Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother

13 Coco

Coco is our dog, my first pet ever. She’s not Jed’s first pet. He had a mutt called Frisky when he was a boy. Frisky, who barked a lot, was abducted and put to death by evil neighbors while Jed’s family was on vacation. At least that’s what Jed has always suspected. It’s possible that Frisky just got lost, and was picked up by a loving Washington, D.C., family.

Technically, Coco was not Sophia and Lulu’s first pet either. We had an earlier ordeal that was thankfully short-lived. When the girls were very young, Jed got them a pair of pet rabbits named Whiggy and Tory. I disliked them from the moment I saw them and would have nothing to do with them. They were unintelligent and not at all what they claimed to be. The pet-store person told Jed they were dwarf rabbits that would stay small and cute. That was a lie. Within weeks they had grown huge and fat. They moved with the gait of sumo wrestlers — they looked like sumo wrestlers — and could barely fit into their 2’ x 3’ cage. They also kept trying to mate with each other even though they were both males, making things very awkward for Jed. “What are they doing, Daddy?” the girls kept asking. Eventually, the rabbits mysteriously escaped.

Coco is a Samoyed, a white, fluffy dog about the size of a Siberian husky, with dark almond eyes. Samoyeds are famous for their smiling faces and lush tails that curl up over their backs. Coco has the Samoyed smile, and the dazzling pure-white Samoyed fur. For some reason Coco’s tail is a little short and looks more like a pom-pom than a plume, but she’s still stunningly beautiful. Although it hasn’t been scientifically proven, Samoyeds are said to have descended from wolves, but in personality they are the opposite of wolves. They are sweet, gentle, friendly, loving animals, and for that reason very poor guard dogs. Originally from Siberia, they pulled sleds during the day and at night kept their owners warm by sleeping on top of them. During the winter, Coco keeps us warm in the same way. Another nice thing about Samoyeds is that they don’t have dog odor. Coco smells like clean, fresh straw.

Coco was born on January 26, 2006. The runt of the litter, she has always been unusually timid. When we picked her up at the age of three months, she was a quivering white puffball. (Baby Samoyeds look like baby polar bears, and there’s nothing cuter.) On the car ride back, she huddled in the corner of her crate, shaking. At home, she was too scared to eat anything. To this day, she is about 10 % smaller than most Samoyeds. She is also terrified of thunder, angry voices, cats, and small vicious dogs. She still won’t go down our narrow back stairs. In other words, Coco is the opposite of the leader of the pack.

Nevertheless, not knowing a thing about raising dogs, my first instinct was to apply Chinese parenting to Coco. I had heard of dogs who can count and do the Heimlich maneuver, and the breeder told us that Samoyeds are very intelligent. I had also heard of many famous Samoyeds. Kaifas and Suggen were the lead dogs for the explorer Fridtjof Nansen’s famous 1895 attempt to reach the North Pole. In 1911, a Samoyed named Etah was the lead dog for the first expedition to successfully reach the South Pole. Coco was incredibly fast and agile, and I could tell that she had real potential. The more Jed gently pointed out that she did not have an overachieving personality, and that the point of a pet is not necessarily to take them to the highest level, the more I was convinced that Coco had hidden talent.

I began to do extensive research. I bought many books and especially liked The Art of Raising a Puppy by the Monks of New Skete. I befriended other dog owners in my neighborhood and got helpful tips about dog parks and dog activities. I found a place that offered a Doggy Kindergarten class, a prerequisite for more advanced courses, and signed us up.

But first, there were the basics, like housebreaking. This proved more difficult than I expected. In fact, it took several months. But when we finally achieved success — Coco would run to the door and signal whenever she needed to go — it was like a miracle.

Around this time, unbelievably, an exhaustion factor started to set in with the other members of my family. Jed, Sophia, and Lulu seemed to feel that Coco had had enough training— even though the only skill she’d mastered was not going to the bathroom anymore on our rugs. They just wanted to hug and pet Coco, and play around with her in our yard. When I looked flabbergasted, Jed pointed out that Coco could also sit and fetch and that she excelled at Frisbee.

Unfortunately, that was all Coco could do. She didn’t respond to the command “Come.” Worse, unless it came from Jed — who had early on demonstrated his dominance as the alpha male in the household — Coco didn’t respond to the command “No,” which meant that she ate pencils, DVDs, and all my nicest shoes. Whenever we had a dinner party, she’d pretend to be asleep in the kitchen until the appetizers were brought out. Then she’d dart to the living room, grab a whole pâté, and gallop around in circles, the pâté flapping and getting progressively smaller as she chomped away. Because she was so fast, we couldn’t catch her.

Coco also wouldn’t walk; she only sprinted at top speed. This was a problem for me, because I did all the dog walking, which in our case meant being dragged at fifty miles per hour, often straight into a tree trunk (when she was chasing a squirrel) or someone else’s garage (when she was chasing a squirrel). I pointed all this out to my family, but none of them seemed concerned. “I don’t have time…. I need to practice piano,” Sophia mumbled. “Why does she need to walk?” Lulu asked.

Once, when I came back from a “walk” with my elbows scraped and my knees grass-stained, Jed said, “It’s her Samoyed nature. She thinks you’re a sled, and she wants to pull you. Let’s forget about teaching her to walk. Why don’t we just get a cart that you can sit in and have Coco pull you around?”

But I didn’t want to be the neighborhood charioteer. And I didn’t want to give up. If everyone else’s dog could walk, why couldn’t ours? So I alone took on the challenge. Following my books, I led Coco around in circles in my driveway, rewarding her with pieces of chopped steak if she didn’t pull. I made ominous low sounds when she didn’t obey, and high reaffirming sounds when she did. I took her for walks down half a block that lasted forever because I had to stop short and count to thirty every time the leash went taut. And finally, after all else failed, I took a tip from a fellow Samoyed owner and bought an elaborate harness that pressed against Coco’s chest when she pulled.

Around that time, my glamorous friends Alexis and Jordan came to visit from Boston with their elegant sable-colored dogs, Millie and Bascha. Sisters and Australian shepherds, Millie and Bascha were the same age as Coco but smaller and sleek. Millie and Bascha were amazingly on the ball. Obviously herding dogs, they worked as a team and kept trying to herd Coco, who looks a bit like a sheep — and around Millie and Bascha, acted like a sheep. Millie and Bascha are always looking for an angle. They can do things like unlock doors and open spaghetti boxes — things that would never even occur to Coco.

“Wow,” I said to Alexis that evening over drinks. “I can’t believe Millie and Bascha got themselves water by turning on our garden hose. That’s impressive.”

“Australian shepherds are like Border collies,” Alexis said. “Maybe because of their herding background, they’re supposed to be really smart, at least according to the rankings on those Web sites, which I’m not sure I buy.”

“Rankings? What rankings?” I poured myself another glass of wine. “How do Samoyeds rank?”

“Oh. . I can’t remember,” Alexis said uncomfortably. “I think the whole idea of rating dogs by intelligence is silly anyway. I wouldn’t worry about it.”

The moment Alexis and Jordan left, I rushed to my computer and did an Internet search for “dog intelligence rankings.” The most hits were for a list of the “10 Brightest Dogs,” produced by Dr. Stanley Coren, a neuropsychologist at the University of British Columbia. I scrolled down the list, frantically looking for “Samoyed” to appear. It didn’t. I found an expanded list. Samoyeds were ranked #33 out of 79—not the dumbest dog (that honor went to the Afghan hound) but definitely average.

I felt nauseated. I did further research, more targeted. To my enormous relief, I discovered it was all a mistake. According to every Web site about Samoyeds by Samoyed experts, they were extremely intelligent. The reason they didn’t tend to do well on dog IQ tests is because those tests were all based on trainability, and Samoyeds are notoriously difficult to train. Why? Precisely because they are exceptionally bright and therefore can be obstinate. Here’s a very clarifying explanation by Michael D. Jones:

Their intelligence and strong independent nature make them a challenge to train; where a Golden Retriever, for instance, may work for his master, a Samoyed works with his master or not at all. Holding the dog’s respect is a prerequisite to training. They learn quickly; the trick is teaching the dog to behave reliably without hitting his boredom threshold. It is these characteristics that have earned Samoyeds. . the appellation “nontraditional obedience dogs.”

I discovered something else. Fridtjof Nansen, the famous Norwegian explorer — and Nobel Peace Prize winner — who almost made it to the North Pole, had conducted extensive comparative dog research before his 1895 expedition. His findings showed that “the Samoyed surpassed other breeds in determination, focus, endurance, and the instinctive drive to work in any condition.”

In other words, contrary to “Dr.” Stanley Coren’s “study,” Samoyeds were in fact unusually intelligent and hardworking, with more focus and determination than other breeds. My spirits soared. For me, this was the perfect combination of qualities. If the only issue was a stubborn, disobedient streak, that was nothing I couldn’t handle.

One evening, after another shouting match with the girls over music, I had an argument with Jed. While he’s always supported me in every way, he was worried that I was pushing too hard and that there was too much tension and no breathing space in the house. In return, I accused him of being selfish and thinking only of himself. “All you think about is writing your own books and your own future,” I attacked. “What dreams do you have for Sophia, or for Lulu? Do you ever even think about that? What are your dreams for Coco?”

A funny look came over Jed’s face, and a second later he burst into laughter. He came over and kissed the top of my head. “Dreams for Coco — that’s really funny, Amy,” he said affectionately. “Don’t worry. We’ll work things out.”

I didn’t understand what was so funny, but I was glad our fight was over.

14 London, Athens, Barcelona, Bombay

I guess I have a tendency to be a little preachy. And like many preachers, I have a few favorite themes I return to over and over. For example, there’s my Anti-Provincialism Lecture Series. Just thinking about this subject makes me mad.

Whenever I hear Sophia or Lulu giggle at a foreign name — whether it’s Freek de Groot or Kwok Gum — I go wild. “Do you know how ignorant and close-minded you sound?” I’ll blow up at them. “Jasminder and Parminder are popular names in India. And coming from this family! What a disgrace. My mother’s father’s name was Go Ga Yong — do you think that’s funny? I should have named one of you that. Never judge people by their names.”

I don’t believe my girls would ever make fun of someone’s foreign accent, but maybe they would have if I hadn’t preempted it. Children can be terribly cruel. “Never ever make fun of foreign accents,” I’ve exhorted them on many occasions. “Do you know what a foreign accent is? It’s a sign of bravery. Those are people who crossed an ocean to come to this country. My parents had accents — I had an accent. I was thrown into nursery school not speaking a word of English. Even in third grade, classmates made fun of me. Do you know where those people are now? They’re janitors, that’s where.”

“How do you know?” Sophia asked.

“I think it’s more important, Sophia, for you to ask yourself what it would be like if you moved to China. How perfect do you think your accent would be? I don’t want you to be a provincial American. Do you know how fat Americans are? And now after 3000 years of being skinny, the Chinese in China are suddenly getting fat too, and it’s because they’re eating Kentucky Fried Chicken.”

“But wait,” said Sophia. “Didn’t you say you were so fat when you were little you couldn’t fit into anything in stores and your mom had to sew you clothes?”

“That’s right.”

“And you were so fat because you stuffed yourself with your mom’s noodles and dumplings,” Sophia continued. “Didn’t you once eat forty-five sio mai?”

“I sure did,” I replied. “My dad was so proud of me. That was ten more than he could eat. And three times as many as my sister Michelle could eat. She was skinny.”

“So Chinese food can make you fat too,” pressed Sophia.

