Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother

23 Pushkin

“Which one’s ours?” Jed asked.

It was August 2008, and Jed and I were in Rhode Island. For reasons mysterious to everyone, including myself, I had insisted that we get a second dog, and we were at the same breeder’s where we’d gotten Coco. Pacing around a rustic room with a wooden floor were three large, regal Samoyeds. Two of them, we learned, were the proud parents of the new litter; the third was the grandfather, worldly and magisterial at the venerable age of six. Scampering around the big dogs were four boisterous puppies, each an adorable yelping cottonball.

“Yours is the one over there,” the breeder said, “under the stairs.”

Turning around, Jed and I saw, standing in a different part of the room by itself, something that looked quite different from the other puppies. It was taller, leaner, less furry — and less cute. Its hind legs were two inches longer than its front legs, giving it an awkward tilt. Its eyes were narrow and very slanted; its ears, oddly protuberant. Its tail was longer and fuller than the others’, but maybe because it was too heavy, it didn’t curl up, but instead swung from side to side like a rat’s tail.

“Are you sure that’s a dog?” I asked dubiously. This wasn’t as preposterous a question as it may sound. If anything, the creature most resembled a baby lamb, and given that the breeders raised some farm animals on their property, one easily could have wandered in.

But the breeder was sure. She winked at us, and said, “You’ll see. She’ll be a great beauty. She’s got that great high Samoyed rear, just like her grandmother.”

We brought our new puppy home and named her Pushkin—“Push” for short — even though she was a girl. When our family and friends first met her, they felt sorry for us. As a puppy, Push hopped like a bunny and stumbled over her own feet. “Can you return her?” my mother asked at one point, as she watched Push bump into walls and chairs. “I know what the problem is — she’s blind,” it dawned on Jed one day, and he raced her to the vet, who concluded that Push’s eyesight was fine.

As Push grew bigger, she remained awkward, often tripping as she came down stairs. The trunk of her body was so long that she didn’t seem to have full control over her back half, so she moved like a Slinky. At the same time, she was strangely limber; to this day, she likes to sleep with her stomach plastered against a cold floor and all four limbs splayed out. It’s as if someone dropped her from the sky and she landed splat on the floor — in fact we call her “Splat” when we see her like that.

The breeder was right about one thing. Push was an ugly duckling. Within a year, she had transformed into a dog so breathtakingly magnificent that when we took walks cars constantly stopped short to marvel at her. She was bigger than Coco (who, due to the oddities of breeding, was actually Push’s grandniece), with snow-white fur and exotic cat’s eyes. Some dormant muscles had clearly developed because now her tail curled high up over her back like an enormous, lush plume.

But in terms of talent, Push stayed solidly in the lowest decile. Coco was not especially impressive, but compared to Push she was a genius. For some reason, Push — while even sweeter and gentler than Coco — couldn’t do things that normal dogs could. She couldn’t fetch and didn’t like running. She kept getting stuck in funny places — under the sink, in berry bushes, halfway in and halfway out of the bathtub — and needing to be extricated. At first, I denied that there was anything different about Pushkin, and I spent hours trying to teach her to do things, but all to no avail. Oddly enough, Push seemed to love music. Her favorite thing to do was to sit next to Sophia’s piano, singing (or in Jed’s view, howling) along as Sophia played.

Despite her shortcomings, the four of us adored Push, just as we did Coco. In fact, her failings were what made her so endearing. “Oh-h-h, poor thing! What a cutie,” we’d coo when she’d try to jump onto something and miss by a foot, and we’d rush to comfort her. Or we’d say, “Aw-w-w, just look at that. She can’t see the Frisbee! She’s so cu-u-ute.” Initially, Coco was wary of her new sibling; we saw her testing Push in cagey ways. Push, by contrast, had a more limited range of emotions; wariness and caginess were not among them. She was content to follow Coco around amiably, avoiding any moves that required agility.

As sweet as Push was, it made absolutely no sense for our family to have a second dog, and no one knew it better than me. The distribution of dog responsibility in our household was 90 % me, 10 % the other three. Every day, starting at six in the morning, I was the one who fed, ran, and cleaned up after them; I also took them to all their grooming and vet appointments. To make matters worse, my second book had just been published, and in addition to teaching a full course load and working with the girls on their music, I was constantly flying around the country giving lectures. I’d always find ways to compress trips to D.C., Chicago, or Miami into one day. More than once, I got up at 3:00 A.M., flew to California and gave a lunch talk, then took the redeye home. “What were you thinking?” friends would ask me. “With so much on your plate already, why on earth would you get a second dog?”

My friend Anne thought there was a conventional explanation. “All my friends,” she said, “get dogs the moment their kids become teenagers. They’re preparing for the empty nest. Dogs are substitutes for children.”

It’s funny that Anne would say that, because Chinese parenting is nothing like dog raising. In fact it’s kind of the opposite. For one thing, dog raising is social. When you meet other dog owners, you have lots to talk about. By contrast, Chinese parenting is incredibly lonely — at least if you’re trying to do it in the West, where you’re on your own. You have to go up against an entire value system — rooted in the Enlightenment, individual autonomy, child development theory, and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights — and there’s no one you can talk to honestly, not even people you like and deeply respect.

For example, when Sophia and Lulu were little, what I used to dread most was when other parents invited one of them over for a playdate. Why why why this terrible Western institution? I tried telling the truth once, explaining to another mother that Lulu had no free time because she had to practice violin. But the woman couldn’t absorb this. I had to resort to the kinds of excuses that Westerners find valid: eye appointments, physical therapy, community service. At a certain point, the other mother got a hurt look on her face and began treating me icily, as if I thought Lulu were too good for her daughter. It really was a clash of worldviews. After fending off one playdate invitation, I couldn’t believe it when another one would immediately come along. “How about Saturday?”—Saturday was the day before Lulu’s lesson with Miss Tanaka in New York—“or two Fridays from today?” From their point of view, Western mothers just couldn’t comprehend how Lulu could be busy every afternoon, for the whole year.

There’s another huge difference between dog raising and Chinese parenting. Dog raising is easy. It requires patience, love, and possibly an initial investment of training time. By contrast, Chinese parenting is one of the most difficult things I can think of. You have to be hated sometimes by someone you love and who hopefully loves you, and there’s just no letting up, no point at which it suddenly becomes easy. Just the opposite, Chinese parenting — at least if you’re trying to do it in America, where all odds are against you — is a never-ending uphill battle, requiring a 24-7 time commitment, resilience, and guile.You have to be able to swallow pride and change tactics at any moment. And you have to be creative.

Last year, for instance, I had some students over for an end-of-the-semester party, one of my favorite things to do. “You’re so nice to your students,” Sophia and Lulu are always saying. “They have no idea what you’re really like. They all think you’re nurturing and supportive.” The girls are actually right about that. I treat my law students (especially the ones with strict Asian parents) the exact opposite of the way I treat my kids.

