winning lots of local prizesand often being invited by teachers, churches, and community organizations toperform. Everywhere we went, Lulu had tohear raves about her sister.

Naturally the question arose as to whatnew instrument Lulu should pick up. My in-laws, liberal intellectual Jews, had strongviews about this. They knew of Lulu’s headstrong personality and had overheard thescreaming and yelling during our practicesessions. They urged me to go withsomething low-pressure.

“How about the recorder?” my father-in-law, Sy, suggested. A big strapping man wholooks exactly like Zeus, Sy had a thriving psychotherapy practice in Washington, D. C.He’s actually very musical, with a powerful, deep voice. In fact, Jed’s sister also has abeautiful voice, suggesting which side of thefamily Sophia and Lulu got their musicalgenes from.

“The recorder?” my mother-in-law, Florence, asked, incredulous, when sheheard about Sy’s suggestion. “How boring.”Florence was an art critic who lived inNew York City. She had recently published abiography of Clement Greenberg, the controversial critic of modern art who effectivelydiscovered Jackson Pollock and Americanabstract expressionism. Florence and Sy hadbeen divorced for twenty years, and she generally didn’t agree with anything he said.“How about something more exciting, like agamelan instrument? Could she learn to playthe gong?”

Florence was elegant, adventurous, andcosmopolitan. Years before, she had traveledto Indonesia, where she was captivated bythe Javanese gamelan, a small orchestra ofperhaps fifteen to twenty musicians who sitcross-legged on the floor and play percussiveinstruments like the kempul (a set ofhanging gongs of different pitches), thesaron (a big metal xylophone), or the bonang (a bunch of kettles that are played likedrums but sound more like chimes).

Interestingly, the French composer ClaudeDebussy had the same reaction to thegamelan orchestra as my mother-in-law. ForDebussy, as for Florence, the gamelan was arevelation. He wrote to a friend in 1895 thatJavanese music was “able to express everyshade of meaning, even unmentionableshades.” He later published an article describing the Javanese as “wonderful peopleswho learn music as easily as one learns tobreathe. Their school consists of the eternalrhythm of the sea, the wind in the leaves, anda thousand other tiny noises, which theylisten to with great care, without ever havingconsulted any of those dubious treatises.”

Personally, I think Debussy was just goingthrough a phase, fetishizing the exotic. Thesame thing happened to Debussy’s fellowFrenchmen Henri Rousseau and PaulGauguin, who started painting Polynesiannatives all the time. A particularly disgustingvariation of this phenomenon can be foundin modern-day California: men with YellowFever, who date only Asian women—sometimes dozens in a row—no matter how uglyor which kind of Asian. For the record, Jeddid not date any Asian women before me.

Maybe the reason I can’t appreciategamelan music, which I heard when we visited Indonesia in 1992, is that I fetishize difficulty and accomplishment. I don’t knowhow many hundreds of times I’ve yelled atLulu, “Everything valuable and worthwhile isdifficult! Do you know what I went throughto get this job at Yale?” Gamelan music ismesmerizing because it is so simple, unstructured, and contrast, Debussy’s brilliant compositions reflect complexity, ambition, ingenuity, design, conscious harmonic exploration—and yes, gamelan influences, at least in some of hisworks. It’s like the difference between a bamboo hut, which has its charm, and the Palaceof Versailles.

In any case, I rejected the gong for Lulu, asI did the recorder. My instinct was just theopposite of my in-laws’ . I believed that theonly way for Lulu to get out from under theshadow of her high-performing sister was toplay an even more difficult, more virtuosicinstrument. That’s why I chose the violin. The day I made that decision—withoutconsulting Lulu, ignoring the advice of everyone around me—was the day I sealed myfate.

9The Violin

One jarring thing that many Chinese peopledo is openly compare their children. I neverthought this was so bad when I was growingup, because I always came off well in thecomparison. My Dragon Lady Grandmother—the rich one, on my father’s side—egregiously favored me over all my sisters. “Lookhow flat that one’s nose is,” she would cackleat family gatherings, pointing at one of mysiblings. “Not like Amy, who has a fine, highbridged nose. Amy looks like a Chua. Thatone takes after her mother’s side of the family and looks like a monkey.”