Maybe my logic wasn’t airtight. But I was trying to make a point. I value cosmopolitanism, and to make sure the girls are exposed to different cultures, Jed and I have always taken them with us everywhere we traveled — even though, when the girls were little, we sometimes had to sleep in one bed to make it affordable. As a result, by the time they were twelve and nine, the girls had been to London, Paris, Nice, Rome,Venice, Milan, Amsterdam, the Hague, Barcelona, Madrid, Málaga, Lichtenstein, Monaco, Munich, Dublin, Brussels, Bruges, Strasbourg, Beijing, Shanghai, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Manila, Istanbul, Mexico City, Cancún, Buenos Aires, Santiago, Rio de Janeiro, São Paolo, La Paz, Sucre, Cochabamba, Jamaica, Tangier, Fez, Johannesburg, Cape Town, and the Rock of Gibraltar.

The four of us looked forward to our vacations all year. Often, we’d time our trips to coincide with my parents and Cindy’s trips abroad, and the seven of us would travel around together in a giant rental van driven by Jed. We’d giggle as passersby stared at us, trying to figure out our weird racial combination. (Was Jed the adopted white son of an Asian family? Or a human trafficker selling the rest of us into slavery?) Sophia and Lulu adored their grandparents, who doted on them and acted ridiculously unstrict in a way completely inconsistent with the way they’d raised me.

The girls were especially fascinated by my father, who was unlike anyone they’d ever met. He was constantly disappearing into alleys, returning with his arms full of local specialties like soup dumplings in Shanghai or socca in Nice. (My dad likes to try everything; at Western restaurants he often orders two main meals.) We’d always find ourselves in nutty situations: out of gas at the top of a mountain pass or sharing a train car with Moroccan smugglers. We had great adventures, and those are memories we all cherish.

There was just one problem: practicing.

At home, the girls never missed a single day at the piano and violin, not even on their birthdays or on days when they were sick (Advil) or had just had dental surgery (Tylenol-3, with codeine). I didn’t see why we should miss a day when we were traveling. Even my parents were disapproving. “That’s crazy,” they’d say, shaking their heads. “Let the girls enjoy their vacation. A few days of not practicing won’t make a difference.” But serious musicians don’t see it that way. In the words of Lulu’s violin teacher Mr. Shugart, “Every day that you don’t practice is a day that you’re getting worse.” Also, as I pointed out to my girls, “Do you know what the Kims will be doing while we’re on vacation? Practicing. The Kims don’t take vacation. Do we want them to get ahead of us?”

In Lulu’s case, the logistics were easy. The violin was Lulu’s airplane carry-on and fit nicely into the overhead compartment. Things were more complicated with Sophia. If we were going somewhere in the United States, a couple of long-distance phone calls usually did the trick. It turns out that American hotels are overflowing with pianos. There’s typically one in the lobby bar and at least two in the various conference reception rooms. I’d just call the concierge in advance and book the Grand Ballroom at the Chicago Marriott from 6:00 A.M. to 8:00 A.M. or The Went-worth Room at the Pasadena Langham Hotel from 10:00 P.M. to midnight. Occasionally, there were glitches. In Maui, the concierge at the Grand Wailea hotel set Sophia up at an electric keyboard in the Volcano Bar. But the keyboard was two octaves too short for Chopin’s Polonaise in C-sharp Minor, and there was a distracting snorkeling class going on at the same time, so Sophia ended up practicing in a basement storage room, where they were refurbishing the hotel’s baby grand.

It was much harder to find pianos for Sophia in foreign countries, and ingenuity was often required. London, of all places, proved surprisingly difficult. We were there for four days, because Jed was receiving an award for his book The Interpretation of Murder, a historical thriller based on Sigmund Freud’s one and only visit to the United States in 1909. Jed’s book was the #1 best seller in the UK for a while, and he was treated as something of a celebrity. This didn’t help me one bit on the music front. When I asked the concierge at our boutique Chelsea hotel (courtesy of Jed’s publisher) if we might find a time to practice on the piano in their library, she looked horrified, as if I’d asked to turn the hotel into a Laotian refugee camp.

“The library? Oh my goodness, no. I’m afraid not.”

Later that day, a maid evidently reported to her superiors that Lulu was practicing violin in our room, and she was asked to stop. Fortunately, through the Internet I found a place in London that rented piano practice rooms for a small hourly fee. Every day, while Jed was doing his radio and television interviews, the girls and I would march out of the hotel and take a bus to the store, which resembled a funeral parlor and was squeezed between two falafel shops. After ninety minutes of practicing, we’d take a bus back to the hotel.

We did this kind of thing all over the place. In Leuven, Belgium, we practiced in a former convent. In another city, which I no longer recall, I found a Spanish restaurant with a piano that allowed Sophia to practice between 3:00 P.M. and 5:00 P.M., while the staff mopped the floor and set the tables for dinner. Occasionally, Jed got annoyed at me for making our vacations tense. “So, shall we see the Colosseum this afternoon,” he’d say sardonically, “or go to that piano store again?”

Sophia got mad at me too. She hated it when I told hotel people she was a “concert pianist.” “Don’t say that, Mommy! It’s not true and it’s embarrassing.”

I totally disagreed. “You’re a pianist, and you give concerts, Sophia. That’s makes you a concert pianist.”

Finally, all too often, Lulu and I got into tedious, escalating arguments, wasting so much time we’d miss a museum’s opening hours or have to cancel a dinner reservation.

It was worth it. Whenever we got back to New Haven, Sophia and Lulu always stunned their music teachers with the progress they’d made away from home. Shortly after a trip to Xi’an, China — where I made Sophia practice at the crack of dawn for two hours before I would allow us to go see the 8000 life-sized Terracotta Warriors commissioned by China’s first emperor, Qin Shi Huang, to serve him in the afterlife — Sophia won her second concerto competition, this time playing Mozart’s Concerto no. 15 in B-flat Major. Meanwhile, Lulu was invited to play as the first violinist in all kinds of trios and quartets, and we suddenly found ourselves being wooed by other violin teachers, who were always on the lookout for young talent.

But even I have to admit that it sometimes got hard. I remember once we took a vacation to Greece with my parents. After seeing Athens (where we managed to slip in a little practicing between the Acropolis and the Temple of Poseidon), we took a small plane to the island of Crete. We arrived at our bed-and-breakfast around three in the afternoon, and my father wanted to head out immediately. He couldn’t wait to show the girls the Palace of Knossos, where according to legend the Minoan King Minos kept the Minotaur, a monster with a man’s body and bull’s head, imprisoned in an underground labyrinth.

“Okay, Dad,” I said. “But Lulu and I just have ten minutes of violin to do first.”

Everyone exchanged alarmed glances. “How about practicing after dinner?” my mother suggested.

“No, Mom,” I said firmly. “Lulu promised she’d do this, because she wanted to stop early yesterday. But if she cooperates, it really should just take ten minutes. We’ll go easy today.”

I wouldn’t wish the misery that followed on anyone: Jed, Sophia, Lulu, and I cooped up in one claustrophobic room, with Jed lying on top of the bedspread, grimly trying to focus on an old issue of the International Herald Tribune; Sophia hiding in the bathroom reading; my parents waiting in the lobby, afraid to interfere and afraid other guests would overhear Lulu and me bickering, yelling, and provoking each other. (“That note was flat again, Lulu.” “Actually, it was sharp, Mommy, you don’t know anything.”) Obviously, I couldn’t stop after ten minutes when Lulu had refused to play even a single scale properly. When it was all over, Lulu was furious and tear-stained, Jed was tight-lipped, my parents were sleepy — and the Palace of Knossos was closed for the day.

I don’t know how my daughters will look back on all this twenty years from now. Will they tell their own children, “My mother was a controlling fanatic who even in India made us practice before we could see Bombay and New Delhi”? Or will they have softer memories? Perhaps Lulu will recall playing the first movement of the Bruch Violin Concerto beautifully in Agra, in front of an arched hotel window that looked straight out to the Taj Mahal; we didn’t fight that day for some reason — probably jet lag. Will Sophia recall with bitterness the time I laid into her at a piano in Barcelona because her fingers were not kicking high enough? If so, I hope she also remembers Rocquebrune, a village perched on a cliff in France, where the manager of our hotel heard Sophia practicing and invited her to perform for the entire restaurant that evening. In a glass-windowed room overlooking the Mediterranean, Sophia played Mendelssohn’s Rondo Capriccioso, and got bravos and hugs from all the guests.

15 Popo

In January 2006, my mother-in-law, Florence, called from her apartment in Manhattan. “I just got a call from the doctor’s office,” she said in an odd, slightly exasperated voice, “and now they’re telling me that I have acute leukemia.” Just two months earlier, Florence had been diagnosed with early-stage breast cancer, but true to her indomitable personality, she’d gone through surgery and radiation without a complaint. The last I’d heard, everything was fine, and she was back on the NewYork art scene, thinking about writing a second book.

My stomach tightened. Florence looked sixty but was about to turn seventy-five. “That can’t be right, Florence, it must be a mistake,” I said aloud, stupidly. “Let me get Jed on the phone, and he’ll figure out what’s going on. Don’t worry. Everything will be all right.”

Everything wasn’t all right. A week after our conversation, Florence had checked into New York Presbyterian Hospital and was starting chemotherapy. After hours of agonizing research and third and fourth opinions, Jed had helped Florence choose a less harsh arsenic-based treatment plan that wouldn’t make her as sick. Florence always listened to Jed. As she liked to tell Sophia and Lulu, she had adored him from the moment he was born, one month premature. “He was jaundiced and all yellow and looked like a wrinkled old man,” she used to laugh. “But I thought he was perfect.” Jed and Florence had a lot in common. He shared his mother’s aesthetic sensibilities and eye for good proportions. Everyone said he was her spitting image, and that was always meant as a compliment.

My mother-in-law was gorgeous when she was young. In her college yearbook, she looks like Rita Hayworth. Even at fifty, which is how old she was when I first met her, she turned heads at parties. She was also witty and charming, but definitely judgmental. You could always tell which outfits she found tacky, which dishes too rich, which people too eager. Once I came downstairs in a new suit, and Florence’s face brightened. “You look terrific, Amy,” she said warmly. “You’re putting yourself together so much better these days.”

Florence was an unusual combination. She was fascinated by grotesque objects and always said that “pretty” things bored her. She had an amazing eye, and had made some money in the 1970s by investing in works by relatively unknown modern artists. These artists — among them Robert Arneson and Sam Gilliam — all eventually got discovered, and Florence’s purchases skyrocketed in value. Florence never envied anyone, and could be strangely insensitive to people who envied her. She didn’t mind being alone; she prized her independence and had turned down offers of second marriage from many rich and successful men. Although she liked stylish clothes and art gallery openings, her favorite things in the world were swimming in Crystal Lake (where she had spent every summer as a child), making dinner for old friends, and most of all, being with her granddaughters Sophia and Lulu, who, at Florence’s request, had always called her “Popo.”

Florence made it into remission by March, after six weeks of chemotherapy. By then, she was a frail shadow of herself — I remember how small she looked against the white hospital pillows, like a 75 % photocopy reduction of herself — but she still had all her hair, a decent appetite, and the same buoyant personality. She was ecstatic about being discharged.

Jed and I knew the remission was only temporary. The doctors had repeatedly warned us that Florence’s prognosis was poor. Her leukemia was aggressive and would almost certainly relapse within six months to a year. Because of her age, there was no possibility of a bone marrow transplant — in short, no possibility of a cure. But Florence didn’t understand her disease and had no idea how hopeless things were. Jed tried a few times to explain the situation, but Florence was always stubbornly obtuse and upbeat, and nothing seemed to sink in. “Oh, dear — I’m going to have to spend a lot of time at the gym when this is all over,” she’d say surreally. “My muscle tone’s all gone.”

In the immediate term, we had to decide what to do with Florence. Living on her own was out of the question: She was too weak to walk and needed frequent blood transfusions. And she really didn’t have much family she could turn to. By her choice she had almost no contact with her ex-husband, Sy, and her daughter lived much farther away.