On this occasion, the party was upstairs in our third-floor Ping-Pong room, which was also where Lulu practiced her violin. One of my students, named Ronan, found some practice notes I’d left for Lulu.

“What in the world—?” he said, reading the notes in disbelief. “Professor Chua, did you — did you write this?”

“Ronan, can you please put that down? And yes, I did write that,” I admitted staunchly, not seeing any alternative. “I leave instructions like that every day for my violinist daughter, to help her practice when I’m not here.”

But Ronan didn’t seem to be listening. “Oh, my god — there’s more,” he said, incredulous. And he was right. Lying around were dozens of instruction sheets, some typed, some handwritten, that I’d forgotten to hide. “I can’t believe it. These are so—weird.”

I didn’t think they were weird. But you can judge for yourself. Here are three unedited examples of the daily practice notes I wrote up for Lulu. Just ignore the nutty titles; I made those up to attract Lulu’s attention. By the way, in the second one, the “m.” means “measure”—so yes, I’m giving measure-by-measure instructions.

CHOW CHOW LeBOEUF Installation One.

Only 55 minutes!!

HELLO LULU!!! You are doing great. Light!! Light!!!! LIGHT!!!

APOLLO Mission: Keeping violin in the position that allows it to stay up by itself sans hands, even on hard parts.

15 minutes: SCALES. High, light fingers. LIGHT, ringing bow. 15 minutes: Schradieck: (1) Higher lighter fingers. (2) Hand position, so pinky always stands up and hovers. Do the whole thing with metronome once. Then DRILL hard sections, 25x each. Then do whole thing again.

15 minutes: Kreutzer octaves. Pick ONE new one. Do it slowly first — INTONATION — 2x.

CHALLENGE OF THE DAY:

10 minutes: Kreutzer #32. Work it through YOURSELF, with a metronome. SLOW. Light bows. If you can do this, you rock.

LOS BOBOS DI MCNAMARA — BRUCH CONCERTO

GOALS: (1) KEEP YOUR VIOLIN UP! Especially during chords! (2) articulation — focus on making the “little” notes clear and bright — use quicker, lighter fingers (standing up more) (3) shaping passages; dynamics — start with slower bow and get faster

DRILLS

PAGE 7

Opening measures: mm. 18 & 19:

a. Use ½ the bow pressure & faster bow on chords. Lower elbow. Keep violin still!

b. Drill little notes (da da dum) to make them clear — drop fingers more quickly and relax them more quickly

m. 21:

a. triplets on the string — 25x each!

b. make 8^th notes clearer — drill! RELAX fingers after tapping!

mm. 23-6: Again, ½ bow pressure on chords and clearer, faster fingers on short notes mm 27–30: IMPORTANT: This line is too heavy, and your violin drops! Super light chord. Clearer articulation. MORE the second time. m. 32: Drop fingers from higher and relax them quicker. Keep violin and head still on the run. m. 33: Faster bow, lighter! Circle off (up!)!

PAGE 8

m. 40: This chord is way too heavy! ½ bow pressure and high violin! Articulate short notes.

m. 44: This chord should still be light, even though more sound — use a faster bow!

mm 44-5 — soft hand, soft wrist

mm 48–49 — make this more lively! Faster, lighter fingers! Stand them up but relax them!

m. 52 — articulation!

mm. 54–58 — each one should get LONGER BOWS! More exciting — grow!

m. 78 — higher fingers! Don’t push — keep fingers light!

m. 82 — really crescendo, start slow then faster bow! Then drop quieter and crescendo huge!

FIRST run is TAYLOR SWIFT! SECOND run is LADY GAGA!! THIRD run is BEYONCE!!

m. 87 — more direction, follow the phrase (louder going up, quieter going down)

PAGE 9:

mm. 115-6 — start with less bow and lots of bow on the high A. Direction!

m. 131 get quiet!

mm.136–145 — really SHAPE this (louder and more bow when you go UP, quieter coming

down) Drill out-of-tune notes, 50x each

mm. 146–159 tranquillo but GOOD articulation

mm. 156–158 — keep crescendoing

m. 160–161 — articulation

PAGE 10

m. 180: Practice entrance. Direction! Start w/ slower bow, then get faster, most on high B!

m. 181-83: drill clear articulation — quick, light fingers!

m. 185: ½ the bow speed on chords — lighter! Clearer little notes (da-da-dum) — quicker finger

m. 193–195 — DRILL shifts — exact position! 50x

m. 194: Start less, then really crescendo!

m. 200 — memorize correct notes — drill 30x

m. 202 — practice chords — exact hand position — intonation!

m. 204 use very soft hand and relaxed wrist!

SPUNKY PICKS — ALOHA STREAM 7 MENDEL SSOHN!

Perpetual Mobile

Page 2

Opening:

*On crescendo, energy goes up!

*Also, it goes up 3 times, make them different — maybe LESS on last one

* Last measure of line 2 is DIFFERENT HARMONY — so bring that out

Line 3: Bring out melody notes, less on repeated notes. Then “rolling down”

Line 4: Make sure to play important notes with MUCH LONGER BOW

Line 5: Bring out WEIRD notes

Line 6: So many As! Boring — so make them quieter and bring out the OTHER notes.

Line 7: Huge long 2-octave scale — start LESS and make a huge crescendo!!

Page 3

Line 5: At the f, use almost the entire bow — make it exciting! — then diminuendo to tiny

Line 6–7: Follow pattern — less, then suddenly EXPLOSION at f!

Line 8–9: same thing — quiet and then sudden EXPLOSION at f!

Line 10: Bring out TOP 2 notes, bottom note less important.

Mendelssohn

Opening:

Andante — a bit faster

Make this much more relaxed, intimate, like you are ALL ALONE WITH SLEEPING DOGS.

Same thing happens 2x, then BRING OUT the 3^rd time — open up a bit!

Line 4: Now, a little more worried, tense. MAYBE ONE SLEEPING DOG SEEMS SICK?

Line 5: MUCH MORE ENERGY ON HIGHEST note! The gradually bring it back to gentle, same low energy, relaxed like beginning.

MIDDLE SECTION:

100 % different character — SCARY!

Use very FAST BOW! Much more energy! WHOLE bow in some parts.

Change bow speed!!

Last 3 lines, going up little by little So start with less bow — and INCREASE by 1.5 inch each time.

Line -2. P, then forte! Bring out nervous character!

Page 11, line 1: More intense! Crescendo to high point!!

I have hundreds, maybe thousands of these. They have a long history. Even when the girls were little, because I tended to be too harsh in person, I’d leave little notes for them everywhere — on their pillows, in their lunch boxes, on their music scores — saying things like, “Mommy has a bad temper, but Mommy loves you!” or, “You are Mommy’s pride and joy!”

With dogs, you don’t have to do anything like this. And if you did, they probably couldn’t understand it anyway, especially not Pushkin.

