When my senior year of high school rolled around, I had run out of courses to take ². Having also played piano from the age of 5 (again, good Asian), they gave me a special provision to attend a second magnet school in the afternoon – one for the arts. In my life as a musician, I had always preferred playing with others to playing by myself, and being in an arts high school with plenty of other students that needed to play with a pianist suited me fantastically well. It wasn’t an easy year by any means ³, but it showed me something that turned out to be very, very important: making music made me feel positive emotions that I had thought were lost to me.

As a senior in the Math and Science Academy, we were required to complete a 100 hour research project or 140 hour mentorship and finish it off with a presentation in front of teachers and peers in a little lecture hall called the Schola. Mine was something about fractals and music – to be honest, I barely remember it at all, and most certainly did not approach 100 hours of work. What I do remember is that somebody asked the standard question “What have you learned from this project and how will you use it in the future?” My response was something to the effect of “I’ve learned that I am not made for research projects, and this has been a waste, because I am going to major in music.” The shock of the adults (including my father, although I wonder now if perhaps he was surprised to find out that I am just like him after all) and titillation of the mostly well-behaved magnet kids was, well, memorable.

So that’s what I did. I auditioned at a few in-state schools for music one crazy and tiring weekend and settled on VCU, who offered me a full-tuition scholarship in return for my very high SAT score, completely ignoring my relatively low GPA. I moved to Richmond at 17 and never moved back home because I knew I would never be able to heal if I did. I actually began as a double major in computer science and music, but dropped computer science after a semester, not having enjoyed it or the ogling of my almost-exclusively male classmates. I enjoyed the shit out of being a music major, forming incredibly strong friendships and meeting (and living with, oops) the man I eventually married ⁴. I played the piano and played it damn well, while absorbing all of the history and theory I could to make the best music possible.

I graduated from VCU a year early ⁵, not having been able to legally drink in college, and set off to Rochester to attend the prestigious Eastman School of Music for my master’s degree in accompanying/chamber music (collaborative piano), having never lost my preference for collaboration. Because I loved what I did and experienced as an undergrad, I knew I was making the right decision, but I didn’t know just how important it was until I was done and realized that I had become a very different person.

Majoring in music taught me things beyond just how to play the piano, and in fact, I’d say that playing the piano might actually have been the minority of my college education. It taught me to be a professional – after all, at Eastman we are expected to be musicians, not just music students. I was in charge of scheduling rehearsals, lessons, and other performances with my school-assigned musical partners (singers and instrumentalists alike). I learned to read people and their intentions – paramount for an accompanist, and very valuable in all other parts of life. I was challenged by my amazing professor, Dr. Jean Barr, to always ask myself why I shouldn’t be able to do something. She read me like a book and pushed me to self-motivate and just get things done. I conquered my habit of always playing loud and aggressively by reaching inside and evaluating why I was doing it. Once I realized that it was the product of years of built up rage and hurt, I began the process of letting it go and learned to express myself in a more controlled and beautiful manner, whether that meant on the piano or off. But, of course, I also learned when loud and aggressive were necessary.

Today, I feel pretty damn fortunate. I have an awesome full-time job as a WordPress developer, regular high-level performance opportunities, an incredible husband, and a functional relationship with most of my family. I’ve gone right back to the computer stuff I never did manage to get rid of completely, but the way I see it is that it gives me the opportunity to choose what I do as a musician instead of shilling for weddings and other things that aren’t really making music while also doing something that constantly challenges me and gives me something to learn. I work from home and take breaks to rehearse or practice when I need to. Even if a problem is driving me crazy or I’m irritated at somebody/something, I still feel satisfied at the end of the day, and I know I would never have gotten to this point if I hadn’t made the choice to pursue something that made me feel again ⁶.

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So what’s a Chinese-American daughter to do? Create an infographic, of course! My distillation of my mother’s order of preferences below. (And please God, I hope she doesn’t see this, because she might “be ashame.”) Oh, and disclaimer: I love my mom, but I didn’t grow up with her. My single Tiger Dad wasn’t so concerned with the race of my boyfriends so much as me having boyfriends at all.

Imgur: http://imgur.com/ATklA
Direct link: http://i.imgur.com/ATklA.png

I’ll start off by being fair: it is absolutely horrifying that this book made it past the approval process for textbooks in the Virginia public school system. In that regard, yes, the blame does lie with the state of Virginia. However, I would bet everything I have that the system is equally flawed in most other states and that much more outrageous flights of fancy can be found across the country’s textbooks. I also wonder if we are really recognizing the difference between approved and required. I want desperately to defend Virginia outright, being as I still think it’s the best state ever, but there is no denying their part in this embarrassing episode. Their standards of learning (SOL) system is useless – how can you slap a set of metrics on knowledge that should be acquired in grade school?