I proposed what seemed the obvious solution: Florence would come live with us in New Haven. My mother’s elderly parents lived with us in Indiana when I was little. My father’s mother lived with my uncle in Chicago until she died at the age of eighty-seven. I’ve always assumed that I would take in my parents if the need arose. This is the Chinese way.

To my astonishment, Jed was reluctant. There was no question of his devotion to Florence. But he reminded me that I had often had trouble with Florence and gotten angry at her; that she and I had wildly different views about child-rearing; that we both had strong personalities; and that, even ill, Florence was unlikely to keep her views to herself. He asked me to imagine what it would be like if Lulu and I got into one of our raging, thrashing fights and Florence felt the need to intervene on behalf of her granddaughter.

Jed was right of course. Florence and I got along great for years — she introduced me to the world of modern art, and I used to love accompanying her to museum and gallery events — but we started having conflicts after Sophia was born. In fact, it was through butting heads with Florence that I first became aware of some of the deep differences between Chinese and (at least one variant of) Western parenting. Above all, Florence had taste. She was a connoisseur of art, food, and wine. She liked luxurious fabrics and dark chocolate. Whenever we returned from travels, she always asked the girls about the colors and smells they’d encountered. Another thing Florence had definite taste about was childhood. She believed that childhood should be full of spontaneity, freedom, discovery, and experience.

At Crystal Lake, Florence felt that her granddaughters should be able to swim, walk, and explore wherever they pleased. By contrast, I told them that if they stepped off our front porch, kidnappers would get them. I also told them that the deep parts of the lake had ferocious biting fish. I may have gone overboard, but sometimes being carefree means being careless. Once when Florence was babysitting for us at the lake, I came home to find two-year-old Sophia running around outside by herself with a pair of garden shears as large was she was. I snatched them furiously away. “She was going to cut some wildflowers,” Florence said wistfully.

The truth is I’m not good at enjoying life. It’s not one of my strengths. I keep a lot of to-do lists and hate massages and Caribbean vacations. Florence saw childhood as something fleeting to be enjoyed. I saw childhood as a training period, a time to build character and invest for the future. Florence always wanted just one full day to spend with each girl — she begged me for that. But I never had a full day for them to spare. The girls barely had time as it was to do their homework, speak Chinese with their tutor, and practice their instruments.

Florence liked rebelliousness and moral dilemmas. She also liked psychological complexity. I did too, but not when it was applied to my kids. “Sophia is so envious of her new sister,” Florence once giggled, shortly after Lulu was born. “She just wants to ship Lulu back where she came from.”

“No, she doesn’t,” I snapped. “Sophia loves her new sister.” I felt that Florence was generating sibling rivalry by looking for it. There are all kinds of psychological disorders in the West that don’t exist in Asia.

Being Chinese, I almost never had any open confrontations with Florence. When I said “butting heads with Florence” earlier, what I meant was criticizing and railing against her to Jed behind her back. With Florence I was always accommodating and hypocritically good-natured about her many suggestions. So Jed had a point, especially since he’d borne the brunt of the conflict.

But none of that mattered one bit, because Florence was Jed’s mother. For Chinese people, when it comes to parents, nothing is negotiable.Your parents are your parents, you owe everything to them (even if you don’t), and you have to do everything for them (even if it destroys your life).

In early April, Jed checked Florence out of the hospital and brought her to New Haven, where he carried her up to our second floor. Florence was incredibly excited and happy, as if we were all at a resort together. She stayed in our guest room, next to the girls’ bedroom and just down the hall from our master bedroom. We hired a nurse to cook and care for her, and physical therapists were always coming and going. Almost every night, Jed, the girls, and I had dinner with Florence; for the first couple of weeks, it was always in her room because she couldn’t come downstairs. Once, I invited a few of her friends and threw a wine and cheese party in her room. When Florence saw the cheeses I’d picked, she was aghast and sent me out for different ones. Instead of being mad, I was glad that she was still Florence and that good taste ran in my daughters’ genes. I also made a note of which cheeses never to buy again.

Although there were constant scares — Jed had to race Florence to the New Haven hospital at least twice a week — Florence seemed to recover miraculously in our house. She had an enormous appetite and gained weight rapidly. On her birthday, May 3, we were able to all go out to a nice restaurant. Our friends Henry and Marina came with us and couldn’t believe this was the same Florence they’d seen in the hospital six weeks earlier. In a high-necked asymmetrical Issey Miyake jacket, she was glamorous again and didn’t even look sick.

Just a few days later, on May 7, Sophia had her Bat Mitzvah at our house. Earlier that same morning we’d had another crisis, with Jed rushing Florence to the hospital for an emergency blood transfusion. But they made it back on time, and Florence looked fabulous when the eighty guests arrived. After the ceremony, under a perfect blue sky, on tables with white tulips, we served French toast, strawberries, and dim sum — Sophia and Popo had planned the menu — and Jed and I marveled at how much you have to spend to keep things simple and unpretentious.

A week later, Florence decided that she was well enough to go back to her own New York apartment, as long as the nurse went with her. She died in her apartment on May 21, apparently from a stroke that killed her instantly. She had plans to go out for drinks that evening and never knew that her time was limited.

At the funeral, both Sophia and Lulu read short speeches they’d written themselves. Here’s part of what Lulu said:

When Popo was living at my family’s house over the last month, I spent a lot of time with her, whether it was eating lunch together, playing cards with her, or just talking. On two nights, we were left alone together—“babysitting” each other. Even though she was sick and couldn’t walk well, she made me feel not scared at all. She was a very strong person. When I think of Popo, I think of her happy and laughing. She loved to be happy and that made me feel happy too. I’m really going to miss Popo a lot.

And here’s part of what Sophia said:

Popo always wanted intellectual stimulation, full happiness — to get the utmost vitality and thought out of every minute. And I think she got it, right up to the end. I hope someday I can learn to do the same.

When I heard Sophia and Lulu say these words, several things came to mind. I was proud and glad that Jed and I had taken Florence in, the Chinese way, and that the girls had witnessed us doing it. I was also proud and glad that Sophia and Lulu had helped take care of Florence. But with the words “loved to be happy” and “full happiness” ringing in my head, I also wondered whether down the road if I were sick, the girls would take me into their homes and do the same for me — or whether they would opt for happiness and freedom.

Happiness is not a concept I tend to dwell on. Chinese parenting does not address happiness. This has always worried me. When I see the piano- and violin-induced calluses on my daughters’ fingertips, or the teeth marks on the piano, I’m sometimes seized with doubt.

But here’s the thing. When I look around at all the Western families that fall apart — all the grown sons and daughters who can’t stand to be around their parents or don’t even talk to them — I have a hard time believing that Western parenting does a better job with happiness. It’s amazing how many older Western parents I’ve met who’ve said, shaking their heads sadly, “As a parent you just can’t win. No matter what you do, your kids will grow up resenting you.”

By contrast, I can’t tell you how many Asian kids I’ve met who, while acknowledging how oppressively strict and brutally demanding their parents were, happily describe themselves as devoted to their parents and unbelievably grateful to them, seemingly without a trace of bitterness or resentment.

I’m really not sure why this is. Maybe it’s brainwashing. Or maybe it’s Stockholm syndrome. But here’s one thing I’m sure of: Western children are definitely no happier than Chinese ones.

16 The Birthday Card

Everyone was moved by what Sophia and Lulu said at Florence’s funeral. “If only Florence could have heard them,” Florence’s best friend Sylvia said sadly afterward. “Nothing would have made her happier.” How, other friends asked, could a thirteen-and ten-year-old capture Florence so perfectly?

But there’s a backstory.

It actually starts years earlier, when the girls were quite young, maybe seven and four. It was my birthday, and we were celebrating at a mediocre Italian restaurant, because Jed had forgotten to make reservations at a better place.

Obviously feeling guilty, Jed was trying to act jaunty. “O-k-a-y! This is going to be a g-r-e-a-t birthday dinner for Mommy! Right, girls? And you each have a little surprise for Mommy — right, girls?”

I was soaking some stale focaccia in the small dish of olive oil the server had given us. At Jed’s urging, Lulu handed me her “surprise,” which turned out to be a card. More accurately, it was a piece of paper folded crookedly in half, with a big happy face on the front. Inside, “Happy Birthday, Mommy! Love, Lulu” was scrawled in crayon above another happy face. The card couldn’t have taken Lulu more than twenty seconds to make.

I know just what Jed would have done. He would have said, “Oh, how nice — thank you, honey,” and planted a stiff kiss on Lulu’s forehead. Then he probably would have said that he wasn’t very hungry, and was only going to have a bowl of soup, or on second thought just bread and water, but the rest of us could order as much as we goddamn liked.

I gave the card back to Lulu. “I don’t want this,” I said. “I want a better one — one that you’ve put some thought and effort into. I have a special box, where I keep all my cards from you and Sophia, and this one can’t go in there.”

“What?” said Lulu in disbelief. I saw beads of sweat start to form on Jed’s forehead.

I grabbed the card again and flipped it over. I pulled out a pen from my purse and scrawled “Happy Birthday Lulu Whoopee!” I added a big sour face. “What if I gave you this for your birthday, Lulu — would you like that? But I would never do that, Lulu. No — I get you magicians and giant slides that cost me hundreds of dollars. I get you huge ice cream cakes shaped like penguins, and I spend half my salary on stupid sticker and eraser party favors that everyone just throws away. I work so hard to give you good birthdays! I deserve better than this. So I reject this.” I threw the card back.

“May I please be excused for a second?” Sophia asked in a small voice. “I need to do something.”

“Let me see it, Sophia. Hand it over.”

Eyes wide with terror, Sophia slowly pulled out her own card. It was bigger than Lulu’s, made of red construction paper, but while more effusive, equally empty. She had drawn a few flowers and written “I love you! Happy Birthday to the Best Mommy in the World! #1 Mommy!”

“That’s nice, Sophia,” I said coldly, “but not good enough either. When I was your age, I wrote poems for my mother on her birthday. I got up early and cleaned the house and made her breakfast. I tried to think of creative ideas and made her coupons that said things like ‘One Free Car Wash.’”

“I wanted to make something better, but you said I had to play piano,” Sophia protested indignantly.

“You should have gotten up earlier,” I responded.

Later that night, I received two much better birthday cards, which I loved and still have.

I recounted this story to Florence shortly afterward. She laughed in astonishment, but to my surprise, she was not disapproving. “Maybe I should have tried something similar with my kids,” she said thoughtfully. “It just always seemed that if you had to ask for something, it wouldn’t be worth anything.”

“I think it’s too idealistic to expect children to do the right things on their own,” I said. “Also, if you force them to do what you want, you don’t have to be mad at them.”

“But they’ll be mad at you,” Florence pointed out.

I thought of this exchange many years later, the day of the funeral. According to Jewish law, burials must take place as soon as possible after death, ideally within twenty-four hours. The suddenness of Florence’s death was unexpected, and in one day Jed had to arrange for a plot, a rabbi, a funeral home, and the service. As always, Jed handled everything quickly and efficiently, keeping his emotions to himself, but I could tell that his whole body was shaking, his grief too much to bear.

I found the girls in their bedroom that morning, huddled together. They both looked stunned and frightened. No one so close to them had ever died before. They had never attended a funeral. And Popo had just been laughing in the next room a week earlier.

I told the girls that they each had to write a short speech about Popo, which they would read at the service that afternoon.

“No, please, Mommy, don’t make me,” Sophia said tearfully. “I really don’t feel like it.”

“I can’t,” Lulu sobbed. “Go away.”

“You have to,” I ordered. “Both of you. Popo would have wanted it.”