My dogs can’t do anything — and what a relief. I don’t make any demands of them, and I don’t try to shape them or their future. For the most part, I trust them to make the right choices for themselves. I always look forward to seeing them, and I love just watching them sleep. What a great relationship.

24 Rebellion

The Chinese virtuous circle didn’t work with Lulu. I just couldn’t understand it. Everything seemed to be going exactly according to plan. At considerable cost — but nothing I wasn’t prepared to pay — Lulu succeeded in all the ways I’d always dreamed she would. After months of grueling preparation and the usual fights, threats, and yelling and screaming at home, Lulu auditioned for and won the position of concertmaster of a prestigious youth orchestra, even though she was only twelve and much younger than most of the other musicians. She received a statewide “prodigy” award and made the newspapers. She got straight As and won her school’s top French and Latin recitation prizes. But instead of her success producing confidence, gratitude toward parents, and the desire to work harder, the opposite happened. Lulu started rebelling: not just against practicing, but against everything I’d ever stood for.

Looking back, I think things started to turn when Lulu was in sixth grade — I just didn’t realize it. One of the things Lulu hated most was my insistence on pulling her out of school to get in some extra violin practicing. I felt they wasted a lot of time at Lulu’s school, so several times a week I’d write a note to her teacher explaining that she had a recital or an audition coming up and requesting permission to take her out of school during lunch period or gym class. Sometimes I’d be able to cobble together a two-hour block by combining lunch, two recesses, and, say, music class, where they’d be playing cowbells, or art class, where they’d be decorating booths for the Halloween Fair. I could see that Lulu dreaded the sight of me every time I appeared at her school, and her classmates always looked at me oddly, but she was only eleven then, and I could still impose my will on her. And I’m sure it was because of the extra practicing that Lulu won all those music honors.

It wasn’t easy on my end either. I’d be having office hours with my students, then suddenly have to excuse myself for a “meeting.” I’d race to Lulu’s school to pick her up, race to Kiwon’s apartment to drop her off, then race back to my office, where there would be a line of students waiting for me. Half an hour later, I’d have to excuse myself again to return Lulu to school, then I’d screech back to my own office for another three hours of meetings. The reason I took Lulu to Kiwon’s rather than supervise her practicing myself was that I didn’t think she’d resist Kiwon, and certainly not fight with her. After all, Kiwon wasn’t family.

One afternoon, just fifteen minutes after I’d dropped Lulu off, I got a call from Kiwon. She sounded flustered and frustrated. “Lulu doesn’t want to play,” she said. “Maybe you’d better come pick her up.” When I got there, I apologized profusely to Kiwon, mumbling something about Lulu being tired because she hadn’t gotten enough sleep. But it turned out that Lulu hadn’t just refused to play. She’d been rude to Kiwon, talking back, challenging her advice. I was mortified and disciplined Lulu severely at home.

But things got worse as time went on. Whenever I arrived at Lulu’s school to pick her up, her face would darken. She’d turn her back on me and say she didn’t want to leave. When I finally got her to Kiwon’s place, she’d sometimes refuse to get out of the car. If somehow I succeeded in getting her up to Kiwon’s apartment — by then there might be only twenty minutes left — she’d either refuse to play or purposely play badly, out of tune or with no emotion. She’d also deliberately provoke Kiwon, slowly infuriating her, then maddeningly asking, “What’s wrong? Are you okay?”

Once, in passing, Kiwon let slip that her boyfriend, Aaron, after witnessing a practice session, had said, “If I had a daughter I’d never allow her to act like that — to be so disrespectful.”

That was a slap. Aaron, who’d always adored Lulu, was as easygoing as they come. He was raised in the most liberal and lenient of Western households, where the kids didn’t get in trouble for skipping school and did pretty much anything they wanted. And yet he was criticizing my parenting, my daughter’s behavior — and he was totally right.

Around the same time, Lulu started talking back to me and openly disobeying me in front of my parents when they visited. This might not sound like a big deal to Westerners, but in our household it was like desecrating a temple. In fact, it was so out of the realm of the acceptable that no one knew what to do. My father pulled me aside and privately urged me to let Lulu give up the violin. My mother, who was close to Lulu (they were e-mail pen pals), told me flat out, “You have to stop being so stubborn, Amy.You’re too strict with Lulu — too extreme.You’re going to regret it.”

“Why are you turning on me now?” I shot back. “This is how you raised me.”

“You can’t do what Daddy and I did,” my mother replied. “Things are different now. Lulu’s not you — and she’s not Sophia. She has a different personality, and you can’t force her.”

“I’m sticking to the Chinese way,” I said. “It works better. I don’t care if nobody supports me.You’ve been brainwashed by your Western friends.”

My mother just shook her head. “I’m telling you, I’m worried about Lulu,” she said. “There’s something wrong in her eyes.” This hurt me more than anything.

Instead of a virtuous circle, we were in a vicious spiral downward. Lulu turned thirteen and grew more alienated and resentful. She wore a constant apathetic look on her face, and every other word out of her mouth was “No” or “I don’t care.” She rejected my vision of a valuable life. “Why can’t I hang out with my friends like everyone else does?” she’d demand. “Why are you so against shopping malls? Why can’t I have sleepovers? Why does every second of my day have to be filled up with work?”

“You’re concertmaster, Lulu,” I’d reply. “It’s a great honor they’ve given you, and you have a huge responsibility. The entire orchestra is counting on you.”

Lulu would respond, “Why am I in this family?”

The odd thing was that Lulu actually loved orchestra. She had lots of friends, she liked being a leader, and she had great chemistry with the conductor, Mr. Brooks. I’d see her joking around and laughing spiritedly at rehearsals — maybe because rehearsal was time away from me.

Meanwhile, the disagreements between Jed and me were growing. Privately, he’d tell me furiously to show more restraint or to stop making crazy overgeneralizations about “Westerners” and “Chinese people.” “I know you think you do people a huge favor by criticizing them, so that they can improve themselves,” he’d say, “but have you ever considered that you just make people feel bad?” His biggest criticism was “Why do you insist on saying such glowing things about Sophia in front of Lulu all the time? How do you think that makes Lulu feel? Can’t you see what’s happening?”

“I refuse to cheat Sophia out of praise she deserves, just to ‘protect Lulu’s feelings,’” I’d say, infusing the last three words with as much sarcasm as I could muster. “This way, Lulu knows I think she’s every bit as good as Sophia. She doesn’t need affirmative action.”

But apart from intervening occasionally to defuse blowups, Jed always took my side in front of the girls. From the beginning, we’d had a united-front strategy, and despite his misgivings, Jed didn’t go back on it. Instead, he tried his best to bring balance to the family, making us go on family biking trips, teaching the girls how to play poker and pool, reading them science fiction, Shakespeare, and Dickens.

