America Doesn't Have a Chance

A few days ago we went to meet with the world-famous cellist Yo-Yo-Ma as a part of the lecture series. This was the occasion where he not only played, but also talked with the public. Most of the talk was surprisingly trivial (our daughter said that he "played it safe," which of course, sucks all the life out of the talk), but one thing really struck me. He started off by saying that he was going to play the very first piece of music his Dad taught him at the age of 4. This was the first time ever the little boy held the bow in his hands. What was that piece of music? It was Bach's cello suite No.1. Here is a YouTube video of Yo-Yo-Ma playing the prelude from that suite. It was not adapted, shortened or in any way made easy for the player who barely left his infancy age. By the time he turned 5, Yo-Yo-Ma learned three suites by Bach. That was the beginning of his music career.

Before he started playing, Yo-Yo-Ma asked the public to think what emotions they would be experiencing when listening to the music. After he was done, he asked the audience to share what they thought. (The thoughts were extremely "profound," like "peace," "joy," "contentment," and the performer didn't fail to praise the listeners with each revelation: "Wow, this is so deep! You guys are the best! Great observation!" I don't know what was more annoying, that condescending and childish attitude or the inane public comments.) I did not share what I thought with him because while he was playing, my main thought was that America has no chance whatsoever as long as Asian parents have such high expectations of their children, and their children deliver.

Nobody in the US would dream about sitting their 4-year-old down and making him learn unadapted Bach. (Mind you, Yo-Yo-Ma's Dad had no indication he had a future genius in front of him - this was literally the first time ever that the kid was in front of an instrument; this demonstrates that a Chinese parent would not hesitate to raise the bar this high for a perfectly average child.) We in the US do not set expectations nearly as high as Chinese parents do. In a way, the competition is already lost. A bit more time needs to pass for it to become evident even to us.