Sophia’s first draft was terrible, rambling and superficial. Lulu’s wasn’t so great either, but I held my elder daughter to a higher standard. Perhaps because I was so upset myself, I lashed out at her. “How could you, Sophia?” I said viciously. “This is awful. It has no insight. It has no depth. It’s like a Hallmark card — which Popo hated.You are so selfish. Popo loved you so much — and you — produce—this!”

Crying uncontrollably, Sophia shouted back at me, which startled me because like Jed — unlike Lulu and me — Sophia’s anger usually simmers, rarely boiling over. “You have no right to say what Popo would have wanted! You didn’t even like Popo — you have this fixation with Chinese values and respect for elders, but all you did was mock her. Every little thing she did — even making couscous—reflected some terrible moral deficiency for you. Why are you so — Manichaean? Why does everything have to be black or white?”

I didn’t mock her, I thought to myself indignantly. I was just protecting my daughters from a romanticized model of child-rearing doomed to failure. Besides, I was the one who invited Florence to everything, who made sure she saw her granddaughters all the time. I gave Florence her greatest source of happiness — beautiful, respectful, accomplished grandchildren she could be proud of. How could Sophia, who was so smart and even knew the word Manichaean, not see that and attack me instead?

Externally, I ignored Sophia’s outburst. Instead, I offered some editorial suggestions — things about her grandmother that she might mention. I asked her to talk about Crystal Lake and going to museums with Florence.

Sophia took none of my suggestions. Slamming the door after I left, she locked herself in her bedroom and rewrote the speech herself. She refused to show it to me, wouldn’t look at me, even after she had cooled down and changed into a black dress and black tights. And later, at the service when Sophia was at the podium speaking, looking dignified and calm, I didn’t miss the pointed lines:

Popo never settled for anything — a dishonest conversation, a film not quite true to the book, a slightly false display of emotion. Popo wouldn’t allow people to put words in my mouth.

It was a wonderful speech. Lulu’s was too; she had spoken with great perceptiveness and poise for a ten-year-old. I could just imagine a beaming Florence saying, “I’m bursting.”

On the other hand, Florence was right. The kids were definitely mad at me. But as a Chinese mother, I put that out of my head.

17 Caravan to Chautauqua

The summer after Florence’s passing was a difficult one.To begin with, I ran over Sophia’s foot. She jumped out of my car to grab a tennis racket while I was still backing up, and her left ankle got caught in the front wheel. Sophia and I both fainted. She ended up having surgery under full anesthesia and two big screws put in. Then she had to wear a huge boot and use crutches for the rest of the summer, which put her in a bad mood but at least gave her a lot of time to practice the piano.

One good thing in our lives, though, was Coco, who got cuter by the day. She had the same strange effect on all four of us: Just looking at her lifted our spirits. This was true even though all my ambitions for her had been replaced by a single dynamic: She would look at me with her pleading chocolate almond eyes — and I would do whatever she wanted, which was usually to go running for four miles, rain, sleet, or shine. In return, Coco was compassionate. I knew she hated it when I yelled at the girls, but she never judged me and knew that I was trying to be a good mother.

It didn’t upset me that I had revised my dreams for Coco — I just wanted her to be happy. I had finally come to see that Coco was an animal, with intrinsically far less potential than Sophia and Lulu. Although it is true that some dogs are on bomb squads or drug-sniffing teams, it is perfectly fine for most dogs not to have a profession or even any special skills.

Around that time, I had a life-changing conversation with my brilliant friend and colleague Peter, who speaks six languages and reads eleven, including Sanskrit and Ancient Greek. A gifted pianist who had debuted in New York as a teenager, Peter attended one of Sophia’s recitals at the Neighborhood Music School.

Afterward, Peter told me that he thought Sophia’s playing was really extraordinary. Then he added, “I don’t want to meddle or anything, but have you thought about the Yale School of Music? Maybe Sophia should audition for one of the piano faculty there.”

“You mean. . change teachers?” I said, my mind racing. The Neighborhood Music School had been one of my favorite places for almost a decade.

“Well, yes,” said Peter. “I’m sure the Neighborhood Music School is a wonderful place. But compared to the other kids here Sophia’s in a different league. Of course it all depends on what your goals are. Maybe you just want to keep things fun.”

This took me aback. No one had ever accused me of trying to keep things fun. And coincidentally, I’d just received a phone call from another friend raising the very same question about Lulu.

That night, I sent two crucial e-mails.The first was to a violinist and recent graduate of the Yale School of Music named Kiwon Nahm, whom I’d hired on occasion to help Lulu practice. The second was to Professor Wei-Yi Yang, the most recent addition to Yale’s illustrious piano faculty and by all accounts a piano prodigy and sensation.

Things moved faster than I expected. By a tremendous stroke of luck, Professor Yang knew of Sophia; he had heard her play a Mozart piano quartet at a fund-raiser and been favorably impressed. He and I agreed to meet for lunch in late August, when he returned from his summer concertizing.

Something equally exciting happened with Lulu. Kiwon — who had debuted at Lincoln Center as a soloist at the age of twelve — generously mentioned Lulu to a former teacher named Almita Vamos. Mrs. Vamos and her husband, Roland, are among the leading violin instructors in the world. They’ve been honored by the White House six times. Their former students include well-known soloists like Rachel Barton and many winners of prestigious international competitions. Based in Chicago, they teach only very gifted students, a large proportion of them Asian.

We waited on tenterhooks to see if Mrs. Vamos would respond. A week later, the e-mail came. Mrs. Vamos invited Lulu to come play for her at the Chautauqua Institution in upstate New York, where she was in residence that summer. The date Mrs. Vamos chose was July 29—only three weeks away.

For the next twenty days, Lulu did nothing but practice violin. To squeeze as much improvement out of Lulu as possible, I paid Kiwon to come twice, sometimes three times a day to work with her. When Jed saw the cashed checks, he couldn’t believe his eyes. I told him we’d make up for it by not going out to dinner all summer and not buying new clothes. “Also,” I said hopefully, “there is the advance you just got for your novel.”

“I’d better start on a sequel now,” Jed replied grimly.

“There is nothing better to spend our money on than our children,” I said.

Jed was in for another unpleasant surprise. I had imagined that the drive to see Mrs. Vamos would take three, maybe four hours, and had told Jed as much. The day before we were scheduled to leave, Jed got on MapQuest and said, “So where’s this place again?”

Unfortunately, I hadn’t realized that New York State is so big. Chautauqua turned out to be located near Lake Erie, not far from Canada.

“Amy, it’s nine hours away — not three,” Jed said in exasperation. “How long are we staying?”

“Just one night. I signed Sophia up for a computer animation course, which starts Monday — something exciting for her while she’s on crutches. But I’m sure we can make the drive in seven—”

“What are we supposed to do with Coco?” Jed interrupted. Coco had been housebroken for only two months and had never traveled anywhere before.

“I thought it would be fun to take her with us. It’ll be our first vacation together,” I said.

“It’s not exactly a vacation to drive eighteen hours in two days,” Jed pointed out, a little selfishly, I thought. “And what about Sophia’s broken foot? Isn’t she supposed to keep her leg elevated? How are we going to fit everybody in the car?”

We drove an old Jeep Cherokee. I suggested that Sophia could lie down in the backseat with her head on Lulu’s lap and her leg propped up on pillows. Coco could go all the way in back with the suitcases and violins (yes, plural, which I’ll explain). “There’s one more thing,” I added. “I asked Kiwon if she would come with us and told her that I’d pay her by the hour, including transportation time.”

“What?” Jed was incredulous. “That’s going to cost three thousand dollars. And how are we going to fit her in the car? Put her in the back with Coco?”

“She can take her own car — I told her I’d pay for gas — but actually she really didn’t want to make the trip. It’s a long way, and she’d have to cancel her other teaching hours. To make it more appealing for her, I invited her new boyfriend, Aaron, to come too, and offered to put them up for three nights at a nice hotel. I found an amazing place called the William Seward Inn, and I booked them each a double deluxe room.”

“For three nights,” said Jed. “You’re joking.”

“If you want, you and I can stay at a cheaper place, to save money.”

“I don’t want.”

“Aaron’s a great guy,” I told Jed persuasively. “You’re going to love him. He’s a French horn player, and he loves dogs. He’s offered to watch Coco for free while we’re with Mrs. Vamos.”

We left at the crack of dawn, with Kiwon and Aaron in a white Honda following behind our white Jeep. It wasn’t a pleasant trip. Jed insisted on driving the whole way, a macho thing, which gets on my nerves. Sophia insisted that she was in pain and losing circulation. “Remind me again — why am I coming on this trip?” she asked innocently.

“Because the family always has to stay together,” I replied. “Also, this is an important event for Lulu, and you have to support your sister.”

The whole nine hours I sat tense and cross-legged in the front passenger seat, with Coco’s food, equipment, and fuzzy sleepy mat where my feet should have been. My head was wedged between Sophia’s two horizontal crutches, which were suctioned in place on the windshield.

Meanwhile, Lulu was acting like she didn’t have a care in the world. That’s how I knew she was terrified.

18 The Swimming Hole

“What?” Jed asked. “Tell me you didn’t say what I think you said.” This was a month before our trip to Chautauqua.

“I said I’m thinking about cashing in my pension funds. Not all of them; just the ones from Cleary.” Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen, and Hamilton was the name of the Wall Street law firm where I’d worked before Sophia was born.

“That makes absolutely no sense from any point of view,” Jed said. “First, you’d have to pay a huge tax and forfeit half the amount. More important, we need to save that money for our retirement. That’s what pension funds are for. It’s part of progress and civilization.”

“There’s something I need to buy,” I said.

“What is it, Amy?” Jed asked. “If there’s something you really want, I’ll find a way for us to get it.”

I got so lucky in love. Jed is handsome, funny, smart, and he tolerates my bad taste and tendency to get ripped off. I actually don’t buy that many things. I don’t enjoy shopping, I don’t get facials or manicures, and I don’t buy jewelry. But every once in a while there will be something that I get an uncontrollable urge to own — a 1500-pound clay horse from China, for example, which disintegrated the following winter — and Jed has always managed to get it for me. In this case, I was overcome with a powerful urge to buy a really good violin for Lulu.

I contacted some reputable violin dealers who had been recommended to me, two in New York, one in Boston, one in Philadelphia. I asked each dealer to send me three violins for Lulu to try, within a certain price range. They always sent me four violins, three in the price range specified, and one that “is a little out of your price range”—meaning twice as expensive—“but that I decided to send along anyway because it’s an extraordinary instrument and might be just what you’re looking for.” Violin shops are similar to rug merchants in Uzbekistan in this way. As we hit each new price plateau, I tried to convince Jed that a fine violin was an investment, like artwork or real estate. “So we’re actually making money the more we spend?” he would reply drily.

Meanwhile, Lulu and I had a blast. Every time a big new box arrived by UPS, we couldn’t wait to rip it open. It was fun playing on the different violins, comparing the wood and their different tones, reading about their difference provenances, trying to glean their different personalities. We tried a few new but mainly older violins, from the 1930s or earlier. We tried violins from England, France, and Germany, but mostly from Italy, usually Cremona, Genoa, or Naples. Lulu and I would get the whole family to do blindfold tests, to see if we could tell which violin was which and whether our preferences stayed the same if we couldn’t see the violins.

The thing about Lulu and me is that we’re at once incompatible and really close. We can have a great time but also hurt each other deeply. We always know what the other is thinking — which form of psychological torture is being deployed — and we both can’t help ourselves. We both tend to explode and then feel fine. Jed has never understood how one minute Lulu and I will be screaming death threats at each other, and the next minute we’ll be lying in bed, Lulu’s arms wrapped around me, talking about violins or reading and laughing together.

Anyway, when we finally arrived at Mrs. Vamos’s studio at the Chautauqua Institution, we had with us not one but three violins. We hadn’t been able to make a final decision.