Then Lulu did something else unimaginable: She went public with her insurgency. As Lulu well knew, Chinese parenting in the West is an inherently closet practice. If it comes out that you push your kids against their will, or want them to do better than other kids, or god forbid ban sleepovers, other parents will heap opprobrium on you, and your children will pay the price. As a result, immigrant parents learn to conceal things. They learn to look jovial in public and pat their kids on the back and say things like, “Good try, buddy!” and “Go team spirit!” No one wants to be a pariah.

That’s why Lulu’s maneuver was so smart. She’d argue loudly with me on the street, at a restaurant, or in stores, and strangers would turn their heads to stare when they heard her say things like, “Leave me alone! I don’t like you. Go away.” When friends were over for dinner and asked her how her violin playing was going, she’d say, “Oh, I have to practice all the time. My mom makes me. I don’t have a choice.” Once she screamed so loudly in a parking lot — she was enraged at something I’d said and refused to get out of the car — that she attracted the attention of a policeman, who came over to see “what the problem was.”

Oddly enough, school remained an inviolable bastion — Lulu left me that much. When Western kids rebel, their grades typically suffer, and occasionally they even flunk out. By contrast, as a half-Chinese rebel, Lulu continued to be a straight-A student, liked by all her teachers and repeatedly described in report cards as generous, kind, and helpful to other students. “Lulu is a joy,” one of her teachers wrote. “She is perceptive and compassionate, a favorite among her classmates.”

But Lulu saw it differently. “I have no friends. No one likes me,” she announced one day.

“Lulu, why do you say that?” I asked anxiously. “Everyone likes you.You’re so funny and pretty.”

“I’m ugly,” Lulu retorted. “And you don’t know anything. How can I have any friends? You won’t let me do anything. I can’t go anywhere. It’s all your fault.You’re a freak.”

Lulu refused to help run the dogs. She refused to take out the garbage. It was glaringly unfair for Sophia to do chores and not Lulu. But how do you physically make someone five feet tall do something they don’t want to do? This problem is not supposed to come up in Chinese households, and I had no answer. So I did the only thing I knew: I fought fire with fire. I gave not one inch. I called her a disgrace as a daughter, to which Lulu replied, “I know, I know. You’ve told me.” I told her she ate too much. (“Stop it. You’re diseased.”) I compared her to Amy Jiang, Amy Wang, Amy Liu, and Harvard Wong — all first-generation Asian kids — none of whom ever talked back to their parents. I asked her what I had done wrong. Had I not been strict enough? Given her too much? Allowed her to mix with bad-influence kids? (“Don’t you dare insult my friends.”) I told her I was thinking of adopting a third child from China, one who would practice when I told her to, and maybe even play the cello in addition to the violin and piano.

“When you’re eighteen,” I would shout as she stalked away from me up the stairs, “I’ll let you make all the mistakes you want. But until then, I will not give up on you.”

“I want you to give up on me!” Lulu yelled back more than once.

When it came to stamina, Lulu and I were evenly matched. But I had an advantage. I was the parent. I had the car keys, the bank account, the right not to sign permission slips. And that was all under U.S. law.

“I need a haircut,” Lulu said one day.

I replied, “After you spoke to me so rudely and refused to play the Mendelssohn musically, you expect me to get in the car now and drive you where you want?”

“Why do I have to bargain for everything?” Lulu asked bitterly.

That night, we had another big argument, and Lulu locked herself in her room. She refused to come out and wouldn’t answer when I tried to talk to her through the door. Much later, from my study, I heard the click of her door unlocking. I went to see her and found her sitting calmly on her bed.

“I think I’m going to go to sleep now,” she said in a normal voice. “I’ve finished all my homework.”

But I wasn’t listening. I was staring at her.

Lulu had taken a pair of scissors and cut her own hair. On one side, it hung unevenly to about her chin. On the other, it was chopped off above the ear in an ugly, jagged line.

My heart skipped a beat. I almost exploded at her, but something — I think it was fear — made me hold my tongue.

A moment passed.

“Lulu—” I began.

“I like short hair,” she interrupted.

I glanced away. I couldn’t stand to look at her. Lulu had always had hair that everyone envied: wavy, brown-black — a Chinese-Jewish special. Part of me wanted to scream hysterically at Lulu and throw something at her. Another part of me wanted to wrap my arms around her and cry uncontrollably.

Instead, I said calmly, “I’ll make an appointment with a hair salon first thing in the morning. We’ll find someone to fix it.”

“Okay.” Lulu shrugged.

Later, Jed said to me, “Something has to change, Amy. We have a serious problem.”

For the second time that night, I felt like crying uncontrollably. But instead, I rolled my eyes. “It’s not a big deal, Jed,” I said. “Don’t create a problem where there isn’t one. I can handle this.”

25 Darkness

When I was growing up, one of my favorite things was to play with my third sister, Katrin. Maybe because she was seven years younger than me, there was no rivalry or conflict. She was also preposterously cute. With her shiny black eyes, her shiny bowl haircut, and her rosebud lips, she was constantly attracting the attention of strangers, and once won a JCPenney photo contest that she hadn’t even entered. Because my mother was often busy with my youngest sister, Cindy, my second sister, Michelle, and I took turns taking care of Katrin.

I have great memories from those days. I was bossy and confident, and Katrin idolized her big sister, so it was a perfect fit. I made up games and stories, and taught her how to play jacks and Chinese hopscotch and how to jump rope double Dutch. We played restaurant; I was the chef and the waiter, and she was the customer. We played school; I was the teacher, and she, along with five stuffed animals, was my student (Katrin excelled at my courses). I held McDonald’s carnivals to raise money for muscular dystrophy; she manned the booths and collected money.

Thirty-five years later, Katrin and I were still close. The two of us were the most alike of the four sisters, at least on the surface. She and I both had two Harvard degrees (actually, she had three, because of her M.D./Ph.D.), we both married Jewish men, we both went into academics like our father, and we both had two children.

A few months before Lulu chopped off her hair, I got a call from Katrin, who taught and ran a lab out at Stanford. It was the worst call I have ever received in my life.

She was sobbing. She told me that she had been diagnosed with a rare, almost certainly fatal leukemia.

Impossible, I thought confusedly. Leukemia striking my family — my lucky family — for a second time?

But it was true. Katrin had been feeling exhausted, nauseated, and short of breath for several months. When she finally saw a doctor, the results of the blood tests were unmistakable. In a cruel coincidence, the leukemia she had was caused by the very kind of cell mutation she was studying in her lab.

“I’m probably not going to live very long,” she said, crying. “What’s going to happen to Jake? And Ella won’t even know me.” Katrin’s son was ten, her daughter barely one. “You have to make sure she knows who I was.You have to promise me, Amy. I better get some pictures—” And she broke off.

I was in shock. I just couldn’t believe it. An image of Katrin at ten flashed into my head, and it was impossible to put that together with the word leukemia. How could this be happening to Katrin—Katrin? And my parents! How could they take this — it would kill them.

“Exactly what did the doctors say, Katrin?” I heard myself asking in a strangely confident voice. I had snapped into my big-sister, can-do, invulnerable mode.