Short version, in case you are living under a rock or admirably immune to stupid news: Joy Masoff, allegedly an award-winning graphic designer and author, was caught having written that thousands of black people fought on the side of the Confederacy during the Civil War in a fourth grade textbook that happens to be for/about Virginia. From what I can tell, it looks like she makes her money “writing” (a.k.a. InDesign-ing) textbooks specifically catering to Virginia SOLs and doesn’t seem to do much fact checking (also known as, you know, research). For instance, in this review of her text Mali: Land of Gold and Glory, the reviewer finds that Masoff has blithely repeated an error in the SOLs! She turned “It had a famous university with a large library containing Greek and Roman books” into “The great library was filled with books from as far away as Rome and Greece.” Anybody who’s ever BSed a paper should find this kind of rewriting familiar, and can also tell you how much they actually ended up knowing about the topic they were supposed to be writing about. Hint: it’s not much.

My real question: what business does some woman living in a very nice part of “upstate” New York have writing books for the Virginia school system? As far as I can tell, she has no actual personal ties to Virginia. Instead, I only find these references to her living in Waccabuc, a part of Westchester Country, New York. She does, however, own Five Ponds Press, which seems to specialize in the creation and selling of books written for the Virginia SOLs and lists Laura Buckius as a contact [PDF link] in Virginia Beach. I’m no fan of conspiracy theories, but I can’t help but feel as though a person with experience in designing children’s books got overconfident in her mad internet research skillz and decided to take advantage of the SOL system by jumping on the expensive, ever-changing textbook train. Come on Joy Masoff, isn’t charging $1000/day plus expenses for up to three grade 3-7 presentations enough already? Did the Waccabuc Country Club raise its dues recently?

I know, most level-headed writers/publications have now dialed into questioning the “research methods” of this woman and the textbook vetting process in Virginia (and hopefully the 19 other states that also go through such a process). Unfortunately, I made the mistake of first clicking on a Gawker piece and am seriously disgusted with both the piece and internet commenters, though I should credit Gawker with teaching me to write inflammatory, traffic-attracting titles. Guess what people: just because a government made a mistake (surprise) and it happened somewhere south of New York doesn’t mean that everybody in the south is a drooling idiot. It’s not like it required a northern liberal coming down and reviewing VA textbooks for the lie to be exposed – as reported, a William and Mary historian caught the offending sentence in her child’s book and, SHOCKER, knew that it was a mistake.

A couple of the more… polarizing comments from Gawker’s oh-so-intellectual community:

My actual K-12 school experience in Virginia (mostly Virginia Beach) was never, ever about promoting racism, the Confederacy, or any sort of ignorance. In fact, I’d argue that we end up with a more well-rounded education and overall experience, instead of just being told that the south is filled with backward rednecks and that having a position in the North is supreme and privileged. I am damn proud that in Eric Fisher’s recent set of race and ethnicity maps, Virginia Beach stood out as the most integrated place represented. Yes, it is still majority white people, just like the US as a whole, but I’ll take integration over diversity any day. The non-integrated black (blue) areas in the map actually help to clearly show where other cities are – Norfolk, Chesapeake, Portsmouth, and Hampton in particular. What difference does it make if your city is 25% Latino and 25% Asian if each of those communities self-segregates and never ends up learning English or American customs? I have only encountered serious racism twice: once when I first moved from Manhattan to Norfolk (I had never known Asian people to be considered different until that time) and then again when I moved up here to Rochester, New York. Yes, that’s right. I encounter latent, self-segregating racism in a place that claims to be part of the liberal, diverse north.

You know what, New York? You’re the damn punchline, with your ridiculous taxes and such stunning public figures as Carl Paladino and Rent is Too Damn High Guy.

Finally, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention a recent textbook fail Adrian and I encountered. This particular textbook claimed that Costa Rican people were poor, lived in huts (with an accompanying photograph of a hut in a suspiciously dry area), and relied on the United States for money and support. You know, a third world country. Never mind that Costa Rica is ranked as the happiest and greenest country in the world, enjoys universal health care and public education, abolished their army in 1949 and can thus fund said health care and education, has a woman president, and a literacy rate of 95.9%. Is my husband from a more affluent family? Sure. Is the rest of the country in the gutter? Not in the least. Except for the Nicaraguans. But that’s another story. This story right here is about how there is quite likely no such thing as a 100% accurate textbook.

Stop dumping on Virginia, you crazy northerners. The real witch hunt is for Joy Masoff and it’s in your own back yard.

• The original Washington Post article
• More about textbook adoption processes [Washington Post]
• Ta-Nehisi Coates is ever thoughtful for The Atlantic (with mostly good commenters!)

P.S. Can we stop calling all black people “African American” now? They’re not all of African descent, you know, and not all African people are black.

Quick recap: The kids find their sperm donor dad and the stereotypically masculine doctor mom feels put out. The wishy-washy hippie mom sleeps with the self-absorbed hippie sperm donor and all hell breaks loose. People fight and shit goes down, but the moms hold hands in the end, having been reminded by their son that he is, after all, a perfectly normal teenager. FIN.