“Wonderful!” said Mrs. Vamos. “How fun. I love trying violins.” Mrs. Vamos was down-to-earth and as sharp as a tack, with a quirky sense of humor. She was opinionated (“I hate Viotti 23. Boring!”) and exuded power and impressiveness. She was also amazing with kids — or at least with Lulu, whom she seemed to take to instantly. Mrs. Vamos and Jed hit it off too. The only person I don’t think Mrs. Vamos liked very much was me. I got the feeling that she had encountered hundreds, possibly thousands, of Asian mothers and that she found me unaesthetic.

Lulu played the first movement of Mozart’s Concerto no. 3 for Mrs. Vamos. Afterward, Mrs. Vamos told Lulu that she was extremely musical. She asked Lulu if she liked playing the violin. I held my breath, honestly not sure what the answer would be. Lulu replied yes. Mrs. Vamos then told Lulu that while she had the advantage of being naturally musical — something that couldn’t be taught — she lagged behind in technique. She asked Lulu if she practiced scales (“Sort of”) and études (“What are those?”).

Mrs. Vamos told Lulu that all this had to change if she really wanted to be a good violinist. She needed to do tons of scales and études to develop impeccable technique, muscle memory, and perfect intonation. Mrs. Vamos also told Lulu that she was moving much too slowly; it wasn’t good enough to spend six months on one movement of a concerto. “My students your age can learn an entire concerto in two weeks — you should be able to do that too.”

Mrs. Vamos then worked with Lulu on the Mozart line by line, transforming Lulu’s playing right before my eyes. She was an exceptional teacher: demanding but fun, critical but inspiring. When an hour was up — by then five or six students had come in and were sitting with their instruments on the floor — Mrs. Vamos gave Lulu some things to work on by herself and told us that she’d be happy to see her again the next day.

I couldn’t believe it. Mrs. Vamos wanted to see Lulu again. I almost leaped out of my chair — and probably would have if at that moment I hadn’t seen Coco fly by our window followed by Aaron on the leash behind her.

“What was that?” asked Mrs. Vamos.

“It’s our dog, Coco,” explained Lulu.

“I love dogs. And yours looks really cute,” said one of the most famous violin teachers in the world. “We can see how those violins sound tomorrow too,” she added. “I like the Italian, but maybe the French one will open up.”

Back at the hotel, I was trembling with excitement. I couldn’t wait to start practicing — what an opportunity! I knew that Mrs. Vamos was surrounded by driven Asians, but I was all the more determined to astonish her, to show her what we were made of.

I pulled out the Mozart score, just in time to see Lulu sink into a comfortable armchair. “Ah-h-h,” she sighed contentedly, leaning her head back. “That was a good day. Let’s have dinner.”

“Dinner?” I couldn’t believe my ears. “Lulu, Mrs. Vamos gave you an assignment. She wants to see how fast you can improve. This is hugely important — it’s not a game. Come on. Let’s start.”

“What are you talking about, Mommy? I’ve been playing violin for five hours.” This was true: she had practiced all morning with Kiwon before going to see Mrs. Vamos. “I need a break. I can’t play more now. Plus it’s five-thirty already. It’s dinnertime.”

“Five-thirty is not dinnertime. We’ll practice first, then reward ourselves with dinner. I’ve already made reservations at an Italian restaurant — your favorite.”

“Oh-h, no-o-o,” Lulu moaned. “Are you serious? What time?”

“What time what?”

“What time is the dinner reservation?”

“Oh! Nine o’ clock,” I replied, then regretted it.

“NINE? NINE? That’s crazy, Ma! I refuse. I refuse!”

“Lulu, I’ll change it to—”

“I REFUSE! I can’t practice now. I won’t!”

I won’t get into the details of what ensued. Two facts should suffice. One, we didn’t have dinner until nine. Two, we didn’t practice. In retrospect, I don’t know where I got the strength and temerity to fight Lulu. Just the memory of that evening makes me feel exhausted.

But the next morning, Lulu got up and on her own went to practice with Kiwon, so all was not lost. Jed suggested in the strongest terms that I go for a long run with Coco far, far away, which I did. At noon we went back to Mrs. Vamos, Kiwon accompanying us, and the session again went very well.

I had harbored hopes that Mrs. Vamos might say, “I’d love to take Lulu on as my student. Is there any chance of your flying out to Chicago for lessons once a month?” To which I would have said yes, absolutely. But instead Mrs. Vamos suggested that Lulu work intensively with Kiwon as her teacher for the next year. “You won’t find anyone with better technique than Kiwon,” Mrs. Vamos said, smiling at her former student, “and Lulu, you have a lot of catching up to do. But in a year or so, you might think about auditioning for the Pre-College program at Juilliard. Kiwon, you did that, right? It’s extremely competitive, but if you work really hard, Lulu, I bet you could get in. And of course, I hope you’ll come back and see me next summer.”

Before getting on the road for New Haven, Jed, the girls, and I drove to a nature reserve and found a beautiful swimming hole surrounded by beech trees and small waterfalls, which our inn-keeper had said was one of the hidden gems of the area. Coco was afraid of going into the water — she’d never swum before — but Jed gently pulled her in to the deep center, where he let go of her. I was afraid Coco would drown, but just as Jed said she would, Coco dog-paddled safely back to shore while we clapped and cheered, toweling her off and giving her big hugs when she arrived.

That’s one difference between a dog and a daughter, I thought to myself later. A dog can do something every dog can do — dog paddle, for example — and we applaud with pride and joy. Imagine how much easier it would be if we could do the same with daughters! But we can’t; that would be negligence.

I had to keep my eye on the ball. Mrs. Vamos’s message was crystal clear. It was time to get serious.

19 How You Get to Carnegie Hall

My heart sank. The score looked disappointingly sparse, a few staccato notes here and there, not a lot of density or vertical range. And such a short piece: six scruffy xeroxed pages.

Sophia and I were in Professor Wei-Yi Yang’s piano studio at the Yale School of Music. It was a large rectangular room with two black Steinway baby grand pianos standing side by side, one for the teacher, one for the student. I was staring at “Juliet as a Young Girl” from Sergei Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet, which Wei-Yi had just proposed that Sophia play for an international piano competition that was coming up.

When Wei-Yi and I first met, he explained that he’d never had a student as young as Sophia, who was barely fourteen. He taught only Yale piano graduate students and a few Yale undergraduates of unusual caliber. But having heard Sophia play, he was willing to take her on with one condition: that she didn’t require any special treatment because of her age. I assured him that this would be no problem.

I love being able to count on Sophia. She has wells of inner strength. Even more than me, she can take anything: exclusion, excoriation, humiliation, loneliness.

Thus began Sophia’s baptism of fire. Like Mrs. Vamos, Wei-Yi had expectations that were of an order galactically beyond what we’d been used to. The stack of music he handed Sophia at her first lesson — six Bach inventions, a book of Moszkowski études, a Beethoven sonata, a toccata by Khachaturian, and Brahms’s Rhapsody in G Minor — stunned even me. Sophia had some catching up to do, he explained; her technical foundation was not what it should be, and there were some gaping holes in her repertoire. Even more intimidating was when he said to Sophia, “And don’t waste my time with wrong notes. At your level, there’s no excuse. It’s your job to get the notes right, so we can work on other things during the lesson.”

But two months later, when Wei-Yi Yang proposed the pieces from the suite Romeo and Juliet, I had the opposite reaction. The Prokofiev didn’t look demanding all — it didn’t strike me as a competition winner. And why Prokofiev? The only thing I knew about Prokofiev was Peter and the Wolf. Why not something hard, like Rachmaninov?

“Oh, this piece,” I said aloud. “Sophia’s old piano teacher thought it was too easy for her.” This wasn’t entirely true. Actually, it wasn’t even a little true. But I didn’t want Wei-Yi to think I was challenging his judgment.

“Easy?” Wei-Yi boomed contemptuously. He had a deep baritone voice, which was strangely inconsonant with his slight, boyish frame. He was in his thirties, of mixed Chinese and Japanese descent, but raised in London and Russian-taught. “Prokofiev’s piano concertos hold up the sky. And there is nothing — not one note — that is easy about this piece. I challenge anyone to play it well.”

I liked this. I like authority figures. I like experts. This is the opposite of Jed, who hates authority and believes that most “experts” are charlatans. More important, the Prokofiev wasn’t easy! Hurray! Professor Wei-Yi Yang, an expert, said so.

My heart skipped a beat. The first-prize winners for this competition would perform as soloists at Carnegie Hall. Until now Sophia had competed only in local competitions. I had gone crazy when Sophia played as a soloist with the Farmington Valley (all volunteer) Symphony. To jump from there to an international competition was daunting enough, but a chance at Carnegie Hall—I could hardly stand to think about it.

Over the next few months, Sophia and I learned what it was like to take piano lessons from a master. Watching Professor Yang teach Sophia “Juliet as a Young Girl” was one of the most amazing and humbling experiences I’ve ever had. As he helped Sophia bring the piece to life, adding layer upon layer of nuance, all I could think was, This man is a genius. I am a barbarian. Prokofiev is a genius. I am a cretin. Wei-Yi and Prokofiev are great. I am a cannibal.

Going to lessons with Wei-Yi became my favorite thing; I looked forward to it all week. At every session I would religiously take notes, the scales falling from my eyes. Occasionally, I felt out of my league. What did he mean by triads and tritones, and making harmonic sense of the music, and why did Sophia seem to get it all so quickly? Other times, I picked up things that Sophia missed — I watched Wei-Yi’s demonstrations like a hawk, sometimes drawing sketches in my notebook to capture them. Back home the two of us would work together in a new way, jointly trying to absorb and implement Wei-Yi’s insights and instructions. I no longer had to yell at Sophia or fight with her about practicing. She was stimulated and intrigued; it was as if a new world were opening up for her, and for me too, as a junior partner.

The hardest part of the Prokofiev was the elusive Juliet theme that formed the backbone of the piece. Here’s what Sophia later wrote in a school essay about “Conquering Juliet”:

I had just played the last notes of “Juliet as a Young Girl,” and the basement studio was dead silent. Professor Yang stared at me. I stared at the rug. My mom was scribbling furiously in our piano notebook.

I reviewed the piece in my head. Was it the scales, or the jumps? I had nailed them all. The dynamics, or the tempo? I had obeyed every crescendo and ritard. As far as I could tell, my rendition had been flawless. So what was wrong with these people, and what more could they possibly want from me?

At last, Professor Yang spoke. “Sophia, what temperature is this piece?”

I was tongue-tied.

“It’s a trick question. I’ll make it easier. Consider the middle section. What color is it?”

I realized I had to give an answer. “Blue? Light blue?”

“And what temperature is light blue?”

That was easy. “Light blue is cool.”

“Then let the phrase be cool.”

What kind of instruction was that? The piano is a percussion instrument. Temperature isn’t part of the equation. I could hear the haunting, delicate melody in my head. Think, Sophia! I knew this was Juliet’s theme. But who was Juliet, and how was she “cool”? I remembered something Professor Yang had mentioned the week before: Juliet was fourteen years old, just like me. How would I act if a handsome older boy suddenly declared his undying love for me? Well, I thought to myself, she already knows she’s desirable, but she’s also flattered and embarrassed. She’s fascinated by him, but she’s also shy and afraid of looking overeager. This was a coolness I could comprehend. I took a deep breath and began.

Shockingly, ProfessorYang was pleased.“Better. Now do it again, but this time let Juliet be in your hands, not your facial expressions. Here, like this—” He took my place on the piano bench to demonstrate.