But Katrin didn’t answer. She said she had to get off the phone and would call me again.

Ten minutes later, I got an e-mail from her. It said: “Amy, it’s really really bad. Sorry! I’ll need chemotherapy then bone marrow transplant if possible, then more chemo, and low chance of survival.”

Being a scientist, she of course was right.

26 Rebellion, Part 2

I took Lulu to a salon the day after she cut her hair. We didn’t speak much in the car. I was tense and had a lot on my mind.

“What happened?” the hairdresser asked.

“She cut it,” I explained. I had nothing to hide. “Is there anything you can do to make it look better while it grows out?”

“Wow — you did a real job on yourself, honey,” the woman said to Lulu, eyeing her curiously. “What made you do this?”

“Oh, it was an act of adolescent self-destruction aimed primarily at my mother,” I thought Lulu might say. She certainly had the vocabulary and the psychological self-awareness to do so.

But instead, Lulu said in a pleasant voice, “I was trying to layer it. But I really messed up.”

Later, back home, I said, “Lulu, you know that Mommy loves you, and everything I do, I do for you, for your future.”

My own voice sounded artificial to me, and Lulu must have thought so too, because her response was, “That’s great,” in a flat, apathetic tone.

Jed’s fiftieth birthday came up. I organized a huge surprise party, inviting old friends from his childhood and every part of his life. I asked everyone to bring a funny story about Jed. Weeks in advance, I asked Sophia and Lulu each to write her own toast.

“It can’t just be tossed off,” I ordered. “It has to be meaningful. And it can’t be clichéd.”

Sophia got right on it. As usual, she didn’t consult me or ask my advice on a single word. By contrast, Lulu said, “I don’t want to give a toast.”

“You have to give a toast,” I replied.

“No one my age gives toasts,” Lulu said.

“That’s because they’re from bad families,” I retorted.

“Do you know how crazy you sound?” Lulu asked. “They’re not from ‘bad’ families. What’s a ‘bad’ family?”

“Lulu, you are so ungrateful. When I was your age, I worked nonstop. I built a treehouse for my sisters because my father asked me to. I obeyed everything he said, and that’s why I know how to use a chainsaw. I also built a hummingbird house. I was a newspaper carrier for the El Cerrito Journal and had to wear a huge fifty-pound pouch over my head stuffed with papers and walk five miles. And look at you — you’ve been given every opportunity, every privilege. You’ve never had to wear imitation Adidas with four stripes instead of three. And you can’t even do this one tiny thing for Daddy. It’s disgusting.”

“I don’t want to give a toast,” was Lulu’s response.

I pulled out the big guns. I threatened everything I could think of. I bribed her. I tried to inspire her. I tried to shame her. I offered to help her write it. I jacked up the stakes and gave her an ultimatum, knowing it was a pivotal battle.

When the party came, Sophia delivered a minimasterpiece. At sixteen, standing 5’ 8” in her heels, she had become a stunning girl with a sly wit. In her toast, she captured her father perfectly, gently poking fun but ultimately lionizing him. Afterward, my friend Alexis came up to me. “Sophia is just unbelievable.”

I nodded. “She gave a great toast.”

“Absolutely. . but that’s not what I meant,” said Alexis. “I don’t know if people really get Sophia. She’s totally her own person. Yet she always manages to do your family proud. And that Lulu is just adorable.”

I hadn’t found Lulu adorable at all. During Sophia’s toast, Lulu stood next to her sister, smiling affably. But she had written nothing, and she refused to say a single word.

I had lost. It was the first time. Through all the turbulence and warfare in our household, I’d never lost before, at least not on something important.

This act of defiance and disrespect infuriated me. My anger simmered for a while, then I unleashed my full wrath. “You’ve dishonored this family — and yourself,” I said to Lulu. “You’re going to have to live with your mistake for the rest of your life.”

Lulu snapped back, “You’re a show-off. It’s all about you. You already have one daughter who does everything you want. Why do you need me?”

There was now a wall between us. In the old days, we’d fight ferociously but always make up. We’d end up snuggling in her bed or mine, hugging each other, giggling as we imitated ourselves arguing. I’d say things totally inappropriate for a parent, like “I’m going to be dead soon” or “I can’t believe you love me so much it hurts.” And Lulu would say, “Mommy! You are so weird!” but smile despite herself. Now Lulu stopped coming to my room at night. She directed her anger at not just me but also Jed and Sophia, and spent more and more time holed up in her room.

Don’t think I didn’t try to win Lulu back. When I wasn’t furious or fighting with her, I’d do everything I could. Once I said, “Hey Lulu! Let’s change our lives and do something totally different and fun — let’s have a garage sale.” And we did (net earnings $241.35), and it was fun, but it didn’t change our lives. Another time, I suggested she try a lesson on the electric violin. She did, and liked it, but when I tried to book a second lesson, she told me it was stupid and to stop. Before long we’d be at it again, locked in hostility.

On the other hand, for two people who were constantly at each other’s throats, Lulu and I spent a lot of time together, although I wouldn’t exactly call it quality time. This was our usual weekend drill:

Saturday: 1 hour drive (at 8:00 A.M.) to Norwalk, CT

3 hour orchestra practice

1 hour drive back to New Haven

Homework

1-2 hours violin practice

1 hour fun family activity (optional)

Sunday: 1–2 hours violin practice

2 hour drive to New York City

1 hour lesson with Miss Tanaka

2 hour drive back to New Haven

Homework

In retrospect, it was pretty miserable. But there was a flip side that made it all worthwhile. The thing is, Lulu hated the violin — except when she loved it. Lulu once said to me, “When I play Bach, I feel like I’m time traveling; I could be in the eighteenth century.” She told me that she loved how music transcended history. At one of Miss Tanaka’s biannual recitals, I remember Lulu mesmerizing the audience with Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto. Afterward, Miss Tanaka said to me, “Lulu’s different from the others. She really feels the music and understands it.You can tell she loves the violin.”

Part of me felt as if we had pulled the wool over Miss Tanaka’s eyes. But another part of me was filled with inspiration and new resolve.

Lulu’s Bat Mitzvah approached. Even though I’m not Jewish and the Bat Mitzvah was Jed’s terrain, Lulu and I went to battle here too. I wanted her to play the violin at her Bat Mitzvah. I had in mind Joseph Achron’s “Hebrew Melody,” a beautiful, prayerful piece that Lulu’s old friend Lexie had told us about. Jed approved; Lulu didn’t.

“Play violin? At my Bat Mitzvah? That’s ridiculous! I refuse,” Lulu said, incredulous. “It’s completely inappropriate. Do you even know what Bat Mitzvah means? It’s not a recital.” Then she added, “I just want to have a big party, and get lots of presents.”