Admittedly, my grandmother was an extreme case. But Chinese people do similarthings all the time. I was recently at aChinese medicine store, and the owner toldme that he had a six-year-old daughter and afive-year-old son. “My daughter,” he said,“she smart. Only one problem: not focused. My son—he not smart. My daughter smart.”Another time, my friend Kathleen was at atennis tournament and fell into conversationwith a Chinese mother who was watching herdaughter play a match. The mother toldKathleen that her daughter, who was a student at Brown, was probably going to lose.“This daughter so weak,” she said, shakingher head. “Her older sister—much better. She go to Harvard.”

I know now that parental favoritism is badand poisonous. But in defense of theChinese, I have two points. First, parental favoritism can be found in all cultures. In Genesis, Isaac favors Esau, whereas Rebekahloves Jacob better. In the Grimm Brothers’fairy tales, there are always three siblings—and they are never treated equally. Conversely, not all Chinese practice favoritism. In The Five Chinese Brothers, there isno indication that the mother loves the sonwho swallows the sea any more than the sonwith the iron neck.

Second, I don’t believe that all parentalcomparisons are invidious. Jed is constantlycriticizing me for comparing Sophia andLulu. And it’s true that I’ve said things toLulu like, “When I tell Sophia to dosomething, she responds instantly. That’swhy she improves so fast.” But Westernersmisunderstand. When I say such things I’mnot favoring Sophia; just the opposite, I’mexpressing confidence in Lulu. I believe thatshe can do anything Sophia can do and thatshe’s strong enough to handle the truth. Ialso know that Lulu compares herself toSophia anyway. That’s why I’m sometimes soharsh with her. I won’t let her indulge herown inner doubts.

That’s also why, on the morning of Lulu’sfirst violin lesson, before she’d even met hernew teacher, I said, “Remember, Lulu, you’reonly six. Sophia won her first PerformancePrize when she was nine. I think you can winit earlier.”

Lulu responded badly to this, saying thatshe hated competitions and that she didn’teven want to play the violin. She refused togo to the lesson. I threatened her with aspanking and no dinner—which, back then, still worked—and finally got her to theNeighborhood Music School, where we weresaved by Mr. Carl Shugart, the Suzuki violinteacher to whom Lulu had been assigned.

Mr. Shugart, about fifty with preppy goodlooks and thinning blond hair, was one ofthose people who relate better to childrenthan to adults. With parents, he was aloofand awkward; he could barely look us in theeye. But he was a genius with children: relaxed, witty, inspirational, and fun. He waslike the Pied Piper of the NeighborhoodMusic School, and the thirty or so kids whostudied with him—Lulu among them—wouldhave followed him anywhere.

Mr. Shugart’s secret was that he translatedeverything technical about the violin intostories or images children could understand. Instead of legato, staccato, or accelerando, he spoke of caressing the fur of a purring cat, armies of marching ants, and mice on unicycles rolling down a hill. I remember marveling at the way he taught Lulu Dvořák’sfamous Humoresque no. 7. After the catchyopening theme, which people all over theworld hum without even knowing it, there’san almost overly sentimental second themethat’s supposed to be played with tragicomicexaggerated pathos—now how do you explain that to a six-year-old?

Mr. Shugart told Lulu that the secondtheme was sad, but not sad as in someonedying. Instead he asked her to imagine thather mother promised her a big ice creamcone with two toppings if she made her bedevery day for a week—and that Lulu trustingly did so. But when the week was over, her mother refused to give her the ice creamcone. Not only that, she bought a cone forLulu’s sister, who had done absolutely nothing. This clearly struck a chord with Lulu, because after that she played Humoresque sopoignantly it was as if the piece had beenwritten for her. To this day, when I hear Humoresque—you can watch Itzhak Perlmanand Yo-Yo Ma playing it on YouTube—I hearthe lyrics that Mr. Shugart added: “I wa-a-ntmy ice cream, oh give me my ice cream;where is the ice cream you promised m-e-e?”

Amazingly, even though I had chosen theviolin for Lulu, it was immediately apparentthat she had a natural affinity for it. Evenearly on, people were constantly struck byhow naturally she moved when she playedand how much she really seemed to feel themusic. At Mr. Shugart’s recitals she alwaysshone, and other parents would ask if musicran in our family and whether Lulu was hoping to be a professional violinist. They hadno idea about the bloodbath practice sessions back home, where Lulu and I foughtlike jungle beasts—Tiger versus Boar—andthe more she resisted, the more I went on theoffensive.