I will never forget how he transformed the little melody. It was Juliet just as I had envisioned her: alluring, vulnerable, a little blasé.The secret, I began to realize, was letting the hand reflect the character of the piece. Professor Yang’s was cupped in the shape of a tent; he coaxed the sound from the keys. His fingers were sinewy and elegant, like ballerinas’ legs.

“Now you,” he ordered.

Un fortunately, Juliet was only half the piece. The next page brought a new character: lovesick, testosterone-fueled Romeo. He posed a completely different challenge; his tone was as rich and muscular as Juliet’s was ethereal and slender. And of course, Professor Yang had more questions for me to grapple with.

“Sophia, your Romeo and Juliet sound the same. What instruments are they played by?”

I didn’t get it. Uh, piano? I thought to myself.

Professor Yang continued. “Sophia, this ballet was written for an entire orchestra. As a pianist, you must reproduce the sound of every instrument. So what is Juliet, and what is Romeo?”

Bewildered, I fingered the first few bars of each theme. “Juliet is. . flute, maybe, and Romeo is. . cello?”

As it turned out, Juliet was a bassoon. I was right about Romeo, though. In Prokofiev’s original arrangement, his theme really is played by the cello. Romeo’s character was always easier for me to understand. I’m not sure why; it definitely wasn’t real-life inspiration. Maybe I just felt bad for him. Obviously he was doomed, and he was so hopelessly besotted with Juliet. The slightest hint of her theme had him begging on his knees.

Whereas Juliet eluded me for a long time, I always knew I could get Romeo. His moodiness required a number of different playing techniques. At times he was sonorous and confident. Then, just a few measures later, he was desperate and pleading. I tried to train my hands like Professor Yang said. It was hard enough being both a soprano and a prima ballerina for Juliet; now I had to play the piano like a cellist.

I’ll save the conclusion of Sophia’s school essay for a later chapter.

The competition Sophia was preparing for was open to young pianists from all over the world, anyone who was not already a professional musician. Somewhat unusually, there was no live audition component. The winners would be chosen solely on the basis of a fifteen-minute unedited CD containing any piano repertoire of our choosing. Wei-Yi was emphatic about our CD opening with Sophia playing “Juliet as a Young Girl” followed immediately by “The Street Awakens,” another short piece from Romeo and Juliet. Like the curator of an art exhibition, he carefully chose the other works — a Liszt Hungarian Rhapsody, a middle-period Beethoven sonata — that would complete the CD.

After eight grueling weeks, Wei-Yi said Sophia was ready. Late one Tuesday evening, after she had finished her homework and practicing, we drove to the studio of a professional audio engineer named Istvan to record Sophia’s CD. The experience was traumatizing. At first, I didn’t get it. This should be easy, I thought to myself. We can redo it as many times as it takes to get a perfect version. Totally wrong. What I didn’t understand was (1) pianists’ hands get tired; (2) it’s extremely hard to play musically when there’s no audience and you know every note is being recorded; and (3) as Sophia tearfully explained to me, the more she played and replayed her pieces, trying her hardest each time to pour emotion into them, the emptier they sounded.

The hardest part of all was invariably the last page — sometimes the last line. It was like watching your favorite Olympic figure skater who looks like she might actually win the gold medal if she can only land her last few jumps. The pressure mounts unbearably. This could be it, you think, this is the one. Then the crash on the final triple axel sends her bouncing and sprawling all over the ice.

Something similar happened with Sophia’s Beethoven sonata, which just wouldn’t come out right. After Take 3, when Sophia omitted two entire lines near the end, Istvan gently suggested that I go outside for some air. Istvan was very cool. He wore a black leather jacket, black ski cap, and black Clark Kent glasses. “There’s a café down the street,” he added. “Maybe you can get Sophia a hot chocolate. I could use some coffee myself.” When I returned with the drinks fifteen minutes later, Istvan was packing up, and Sophia was laughing. They told me they’d gotten a Beethoven that was good enough — not error-free but very musical — and I was too relieved to question them.

We took the CD containing all of Sophia’s attempts at each piece and gave it to Wei-Yi, who made the final selections from all the takes (“the first Prokofiev, the third Liszt, and the final Beethoven, please”). Istvan then cut a submission CD, which we FedEx-ed to the competition.

And then we waited.

20 How You Get to Carnegie Hall, Part 2

It was Lulu’s turn! There is no rest for the Chinese mother, no time to recharge, no possibility of flying off with friends for a few days to mud springs in California. While we were waiting to hear back about Sophia’s competition, I shifted my attention to Lulu, who was eleven at the time, and I had a great idea: As Mrs. Vamos had suggested, Lulu would audition for the Pre-College program at the Juilliard School in New York, open to highly talented kids between the ages of roughly seven and eighteen. Kiwon wasn’t sure Lulu was quite ready technically, but I was confident we could get up to speed.

Jed disapproved and kept trying to change my mind. Juilliard Pre-College is famously intense. Every year, thousands of high-achieving kids from all over the world — especially Asia and most recently Russia and eastern Europe — try out for a handful of spots. The kids who apply do it because either (1) their dream is to become a professional musician; (2) their parents’ dream is for them to become a professional musician; or (3) their parents think, correctly, that going to Juilliard will help them get into an Ivy League college. The lucky few who are accepted into the program study at Juilliard every Saturday for nine or ten hours.

Jed wasn’t crazy about the idea of getting up at dawn every Saturday to drive to New York (I said I’d do it). But what he was really worried about was the pressure-cooker atmosphere and sometimes dog-eat-dog mentality that Juilliard is famous for. He wasn’t sure that would be good for Lulu. Lulu wasn’t sure it would be good for her either. In fact, she insisted that she didn’t want to audition and wouldn’t go even if she got in. But Lulu never wants to do anything I propose, so naturally I ignored her.

There was another reason Jed wasn’t sure Juilliard was a good idea: Many years ago, he’d actually been a student there himself. After graduating from Princeton, he’d been accepted to Juilliard’s Drama Division, notoriously even harder to get into than their world-famous Music Division. So Jed moved to New York City and studied acting with classmates who included Kelly McGillis (Top Gun),Val Kilmer (Batman), and Marcia Cross (Desperate Housewives). He dated ballet dancers, learned the Alexander Technique, and played the lead role in King Lear.

And then Jed got kicked out — for “insubordination.” He was playing Lopakhin in Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard, and the director asked him to do something a certain way. Jed disagreed with her. Several weeks later, out of the blue at a rehearsal, she became furiously angry at Jed, snapping pencils in half, declaring that she couldn’t work with someone who “just stands there, sneering at me, criticizing every word I say.” Two days later, Jed was told by the chairman of the Drama Division (who happened to be married to the director Jed had offended) that he should find something else to do. After a year of waiting tables in New York, that something turned out to be Harvard Law School.

Maybe because I think it has a happy ending — Jed and I wouldn’t have met if he’d stayed at Juilliard — I’ve told this story at party after party, where it’s always a big hit, especially after I embellish it. People seem to think it’s cool that a law professor went to Juilliard and knew Kevin Spacey (who was a few years ahead of Jed). There’s also something about insubordination and getting kicked out that Americans love.

By contrast, when we told the story to my parents, it didn’t go over well at all. This was before Jed and I were married. In fact, I had only recently revealed to them the fact of Jed’s existence. After hiding him for two years, I had finally sprung on my parents that I was seriously dating Jed, and they were in shock. My mother was practically in mourning. When I was little, she’d given me lots of advice about how to find the right husband. “Don’t marry anyone too handsome — dangerous. The most important things in a husband are moral character and health; if you marry a sickly man, you will have a terrible life.” But she always assumed that the nonsickly husband would be Chinese, ideally someone Fukienese with an M.D./Ph.D.

Instead, here was Jed — white and Jewish. Neither of my parents found it remotely impressive that Jed had gone to drama school.

“Drama school?” repeated my father, unsmiling on the sofa where he and my mother were sitting side by side, staring at Jed. “You wanted to be an actor?”

The names Val Kilmer and Kelly McGillis didn’t seem to mean anything to my parents, and they continued to sit stonily. But when Jed got to the part about being kicked out and having to work as a waiter for six months, my mother choked.

“Kicked out?” she said, throwing my father an anguished glance.

“Does that go on your record?” my father asked grimly.

“Dad, don’t worry!” I laughed reassuringly. “It turned out to be a lucky thing. Jed ended up going to law school instead, and he loves the law. It’s just a funny story.”

“But now you say he’s working for the government,” my father said accusingly. I could tell he had a picture in his head of Jed in a booth stamping forms at the Department of Motor Vehicles.

For the third time, I patiently explained to my parents that Jed, wanting to do something in the public interest, had left his Wall Street law firm to work as a federal prosecutor at the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Southern District of NewYork. “It’s really prestigious,” I explained, “and it was such a hard job to get. Jed took an eighty percent pay cut for it.”

“Eighty percent!” my mother burst out.

“Mom, it’s only for three years,” I said wearily, starting to give up. Among our Western friends, saying that Jed was taking a pay cut to do public service always brought “good-for-you’s” and pats on the back. “If nothing else, it’s important experience. Jed likes litigation. He might want to be a trial lawyer.”

“Why?” my mother asked bitterly. “Because he wanted to be an actor?” This last word she spat out, as if it carried an indelible moral stain.

It’s funny to think back on that now and how much my parents have changed since then. By the time I was thinking about Juilliard for Lulu, my parents idolized Jed. (Ironically, by then the son of one of our good family friends had become a famous actor in Hong Kong, and my parents’ view about acting had totally changed too.) They had also figured out that Juilliard was famous (“Yo-Yo Ma!”). But like Jed, they didn’t understand why I wanted Lulu to try for the Pre-College program.

“You don’t want her to be a professional violinist, do you?” my father asked, puzzled.

I didn’t have an answer, but that didn’t stop me from being stubborn. Around the time that I submitted Sophia’s CD to the piano competition, I submitted Lulu’s application to Juilliard.

As I’ve said, raising kids the Chinese way is much harder than raising them the Western way. There is simply no respite. Just as I’d finally finished working with Sophia around the clock for two months on her pieces, I had to turn right around and do the same for Lulu.

The Juilliard Pre-College audition process is set up in a way that maximizes pressure. Applicants Lulu’s age have to be prepared to play three octaves of major and minor scales and arpeggios, an étude, a slow and fast movement of a concerto, and another contrasting piece — all by memory, obviously. At the actual audition, the kids go into a room, without parents, and play before a panel of roughly five to ten Pre-College faculty members, who can ask to hear any part of any piece in any order and stop them at any time. The Pre-College violin faculty includes big names like Itzhak Perlman and the New York Philharmonic’s concertmaster Glenn Dicterow, as well as some of the most prominent teachers of young violinists in the world. We had our eye on a teacher by the name of Naoko Tanaka, who, like Mrs. Vamos, was in the highest demand, with students from all over the world clawing to get into her studio. We knew of Miss Tanaka because Kiwon had studied with her for nine years, before going off at the age of seventeen to study with Mrs. Vamos.

It was especially hard to help Lulu prepare, because she was still maintaining that she would never in a million years do the audition. She hated everything she’d heard about it from Kiwon. She knew that some of the applicants would fly in from China, South Korea, and India just for the audition, which they’d been working toward for years. Others would have auditioned before and been rejected two or three times. Still others were already taking private lessons with Pre-College faculty members.

But I hunkered down. “It will be your decision in the end, Lulu,” I lied. “We’ll get prepared for the audition, but if in the end you really don’t want to do it, you don’t have to.” “Never not try something out of fear,” I would pontificate at other times. “Everything I’ve ever done that’s valuable is something I was terrified to try.” To improve productivity, I hired not only Kiwon for many hours a day but also a lovely Yale undergraduate named Lexie, whom Lulu came to adore. While Lexie didn’t have Kiwon’s technical ability, she played in the Yale orchestra and genuinely loved music. Intellectual and philosophical, Lexie was a wonderful influence on Lulu. She questioned things. She and Lulu would talk about their favorite composers and concertos, overrated violinists, and different interpretations of Lulu’s pieces. After their conversations, Lulu would always be motivated to practice.