This was said to provoke and enrage me. Lulu had heard me railing for years against spoiled rich kids whose parents spend millions of dollars on their Bat Mitzvah parties, cotillions, or sweet sixteens. The truth is that Lulu has a strong Jewish identity. Unlike Sophia (or for that matter, Jed), Lulu had always insisted on observing Passover rules and fasting on Yom Kippur. For her, even more than for Sophia, the Bat Mitzvah was an important event in her life, and she threw herself with a passion into learning her Hebrew Torah and haftarah portions.

I wouldn’t take the bait. “If you don’t play the violin,” I said calmly, “then Daddy and I won’t throw you a party. We can just have a small ceremony — it’s the ritual that’s important, after all.”

“You have no right!” Lulu said furiously. “That’s so unfair. You didn’t make Sophia play the piano at her Bat Mitzvah.”

“It’s good for you to do something that Sophia didn’t,” I said.

“You’re not even Jewish,” Lulu retorted. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. This has nothing to do with you.”

Six weeks before the date, I sent out Lulu’s invitations. But I warned her, “If you don’t play the ‘Hebrew Melody,’ I’ll cancel the party.”

“You can’t do that,” Lulu said scornfully.

“Why don’t you try me, Lulu?” I dared her. “See if I’ll do it or not.”

I honestly didn’t know who’d win this one. It was a high-risk maneuver too, because I didn’t have an exit strategy if I lost.

27 Katrin

The news about Katrin’s cancer was unbearable for my parents. Two of the strongest people I know, they simply crumpled in grief. My mother cried all the time and wouldn’t leave her house or respond to calls from friends. She wouldn’t even talk to Sophia and Lulu on the phone. My father kept calling me, his voice anguished, asking me — over and over — if there was any hope.

For treatment, Katrin chose the Dana-Farber/Harvard Cancer Center in Boston. We’d learned that it was one of the best bone marrow transplant facilities in the country. Harvard was also where Katrin and her husband, Or, had studied and trained, and she still knew people there.

Everything happened so fast. Just three days after getting her diagnosis, Katrin and Or locked up their house at Stanford and moved their entire household to Boston (Katrin refused even to consider leaving her children behind in California with their grandparents). With the help of our friends Jordan and Alexis, we found them a house to rent in Boston, a school for Jake, and day care for Ella.

Katrin’s leukemia was so aggressive that the doctors at Dana-Farber told her she had to go straight to a bone marrow transplant. No other route offered any chance of survival. But for the transplant to be possible, Katrin had to overcome two huge hurdles. First, she had to undergo intensive chemotherapy and pray that her leukemia would go into remission. Second, if it did, she had to get lucky and find a donor match. For each of these hurdles, the chances of success weren’t great. For both to succeed, the odds were terrifying. And even if all that worked out, the chances of surviving the bone marrow transplant were even worse.

Katrin had two days in Boston before she checked into the hospital. I was there when she said good-bye to her children. She’d insisted on doing the laundry — two loads — and she’d laid out Jake’s clothes for the next day. I watched in paralyzed incredulity as she carefully folded her son’s shirts and smoothed her daughter’s bibs and onesies. “I love doing laundry,” she said to me. Before she left the house, she gave me all her jewelry for safekeeping. “In case I don’t make it back,” she said.

Or and I drove Katrin to the hospital. While we were waiting to fill out forms, she kept joking around—“Get me a good wig, Amy. I’ve always wanted nice hair”—and apologizing for taking up so much of my time. When we finally got to her hospital room — on the other side of a curtain was a deathly-looking elderly woman who’d obviously been through some chemotherapy — the first thing Katrin did was put up pictures of her family. There was a close-up of Ella, one of Jake at age three, and one of the four of them beaming on a tennis court. Although she looked distracted now and then, Katrin seemed completely calm and deliberate.

By contrast, when two medical interns — one was Asian, the other Nigerian — came to introduce themselves to Katrin, I was overwhelmed with indignation and rage. It was as if they were playing doctor. They had no answers to any of our questions, they twice referred to the wrong kind of leukemia, and Katrin ended up having to explain to them the protocol they needed to follow that night. All I could think was, Students? My sister’s life is in the hands of medical students?

But Katrin’s reaction was totally different. “I can’t believe that the last time I was in this building, I was one of them,” she said thoughtfully after the interns left, just a hint of sadness in her voice. “Or and I had just met.”

The initial few weeks of chemo went smoothly. As we’d seen with Florence, the effects of chemo are cumulative, and in the first several days Katrin said she felt terrific — in fact, more energetic than she’d felt in months because they were giving her regular blood transfusions to counter her anemia. She spent her time writing scientific papers (one of which was published by Cell while she was in the hospital), supervising her lab at Stanford long-distance, and buying books, toys, and winter clothes for Jake and Ella over the Internet.

Even after Katrin started feeling the effects of the chemo, she never complained, not about the Hickman line inserted into her chest that carried chemical toxins straight from a drip to her major veins (“Not bad, but I still can’t look at it”); or the shivering fevers she’d suddenly get; or the hundreds of injections, pills, and needle pricks she had to endure. All the while, Katrin sent me funny e-mails that sometimes made me laugh aloud. “Yay!” she wrote once. “Starting to feel SICK. Chemo is working. . all according to plan.” And another time: “I am looking forward to the phlebotomist visiting me this a.m. This is what I am reduced to.” The phlebotomist was the person who drew her blood and told her what her blood counts were. And: “Able to drink clear fluids again. Going to try chicken broth.Yum.”

I came to realize that when I didn’t hear back from Katrin — when she didn’t answer my calls or return my e-mails — she was either violently ill, swollen up with hives because of an allergic reaction to a platelet transfusion (something that happened regularly), or sedated with painkillers to blunt some horrible new affliction. Her updates, though, were always light-hearted. To my daily “How was last night?” e-mails, she’d respond, “You don’t want to know,” “Not too bad but not great at all,” or “Alas, another fever.”

I also realized something else: Katrin was determined to live for the sake of her children. Growing up, she’d always been the most focused of the four sisters, the one with the most concentration. Now she devoted every bit of her intellect and creativity to the task of battling her leukemia. Trained as a doctor, she was completely on top of her own disease, double-checking dosages, reviewing her cytogenetic reports, researching clinical trials on the Internet. She loved her doctors — she was medically sophisticated enough to appreciate their experience, acuity, and good judgment — and they loved her. So did all the nurses and young interns. Once, an M.D./Ph.D. student doing a rotation recognized her name — Dr. Katrin Chua of Stanford, author of two papers published in the prestigious scientific journal Nature! — and asked her in awe for some professional advice. Meanwhile, to stay in shape, Katrin forced herself to walk around for twenty minutes twice a day, wheeling around the IV stand she was hooked up to.

I was in Boston a lot during the fall and winter of 2008. Every weekend, our whole family would go up — sometimes we’d make the two-hour drive to Boston immediately after Lulu and I got back from our four-hour trip to Miss Tanaka. Katrin didn’t care at all about having visitors herself — and after the chemo killed off her immune system, visitors were discouraged — but she was worried about Jake and Ella, and it made her happy when we spent time with them. Sophia adored her baby cousin Ella, and Lulu and Jake were best friends. They had similar personalities and looked so much alike, people often thought they were siblings.