My main issues with the movie were that a) there was a whole lot of seemingly gratuitous (read: needless) sex/nudity, and b) I often felt very uncomfortable or confused and could only think to myself “…white people.” Since I attended the movie with two white girls, I had to keep it to myself and am now ranting about it on my blog instead.

Now, I don’t have a problem with sex/porn/nip slips/whatever, but I failed to see how multiple extended sex scenes added anything to the movie at all. Perhaps the whole idea was to take the audience slightly out of a comfortable viewing zone, but to me, it felt unnecessary and overwrought. Putting emphasis on and getting laughs using things that happen every day (like, you know, sex) made me feel bored in a sea of uptight titillated white people. Okay, it’s hilarious that moms are having sex to a gay male porno and they accidentally hit the remote and turn the volume up and are sort of overheard by the daughter. But, is this accurate? Is it only funny because it’s gay porn? Did I need to see so much of said porn out in public? Was that meant to make all the white people in the audience giggle nervously? Am I just too used to homosexuality because I’m a musician? As Kenneth said on 30 Rock, “Like my cousin, Steven, after he went to music college, it will come out!”

Moving past all of those questions leaves us with the issue of white bias in the movies. I felt like I got distracted from the intended goal of some scenes because I was so confused about why it was happening in the first place. For instance, in a scene where Laser (the VERY unfortunately named son) watches his friend wrestle with his dad, I guess the audience was supposed to understand Laser’s longing to meet his own father. However, the only thing I could think was: “White people are so weird… and who lets their kids tell them their armpit smells like burnt ass?! I would have been so dead!” The same goes for that kid’s name; I spent a good chunk of the movie wondering where such a dumb nickname came from, only to find out that his parents REALLY HAD NAMED HIM LASER, and that “Las” for short is apparently unacceptable. I mean, WHAT. And the girl was named Joni, after (duh?) Joni Mitchell. Except, oops, I didn’t get it. Nor did I get the whole a capella rendition of Joni Mitchell scene – THAT made me uncomfortable, though white movie critics claim it to be the defining touching/bonding moment of the movie. Girls making out? Fine. Gay porn? Fine (though maybe not in public). White people singing, nay, BELTING, at the dinner table? THAT IS NOT OKAY. THAT IS WEIRD, NOT TOUCHING.

Finally, I can’t help but think about all the conversations I’ve had with Vivian about Asian representation in media, especially movies and television. Most of the time I don’t think about it terribly hard; after all, “actor/actress” falls pretty near the bottom of the “jobs Asian people tend to occupy” list. However, The Kids Are All Right finally made me wish that, just once, I could watch an accurate representation of Asian American life in a movie theater. Better Luck Tomorrow? Yeah right. Gran Torino? Well, yes, the Hmong people really do experience some terrible things, but it’s not the average experience. Lost in Translation? Okay, so that’s not Asian Americans, but I just had to mention the first movie that actually offended me with its whiteness.

Why can’t I go see a movie wherein a couple of American-born Chinese (ABC) kids struggle between honoring traditional values and fitting in with their American peers without any shooting or other crime involved? Is Joy Luck Club all we’re going to get? Should I write it? Would I eventually get saddened by the fact that I myself am generalizing a set of disparate cultures when we should be recognizing that all people are individuals with their own experiences?

First of all, I need to write more, period. Second of all, I need to modernize this theme and add some functionality! I spend so much time these days making custom CMS themes and functions and super-awesome screenshot-filled documentation and installing and configuring a ridiculous number of plugins for clients and my regular job, but I don’t seem to bother with my own.

I’m still using this ancient theme (which I don’t change because I still like it) and it’s got some old old stuff going on. The comments are especially ugly and don’t have threading enabled. I’m sure it’d be easy enough for me to fix my own stuff, but I guess it’ll have to wait until I don’t feel guilty for not focusing on open projects, including a piano recital next Wednesday. Perhaps I’ll use that Lady René font (yes, the purchase happened) to make a new header so I feel like I’ve done something. But for now, off to do a little late-night practicing that won’t bother my neighbors!

a) He didn’t realize that you can’t just fly into North Korea.
b) He assumed I was going to an Asian country. Without my passport.
c) They pronounce Norfolk so damn weird up here.

FYI, other non-Virginians: it’s NOR-fək. That weird character is called a schwa – it’s that indeterminate vowel that’s kind of like “uh” but non-accented.

Maybe this whole recession thing will finally quell the influx of half-baked musicians into music schools everywhere. I am SO TIRED of this whole “American Idol” phenomenon – you are NOT entitled to waste your parents’ money going to school for music just because being American means you can do anything you can dream. I wish that we could go back to being complete musicians instead of being forced to specialize (i.e. orchestral vs. teaching vs. academic) because there are so many music degree holders out there.

Times are tough, that is for sure. It’s not easy to watch people or groups get cut back or cut out. But just as some great smaller-scale musical works came out of war-time (you know, lack of money, fewer people), maybe something good will come of having less money to burn. Besides better financial behavior all-around, of course.