Meanwhile, I was still teaching my courses at Yale and finishing up a second book, this one about history’s greatest empires and the secret to their success. I was also traveling continuously, giving lectures about democratization and ethnic conflict.

One day, when I was in an airport somewhere waiting to fly back to New Haven, I checked my BlackBerry and saw an e-mail from the sponsors of Sophia’s piano competition. For a few minutes I was paralyzed, terrified of bad news. Finally, when I couldn’t stand it any longer, I clicked the button.

Sophia was a first-prize winner. She was going to play at Carnegie Hall! There was just one problem: Sophia’s Carnegie Hall performance was the evening before Lulu’s Juilliard audition.

21 The Debut and the Audition

It was the big day — the day of Sophia’s Carnegie Hall debut. This time I’d really gone wild. I’d spoken to Jed, and we decided to forgo our winter vacation for the year. Sophia’s dress for the event was a charcoal satin floor-length gown from Barneys New York — no David’s Bridal for this one! For the reception afterward, I’d rented out the Fontainebleau Room at the St. Regis New York, where we also took two rooms for two nights. In addition to sushi, crab cakes, dumplings, quesadillas, a raw oyster bar, and iced silver bowls of jumbo shrimp, I ordered a beef tenderloin station, a Peking duck station, and a pasta station (for the kids). At the last minute I had them throw in Gruyère profiteroles, Sicilian rice balls with wild mushrooms, and a giant dessert station. I’d also printed up invitations and sent them to everyone we knew.

Each time a new bill came, Jed’s eyebrows shot up. “Well, there goes our summer vacation too,” he said at one point. My mother, meanwhile, was horrified by my extravagance; growing up, we’d only ever stayed in a Motel 6 or Holiday Inn. But Carnegie Hall was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and I was determined to make it unforgettable.

For analytical clarity, I should probably point out that some aspects of my behavior — for example, my tendency to show off and overdo things — are not characteristic of most Chinese mothers. I inherited those flaws, along with my loud voice and my love of big parties and the color red, from my father. Even when I was growing up, my mother, who’s very muted and modest, would shake her head and say, “It’s genetic. Amy’s a clone of the oddball.” The latter referred to my father, whom it’s true I’ve always idolized.

Part of the deal I’d arranged with the St. Regis was that we’d have access to a piano, and the day before the recital Sophia and I practiced on and off throughout the day. Jed worried about me going too far and tiring out Sophia’s fingers; Wei-Yi had told us that Sophia knew her pieces inside out and that being calm and focused was more important than anything. But I had to make sure that Sophia’s performance was flawless, that she didn’t leave out a single brilliant tiny nuance Wei-Yi had taught us. Contrary to everyone’s advice, we practiced until almost 1:00 A.M. the night before. The last thing I said to her was, “You’re going to be great. When you’ve worked as hard as you have, you know you’ve done everything you can, and it doesn’t matter now what happens.”

The next day when the moment came — while I could barely breathe, clutching the armrest of my seat in near rigor mortis — Sophia played brilliantly, jubilantly. I knew every note, every silence, every witty touch like the back of my hand. I knew where the potential pitfalls were; Sophia blew past them all. I knew her favorite parts, her most masterful transitions. I knew where thank goodness she didn’t rush and exactly when she began to bring it home, allowing herself to improvise emotionally, knowing it was already a total triumph.

Afterward, when everyone else rushed to congratulate and hug her, I hung back. I didn’t need the clichéd moment where “Sophia’s eyes sought out mine in the crowd.” I just watched my cute little grown-up girl from afar, laughing with her friends, piling up with flowers.

In moments of despair I force myself to relive that memory. My parents and sisters attended, as did Jed’s father, Sy, and his wife, Harriet, and many friends and colleagues. Wei-Yi had come down from New Haven for the performance and was clearly proud of his young pupil. According to Sophia, it was one of the happiest days of her life. I had not only invited her entire grade, I rented a van to transport her schoolmates both ways between New Haven and NewYork. No one applauds as loudly as a bunch of giddy eighth-graders let loose in NewYork — and no one could possibly eat as much shrimp cocktail (which the St. Regis charged for by the piece).

As promised, here’s the ending of Sophia’s essay on “Conquering Juliet”:

I didn’t quite understand what was happening until I found myself backstage, petrified, quaking. My hands were cold. I couldn’t remember how my piece started. An old mirror betrayed the contrast between my chalk-white face and my dark gown, and I wondered how many other musicians had stared into that same glass.

Carnegie Hall. It didn’t seem right. This was supposed to be the unattainable goal, the carrot of false hope that would keep me practicing for an entire lifetime. And yet here I was, an eighth-grader, about to play “Juliet as a Young Girl” for the expectant crowd.

I had worked so hard for this. Romeo and Juliet weren’t the only characters I had learned. The sweet, repetitive murmuring that accompanied Juliet was her nurse; the boisterous chords were Romeo’s teasing friends. So much of me was manifested in this piece, in one way or another. At that moment, I realized how much I loved this music.

Performing isn’t easy — in fact, it’s heartbreaking. You spend months, maybe years, mastering a piece; you become a part of it, and it becomes a part of you. Playing for an audience is like giving blood; it leaves you feeling empty and a bit light-headed. And when it’s all over, your piece just isn’t yours anymore.

It was time. I walked out to the piano and bowed. Only the stage was lit, and I couldn’t see the faces of the audience. I said good-bye to Romeo and Juliet, then released them into the darkness.

Sophia’s success energized me, filled me with new dreams. I couldn’t help noticing that the Weill Recital Hall, where Sophia played — while quite charming with its belle epoque arches and symmetrical proportions — was a relatively small venue, located on the third floor of Carnegie Hall. I learned that the much larger, magnificent hall that I’d seen on television, where some of the world’s greatest musicians had played to audiences of nearly three thousand, was called the Isaac Stern Auditorium. I made a mental note that we ought to try to make it there someday.

There were a few shadows on the day. We all felt Florence’s absence, which left a hollowness that couldn’t be filled. It also stung a little that Sophia’s old piano teacher Michelle didn’t come; our move to Wei-Yi had not been taken well, despite our efforts to maintain a relationship. But the worst thing was that Lulu got food poisoning the day of the recital. After practicing her audition pieces all morning with Kiwon, they’d gone to a deli for lunch. Twenty minutes later, Lulu was sick to her stomach, convulsing with pain. She managed to make it through Sophia’s performance before staggering out of the hall; Kiwon took her by taxi back to the hotel. Lulu missed the entire reception, and during the party Jed and I took turns running up to our hotel room, where Lulu vomited all night, with my mother attending to her.

The next morning, with Lulu white as a ghost and barely able to walk, we took her to Juilliard. She was wearing a yellow and white dress and a big bow in her hair, which only made her face look more drawn. I thought about canceling the audition, but we’d poured so many hours into preparing that even Lulu wanted to do it. In the waiting area, we saw Asian parents everywhere, pacing back and forth, grim-faced and single-minded.They seem so unsubtle, I thought to myself, can they possibly love music? Then it hit me that almost all the other parents were foreigners or immigrants and that music was a ticket for them, and I thought, I’m not like them. I don’t have what it takes.

When Lulu’s name was called, and she walked bravely into the audition room by herself, my heart almost broke — I almost gave it all up right then. But instead, Jed and I plastered our ears to the door and listened as she played Mozart’s Third Concerto and Gabriel Fauré’s Berceuse, both as movingly as I’d ever heard her play. Afterward, Lulu told us that Itzhak Perlman and Naoko Tanaka, the famous violin teacher, had been among the judges in the room.

A month later we got the bad news in the mail. Jed and I knew the contents of the thin envelope instantly; Lulu was still at school. After reading the formal, two-line rejection letter, Jed turned away in disgust. He didn’t say anything to me, but the unspoken accusation was, “Are you happy now, Amy? Now what?”

When Lulu came home, I said to her as cheerfully as I could, “Hey, Lulu, honey, guess what? We heard from Juilliard. They didn’t accept you. But it doesn’t matter — we didn’t expect to get in this year. Lots of people don’t get in their first time. Now we know what to do for next time.”

I couldn’t bear the look that flashed over Lulu’s face. I thought for a second that she was going to cry, but then I realized she would never do that. How could I have set her up for such a disappointment? I thought to myself. All those hours we put in were now big black stains on our memory. And how would I ever get her to practice—

“I’m glad I didn’t get in,” Lulu’s voice interrupted my thoughts. She looked a little angry now.

“Lulu, Daddy and I are so proud that—”

“Oh stop it,” Lulu snapped. “I told you — I don’t care. You’re the one who forced me to do it. I hate Juilliard. I’m happy I didn’t get in,” she repeated.

I’m not sure what I would have done if I hadn’t received a call the next day from — of all people — Naoko Tanaka. Miss Tanaka said that she thought Lulu had auditioned wonderfully, showing unusual musicality, and that she herself had voted to accept Lulu. She also explained that a decision had been made that year to downsize the Pre-College violin program; as a result, an unprecedented number of applicants had competed for unprecedentedly few spots, making it even more difficult than usual to get in. I was just beginning to thank Miss Tanaka for her considerate call when she offered to take on Lulu as a student in her own private studio.

I was stunned. Miss Tanaka’s private studio was famously exclusive — almost impossible to get into. My spirits soared, and I thought quickly. What I really wanted was a great teacher for Lulu; I didn’t care that much about the Pre-College program. I knew that studying with Miss Tanaka would mean driving to New York City every weekend. I also wasn’t sure how Lulu would react.

I accepted on Lulu’s behalf on the spot.

22 Blowout in Budapest

After all those excruciating hours preparing for the Juilliard audition, and then the food poisoning and the rejection letter, you’d think that I would have given Lulu a break. I probably should have. But that was two years ago, when I was much younger, and I didn’t. Easing up would have been selling Lulu short. It would have been the easy way out, which I saw as the Western thing to do. Instead, I jacked up the pressure even more. For the first time, I paid a real price, but nothing like the price I would eventually pay.

Two of the most important guests at Sophia’s Carnegie Hall recital were Oszkár and Krisztina Pogány, old family friends from Hungary, who happened to be visiting New York at the time. Oszkár is a prominent physicist and my father’s close friend. His wife, Krisztina, is a former concert pianist who is now very involved with the Budapest music scene. After Sophia’s performance, Krisztina rushed up to us, raved about Sophia’s playing — she’d especially liked her “Juliet as a Young Girl”—and said she had an inspiration.

Budapest, Krisztina explained, would soon be celebrating Museum Night, when museums all over the city would host lectures, performances, and concerts; for the price of a single ticket, people could “museum hop” late into the night. As part of Museum Night, the Franz Liszt Academy of Music would be presenting a number of concerts. Krisztina thought it would be a big hit to have a “Prodigy from America” concert, featuring Sophia.

It was a breathtaking invitation. Budapest is a famously musical city, the home of not only Liszt but Béla Bartók and Zoltán Kodály. Its stunning State Opera House is said to be surpassed acoustically only by Milan’s La Scala and Paris’s Palais Garnier. The venue Krisztina proposed for the concert was the Old Music Academy, an elegant three-story neo-Renaissance building that once served as the official residence of Franz Liszt, the founder and president of the academy. The Old Academy (replaced in 1907 by the New Academy of Music, located a few streets away) was now a museum filled with Liszt’s original instruments, furniture, and handwritten musical scores. Krisztina told Sophia that she would perform on one of Liszt’s own pianos! Also, the audience would be a large one — not to mention Sophia’s first paying audience.