Of course, we were all holding our breath for one thing: to see whether Katrin made it into remission. On Day 20, they took the critical biopsy. Another week passed before we got the results. They weren’t good — not at all. Katrin had lost her hair, her skin was peeling, and she had every conceivable gastroenterological complication, but she was not in remission. Her doctor told her she’d need another round of chemo. “It’s not the end of the world,” he said, trying to sound upbeat. But we’d done our research, and we all knew that if the next round didn’t work, the odds of Katrin having a successful transplant were effectively zero. It was her last chance.

28 The Sack of Rice

I came home from work one evening to find a carpet of raw rice on the kitchen floor. I was tired and tense. I’d just taught, then met with students for four hours, and I was thinking about driving to Boston after dinner. A big burlap sack lay in shreds, there were rags and plastic bags all over, and Coco and Pushkin were barking up a storm outside. I knew exactly what had happened.

At that moment Sophia came into the kitchen with a broom, a distraught look on her face.

I exploded at her. “Sophia, you did it again! You left the pantry door open, didn’t you? How many times have I told you the dogs would get into the rice? The entire fifty-pound bag is gone — the dogs are probably going to die now.You never listen. You always say, ‘Oh I’m so sorry, I’ll never do that again — I’m so terrible — kill me now,’ but you never change. The only thing you care about is staying out of trouble. You have no concern for anyone else. I’m sick of you not listening — sick of it!”

Jed has always accused me of a tendency to use disproportionate force, attaching huge moral opprobrium to the smallest of oversights. But Sophia’s strategy was usually just to take it and wait for the tempest to pass.

This time, however, Sophia exploded back. “Mommy! I’ll clean it up, okay? You’re acting like I just robbed a bank. Do you know what a good daughter I am? Everyone else I know parties all the time, and they drink and do drugs. And do you know what I do? Every day I run straight home from school. I run. Do you know how weird that is? I suddenly thought the other day, ‘Why am I doing this? Why am I running home?’ To practice more piano! You’re always talking about gratitude, but you should be grateful to me. Don’t take out your frustrations on me just because you can’t control Lulu.”

Sophia was completely right. She’d made me proud and my life so easy for sixteen years. But sometimes when I know I’m wrong and dislike myself, something inside me hardens and pushes me to go even further. So I said, “I never asked you to run home — that’s stupid. You must look ridiculous. And if you want to do drugs, go ahead. Maybe you can meet a nice guy in Rehab.”

“The dynamic in this household is ridiculous,” Sophia protested. “I do all the work, and I do everything you say, and I make one mistake and you scream at me. Lulu doesn’t do anything you say. She talks back to you and throws things.You bribe her with presents. What kind of ‘Chinese mother’ are you?”

Sophia really nailed that one. This might be a good time to raise an important point about Chinese parenting and birth order. Or maybe just birth order. I have a student named Stephanie, who recently told me a funny story. An eldest child and the daughter of Korean immigrants, Stephanie told me that when she was in high school (straight As, math whiz, concert pianist), her mother used to threaten her, “If you don’t do X, I won’t take you to school.” And this prospect would strike terror in Stephanie’s heart — miss school! So she would do whatever her mother asked, desperately hoping she wasn’t too late. By contrast, when her mother threatened Stephanie’s younger sister with the same thing, her sister responded, “Awesome. I’d love to stay home. I hate school.”

There are lots of exceptions of course, but this pattern — model first kid, rebellious second — is definitely one I’ve noticed in many families, especially immigrant families. I just thought I could beat it in Lulu’s case through sheer will and hard work.

“As you know, Sophia, I’m having trouble with Lulu,” I conceded. “What worked with you isn’t working with her. It’s a mess.”

“Oh. . don’t worry, Ma,” Sophia said, her voice suddenly kind. “It’s just a stage. It’s awful to be thirteen — I was miserable. But things will get better.”

I hadn’t even known that Sophia was miserable at thirteen. Come to think of it, my mother hadn’t known I was miserable at thirteen either. Like most Asian immigrant households, we didn’t have heart-to-heart “talks” in my family. My mother never told me about adolescence and especially not about the gross seven-letter word that starts with p-u and ends withy and is what happens to adolescents. We absolutely never talked about the Facts of Life — just trying to imagine that conversation retroactively sends shivers up my spine.

“Sophia,” I said, “you’re just like I was in my family: the oldest, the one that everyone counts on and no one has to worry about. It’s an honor to play that role. The problem is that Western culture doesn’t see it that way. In Disney movies, the ‘good daughter’ always has to have a breakdown and realize that life is not all about following rules and winning prizes, and then take off her clothes and run into the ocean or something like that. But that’s just Disney’s way of appealing to all the people who never win any prizes. Winning prizes gives you opportunities, and that’s freedom — not running into the ocean.”

I was deeply moved by my oration. All the same, I felt a pang. An image of Sophia racing home from school, arms full of books, flashed into my head, and I almost couldn’t take it. “Give me the broom,” I said. “You need time to practice piano. I’ll clean this up.”

29 Despair

My sister Michelle and I were both tested to see if either of us could be Katrin’s bone marrow donor. Siblings have the best chance of being a perfect match — about one in three — and I felt strangely hopeful that my blood would come through. But I was wrong. Neither Michelle nor I was a match for Katrin. The irony was that we were perfect matches for each other, but neither of us could help Katrin. This meant that Katrin now had to try to find a donor through the national bone marrow registries. To our dismay, we learned that once siblings had failed to match, the odds of finding a donor decreased dramatically, especially for people of Asian and African descent. The Internet is filled with appeals from dying patients desperately searching for a bone marrow match. And even if there was a match out there, the process could take months — months that Katrin might not have.

Katrin’s first round of chemo had not been a nightmare, but the second round more than made up for that. It was brutal. Now days would go by without my hearing from her. In panic I’d call Or, but often just get his voice mail; or he’d answer brusquely and say, “I can’t talk now, Amy. I’ll try to call later.”

The main source of mortality from chemotherapy is infection. Ordinary ailments like the common cold or flu can easily kill a cancer patient whose white blood cells have been destroyed. Katrin got one infection after another. To fight them, her doctors prescribed a slew of antibiotics, which caused all kinds of painful side effects, and when those antibiotics didn’t work, they tried different ones. She couldn’t eat or drink for weeks and had to be given fluids intravenously. She was always either freezing or burning up. The complications and crises kept coming, and she was often in so much agony she had to be sedated.

When the second round of chemo had been administered, we again had to hold our breath and wait. One of the ways we’d know if Katrin’s leukemia was in remission was if she starting producing healthy blood cells — in particular neutrophils, which defend against bacterial infection. I knew that Katrin’s blood was drawn first thing every morning, so I’d sit at my computer screen starting at 6:00 A.M., waiting for an e-mail from her. But Katrin no longer wrote to me. When I couldn’t stand waiting anymore and e-mailed Katrin first, I’d get terse answers like, “Counts not going up yet” or “Still nothing. Pretty disappointed.” Soon, she didn’t respond to my e-mails at all.