Saturdays were the highlight of my week. We spent the whole morning at the Neighborhood Music School, which was alwaysbursting with energy and the sounds oftwenty different instruments. Not only didLulu have her lesson with Mr. Shugart; shewent straight from there to a group Suzukiclass with him, followed by a violin-pianoduo session with Sophia. (Lulu’s piano lessons, which we had not abandoned, were onFridays.) Back at home, despite the threehour lesson block we’d just had, I would often try to sneak in an extra postlesson practice session—nothing like getting a goodjump on the next week! At night, after Luluwas asleep, I read treatises about violin technique and listened to CDs of Isaac Stern, Itzhak Perlman, or Midori, trying to figureout what they were doing to sound so good.

I admit that this schedule might sound alittle intense. But I felt that I was in a raceagainst time. Children in China practice tenhours a day. Sarah Chang auditioned for Zubin Mehta of the NewYork Philharmonic atthe age of eight. Every year some new sevenyear-old from Latvia or Croatia wins an international competition playing the monstrously difficult Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto, which I couldn’t wait for Lulu to get to. Besides, I was already at a disadvantage because I had an American husband who believed that childhood should be fun. Jedalways wanted to play board games with thegirls, or go mini-golfing with them, or worstof all, drive them to faraway water parks withdangerous slides. What I liked best to dowith the girls was to read to them; Jed and Idid that every night, and it was always everyone’s favorite hour of the day.

The violin is really hard—in my view, much harder to learn than the piano. First, there is the matter of holding the thing, which isn’t an issue with the piano. Contraryto what a normal person might think, the violin isn’t held up by the left arm; it onlylooks that way. According to the famous violin teacher Carl Flesch in The Art of ViolinPlaying, the violin is to be “placed on thecollarbone” and “kept in place by the leftlower jaw,” leaving the left hand free to movearound.

If you think holding something in placewith your collarbone and lower left jaw is uncomfortable, you are correct. Add to this awooden chin rest and metal clamps juttinginto your neck, and the result is the “violinhickey”: a rough, often irritated red blotchjust under the chin, which most violinistsand violists have, and even consider a badgeof honor.

Then there’s “intonation”—meaning howin tune you are—another reason I think theviolin is harder than the piano, at least forbeginners. With piano you just push a keyand you know what note you’re getting. Withviolin, you have to place your finger exactlyon the right spot on the fingerboard—ifyou’re even just 1/10 of a centimeter off, you’re not perfectly in tune. Even though theviolin has only four strings, it can produce 53different notes measured by half-step increments—and infinitely more tone colors byusing different strings and bowing techniques. It’s often said that the violin can capture every emotion and that it’s the instrument closest to the human voice.

One thing that the piano and violin have incommon—with each other but also withmany sports—is that you can’t play extraordinarily well unless you’re relaxed. Justas you can’t have a killer tennis serve orthrow a baseball really far unless you keepyour arm loose, you can’t produce a mellifluous tone on the violin if you squeeze the bowtoo tightly or mash down on thestrings—mashing is what makes the horriblescratchy sound. “Imagine that you’re a ragdoll,” Mr. Shugart would tell Lulu. “Floppyand relaxed, and not a care in the world. You’re so relaxed your arm feels heavy fromits own weight.... Let gravity do all thework.... Good, Lulu, good.”

“RELAX!” I screamed at home. “Mr. Shugart said RAG DOLL!” I always tried mybest to reinforce Mr. Shugart’s points, butthings were tough with Lulu, because myvery presence made her edgy and irritable.

Once, in the middle of a practice sessionshe burst out, “Stop it, Mommy. Just stop it.”

“Lulu, I didn’t say anything,” I replied. “Ididn’t say one word.”

“Your brain is annoying me,” Lulu said. “Iknow what you’re thinking.”

“I’m not thinking anything,” I said indignantly. Actually, I’d been thinking that Lulu’sright elbow was too high, that her dynamicswere all wrong, and that she needed to shapeher phrases better.

“Just turn off your brain!” Lulu ordered.“I’m not going to play anymore unless youturn off your brain.”

Lulu was always trying to provoke me. Getting into an argument was a way of notpracticing. That time I didn’t bite. “Okay,” Isaid calmly. “How do you want me to dothat?” Giving Lulu control over the situationsometimes defused her temper.