But I had a problem. So soon after the fanfare of Carnegie Hall, how would Lulu feel about another big event with Sophia as the center of attention? Lulu had been pleased with Miss Tanaka’s offer; somewhat to my surprise, she immediately said she wanted to do it. But that did only a little to dull the sting of the Juilliard disappointment. To make matters worse, I hadn’t thought to keep her audition a secret, and for months Lulu had to deal with people asking her, “Did you get the audition results yet? I’ m sure you got in.”

The Chinese parenting approach is weakest when it comes to failure; it just doesn’t tolerate that possibility. The Chinese model turns on achieving success. That’s how the virtuous circle of confidence, hard work, and more success is generated. I knew that I had to make sure Lulu achieved that success — at the same level as Sophia — before it was too late.

I came up with a plan and enlisted my mother as my agent. I asked her to call her old friend Krisztina and tell her all about Lulu and the violin: how she had played for Jessye Norman and then for the renowned violin instructor Mrs. Vamos, both of whom had said Lulu was terrifically talented, and finally, how Lulu had just been accepted as a private student by a world-famous teacher from the world-famous Juilliard School. I told my mother to feel out the possibility of having Lulu perform with Sophia as a duo in Budapest, even if only for one piece. Perhaps, I told my mother to suggest, that one piece could be Bartók’s Romanian Folk Dances for Piano and Violin, which the girls had recently performed — and which I knew would appeal to Krisztina. Along with Liszt, Bartók is Hungary’s most famous composer, and his Folk Dances are sensational crowd-pleasers.

We lucked out. Krisztina, who had met Lulu and liked her fiery personality, told my mother that she loved the idea of having Sophia play a piece with her little sister and that the Romanian Dances would be a perfect addition to the program. Krisztina said she would arrange everything and even change the billing of the event to “Two Prodigy Sisters from America.”

The girls’ concert was set for June 23, only one month away. Once again, I bore down.There was a staggering amount of work to be done. I had exaggerated when I told my mother that the girls had recently performed the Romanian Dances; by “recently” I meant a year and a half ago. To relearn the Dances and get them just right, the girls and I had to work around the clock. Meanwhile, Sophia was also frantically practicing four other pieces Wei-Yi had chosen for her: Brahms’s Rhapsody in G Minor, a piece by a Chinese woman composer, Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet, and of course, one of Liszt’s famous Hungarian Rhapsodies.

Although Sophia had the difficult repertoire, my real concern was Lulu. I wanted with all my heart for her to be dazzling. I knew that my parents would be at the concert; by coincidence, they were going to be in Budapest for the month of June because my father was being inducted into the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. I also didn’t want to let Krisztina down. Most of all, I wanted Lulu to do well for Lulu. This is exactly what she needs, I thought to myself; it will give her so much confidence and pride if she does well. I had to deal with some resistance from Lulu: I had promised her time off after her audition no matter what, and now I was breaking that promise. But I steeled myself for battle, and when things got intolerable, I hired Kiwon and Lexie as auxiliaries.

Here’s a question I often get: “But Amy, let me ask you this. Who are you doing all this pushing for — your daughters”—and here always the cocked head, the knowing tone—“or yourself?” I find this a very Western question to ask (because in Chinese thinking, the child is the extension of the self). But that doesn’t mean it’s not an important one.

My answer, I’m pretty sure, is that everything I do is unequivocally 100 % for my daughters. My main evidence is that so much of what I do with Sophia and Lulu is miserable, exhausting, and not remotely fun for me. It’s not easy to make your kids work when they don’t want to, to put in grueling hours when your own youth is slipping away, to convince your kids they can do something when they (and maybe even you) are fearful that they can’t. “Do you know how many years you’ve taken off my life?” I’m constantly asking my girls. “You’re both lucky that I have enormous longevity as indicated by my thick good-luck earlobes.”

To be honest, I sometimes wonder if the question “Who are you really doing this for?” should be asked of Western parents too. Sometimes I wake up in the morning dreading what I have to do and thinking how easy it would be to say, “Sure Lulu, we can skip a day of violin practice.” Unlike my Western friends, I can never say, “As much as it kills me, I just have to let my kids make their choices and follow their hearts. It’s the hardest thing in the world, but I’m doing my best to hold back.” Then they get to have a glass of wine and go to a yoga class, whereas I have to stay home and scream and have my kids hate me.

A few days before we left for Budapest, I e-mailed Krisztina, asking her if she knew of any experienced music teachers who could run through the Romanian Dances with the girls as a kind of dress rehearsal, perhaps offering some tips about how to play a Hungarian composer properly. Krisztina wrote back with good news. A prominent Eastern European violin teacher, whom I’ll call Mrs. Kazinczy, had generously agreed to see the girls. Recently retired, Mrs. Kazinczy now taught only the most gifted violinists. She had a single slot available — on the day we arrived — and I grabbed it.

We arrived at our hotel in Budapest on the day before the concert, around ten in the morning—4:00 A.M. New Haven time. We were groggy and bleary-eyed. Jed and Lulu both had headaches. The girls just wanted to sleep, and I didn’t feel so great myself, but unfortunately it was time for the lesson with Mrs. Kazinczy. We’d already received two messages, one from my parents and one from Krisztina, about where to meet. The four of us staggered into a taxi, and a few minutes later, we were at the New Academy of Music, a magnificent Art Nouveau building with majestic columns facing Franz Liszt Square and taking up almost half a block.

Mrs. Kazinczy met us in a large room on one of the upper floors. My parents and a beaming Krisztina were already there, sitting on chairs along one of the walls. There was an old piano in the room, which Krisztina signaled Sophia to go to.

Mrs. Kazinczy, to put it mildly, was high-strung. She looked like her husband had just left her for a younger woman but not before transferring all his assets to an offshore account. She subscribed to the strict Russian school of music teaching: impatient, demanding, and intolerant of anything she perceived as error. “No!” she yelled before Lulu had played a single note. “What — why you hold bow like that?” she demanded incredulously. As the girls began playing, she stopped Lulu after every two notes, pacing back and forth, gesticulating wildly. She found the fingering Lulu had been taught monstrous and ordered her to correct it, even though it was the day before the performance. She also kept turning to the piano to snap at Sophia, although her main sights were set on Lulu.

I had a bad feeling. I could tell that Lulu found Mrs. Kazinczy’s orders unreasonable, her reprimands unjust. The madder Lulu got, the more stiffly she played, and the less she was able to concentrate. Her phrasing deteriorated, followed by her intonation. Oh no, I thought, here it comes. Sure enough, at a certain point an irritated look came over Lulu, and suddenly she was no longer trying at all, no longer even listening. Meanwhile, Mrs. Kazinczy had worked herself into a frenzy. Her temples were bulging, and her voice got shriller. She kept saying things in Hungarian to Krisztina and getting alarmingly close to Lulu, talking in her face, poking her in the shoulder. At one moment of exasperation, Mrs. Kazinczy thwacked Lulu on her playing fingers with a pencil.

I saw the fury rising in Lulu. At home, she would have exploded immediately. But here, she struggled to hold it in, to keep playing. Mrs. Kazinczy wielded her pencil again. Two minutes later, in the middle of playing a passage, Lulu said she had to go to the bathroom. I got up quickly and went out with her into the hall, where after storming around a corner she burst into tears of rage.

“I won’t go back in there,” she said ferociously. “You can’t make me. That woman is crazy — I hate her. I hate her!”

I didn’t know what to do. Mrs. Kazinczy was Krisztina’s friend. My parents were still in the room. There were thirty more minutes left to the lesson, and everyone was waiting for Lulu to return.

I tried to reason with Lulu. I reminded her that Mrs. Kazinczy had said Lulu was incredibly talented, which is why she was demanding so much of her. (“I don’t care!”) I admitted that Mrs. Kazinczy was not good at communicating, but I said I thought she meant well and begged Lulu to give her another try. (“I won’t!”) When all else failed, I scolded Lulu. I said she had an obligation to Krisztina, who had gone out of her way to arrange the session, and to my parents, who would be horrified if she didn’t go back. “You’re not the only one involved, Lulu. You have to be strong and find a way to get through this. We all take a lot of things, Lulu — you can take this.”

She refused. I was mortified. Unjustified as Mrs. Kazinczy may have been, she was still a teacher, an authority figure, and one of first things Chinese people learn is that you must respect authority. No matter what, you don’t talk back to your parents, teachers, elders. In the end, I had to go back to the room alone, apologizing profusely and explaining (falsely) that Lulu was angry with me. I then made Sophia — who wasn’t crazy about Mrs. Kazinczy either and who wasn’t even a violinist — take the rest of the lesson, ostensibly getting tips about playing as a duo.

Back at the hotel, I yelled at Lulu, and afterward Jed and I got into an argument. He said that he didn’t blame Lulu for leaving and that it was probably better that she had. He pointed out that she’d just been through the Juilliard audition, that she was exhausted with jet lag, and that she’d been whacked by a total stranger. “Isn’t it a little strange for Mrs. Kazinczy to be trying to change Lulu’s fingering the day before the concert? I thought you weren’t supposed to do that,” he said. “Maybe you should try being a little more sympathetic to Lulu. I know what you’re trying to do, Amy. But if you don’t watch out, everything might backfire.”

Part of me knew that Jed was right. But I couldn’t think about that. I had to stay focused on the concert.The next day, I was very severe with both girls, shuttling back and forth between their practice rooms at the New Academy.

Unfortunately, Lulu’s outrage at Mrs. Kazinczy had only increased overnight. I could tell that she was replaying the episode in her head, getting more and more incensed and distracted. When I’d ask her to drill a passage, she’d suddenly burst out, “She didn’t know what she was talking about — the fingering she suggested was ridiculous! Did you notice that she kept contradicting herself?” Or: “I don’t think she understood Bartók at all; her interpretation was horrendous — who does she think she is?”

When I told her that she had to stop dwelling on Mrs. Kazinczy and wasting time, Lulu said, “You never take my side. And I don’t want to perform tonight. I don’t feel like it anymore. That woman wrecked everything. Just let Sophia perform alone.” We fought all afternoon, and I was at wit’s end.

In the end, I think Krisztina saved the day. When we arrived at the Old Music Academy, Krisztina rushed up to us, smiling and ebullient. She hugged the girls excitedly, gave them each a little gift, and said, “We are so very happy to have you. You are both so very talented”—she accented the second syllable. Shaking her head, Krisztina casually mentioned that Mrs. Kazinczy shouldn’t have tried to change Lulu’s fingering and that she must have forgotten the concert was the next day. “You are so talented,” she repeated to Lulu. “It’s going to be a wonderful performance!” Then she whisked them off — away from me — to a back room, where she ran through parts of the program with them.

Up until the very last second I didn’t know how things would go — and whether I’d have one or two daughters performing that night. But somehow, miraculously, Lulu pulled it out, and the concert ended up being a spectacular success. The Hungarians, a warm and generous people, gave the girls a standing ovation and three bows, and the director of the museum invited them to come back anytime. Afterward, we took the Pogánys, my parents, and Sy and Harriet, who had flown in just in time, out to a celebration dinner.

But after that trip, something was different. For Lulu, the experience with Mrs. Kazinczy was infuriating and outrageous, violating her sense of right and wrong. It soured her on the Chinese model — if being Chinese meant having to take it from the likes of Mrs. Kazinczy, then she didn’t want any part of it. She’d also tested what would happen if she simply refused to do what her teacher and mother told her to do, and the sky hadn’t fallen in. On the contrary, she’d won. Even my parents, despite everything they’d drilled into me, sympathized with Lulu.

For my part, I felt that something had come loose, like the unmooring of an anchor. I’d lost some control over Lulu. No Chinese daughter would ever act the way Lulu did. No Chinese mother would ever have allowed it to happen.