I’ve always wondered what’s wrong with people who don’t get the point and leave voice message after voice message (“Ca-a-ll me! Where are you? I’m worried!”) even when it’s obvious there’s a reason no one’s calling them back. Well, now I couldn’t help myself. I was too anxious to care about being annoying. The week after her second round of chemo ended, I called Katrin over and over every morning, and even though she never answered — she had caller ID, so she knew it was me — I kept leaving messages, giving her updates on useless things, imagining that I was being cheery and uplifting.

Then one morning, Katrin answered the phone. She didn’t sound like herself. Her voice was so faint I could barely hear her. I asked her how she was feeling, but she just sighed. Then she said, “It’s no use, Amy. I’m not going to make it. There’s no hope. . There’s just no hope,” and her voice trailed off.

“Don’t be silly, Katrin. It’s totally normal for it to take this long for counts to go up. Sometimes it can take months. Jed actually just researched all this. I can send you the numbers if you want. Also, Or tells me that the doctor is extremely optimistic. Just give it one more day.”

There was no reply, so I started up again. “Lulu is such a nightmare!” I said, and I regaled her with stories about the violin and our fights and me flipping out. Before she got sick, Katrin and I had often talked about parenting and how it was impossible for us to wield the same authority over our kids that our parents had exerted over us.

Then, to my relief, I heard Katrin laugh on the other end and say in a more normal voice, “Poor Lulu. She’s such a nice girl, Amy. You shouldn’t be so hard on her.”

On Halloween, we learned that they had located a donor, a Chinese-American who was apparently a perfect match for Katrin. Four days later, I got an e-mail from Katrin saying, “I have neutrophils! Level is 100, needs to be 500 but hopefully rising.” And they did — very slowly, but they did. In early November, Katrin was released from the hospital to regain her strength. She had exactly one month before the bone marrow transplant, which unbelievably would require yet another round of chemo — this one the mother of all chemos, administered in a special germ-free ward — to wipe out all of Katrin’s own diseased bone marrow so that the donor’s healthy marrow could replace it. Many patients never made it out of that ward.

During her month at home, Katrin seemed so happy. She enjoyed everything: feeding Ella, taking her children for walks, and just watching them sleep. Her favorite thing was to watch Jake play tennis.

The bone marrow transplant took place on Christmas Eve. My parents and my whole family took rooms in a Boston hotel. We had takeout Chinese food and opened presents with Or, Jake, and Ella.

30 “Hebrew Melody”

A brand new year—2009. It didn’t start off too festively for us. We returned from Boston, exhausted. It had been hard work trying to bring holiday cheer to Jake and Ella while their mother lay in an intensive-care bone marrow ward. Dealing with my parents was even more excruciating. My mother insisted on torturing herself by asking why, why, why Katrin had gotten leukemia. I snapped at her cruelly a few times, then felt awful. My father kept asking me the same medical questions over and over, which I referred to Jed, who patiently explained the mechanics of the transplant process. We were all terrified of what the new year might bring.

When we got back to New Haven, we found our house dark and freezing. There had been a vicious snowstorm with record-high winds, and some of our windows were broken. Then there was an electricity blackout, which left us heatless for a while. Jed and I had a new semester starting up, and courses to prepare for. Worst of all, the violin loomed — Lulu had three concerts coming up — and so did Lulu’s Bat Mitzvah. Back into the trenches, I thought grimly.

Lulu and I were barely speaking. Her hair was a violent rebuke. Despite the hair cutter’s best efforts, it was still short and a little jagged, and it put me in a bad mood.

In late January, Katrin was released from the hospital. She was initially so frail she had trouble going up stairs. Because she was still highly vulnerable to infection, she was not permitted to go to restaurants, grocery stores, or movie theaters without a protective mask. We all crossed our fingers and prayed that her new blood wouldn’t attack her own body. We’d know within a few months whether or not she’d have the worst kind of complication — acute graft-versus-host disease — which was potentially fatal.

As the weeks passed and her Bat Mitzvah got closer, Lulu and I engaged in intensifying combat. As with Sophia, we were being unconventional and having the Bat Mitzvah in our home. Jed handled the major responsibilities, but I was the one constantly haranguing Lulu to practice her haftarah portion — I was going to be a Chinese mother even when it came to Hebrew. As always, it was over the violin that we fought most bitterly. “Didn’t you hear me? I said go upstairs and practice the ‘Hebrew Melody’ NOW!” I must have thundered a thousand times. “It’s not a difficult piece, so if it’s not incredibly moving, it’ll be a failure.” “Do you want to be mediocre?” I’d yell at other times. “Is that what you want?”

Lulu always retaliated fiercely. “Not everyone’s Bat Mitzvah has to be special, and I don’t want to practice,” she’d shoot back. Or: “I’m not playing violin at my Bat Mitzvah! And you can’t change my mind.” Or: “I hate violin. I want to quit!” The decibel level in our house went off the charts. Right up until the morning of the Bat Mitzvah, I didn’t know if Lulu was going to play the “Hebrew Melody” or not, even though it was on the programs Jed had had printed up.

Lulu did it. She came through. She read her Torah and haftarah portions with poise and confidence, and the way she played the “Hebrew Melody”—filling the room with tones so hauntingly beautiful guests cried — it was clear to everyone that it came from deep inside her.

At the reception afterward, I saw Lulu’s face glowing as she greeted guests. “Oh my God Lulu, you are, like, scary on the violin, I mean like totally amazing,” I heard one of her friends say to her.

“She’s extraordinary,” a singer friend of mine marveled. “She clearly has a gift, something no one can teach.” When I told her how much trouble I was having getting Lulu to practice, my friend said, “You can’t let her quit. She’ll regret it for the rest of her life.”

That’s how it always was when Lulu played the violin. Listeners were gripped by her, and she seemed gripped by the music. It’s what made it so confusing and maddening when we fought and she insisted she hated the violin.

“Congratulations, Amy. Goodness knows what I could have been if you’d been my mother,” joked our friend Caren, a former dancer. “I could have been great.”

“Oh, no, Caren, I wouldn’t wish myself on anyone,” I said, shaking my head. “There’s been a lot of yelling and screaming in this house. I didn’t even think Lulu was going to play today. To tell you the truth, it’s been traumatic.”

“But you’ve given your girls so much,” Caren persisted. “A sense of their own abilities, of the value of excellence. That’s something they’ll have all their lives.”

“Maybe,” I said dubiously. “I’m just not so sure anymore.”

It was a great party, and everyone had fun. A big highlight was that Katrin and her family attended. In the five months since her release from the hospital, Katrin had slowly regained strength, although her immune system was still weak, and I panicked every time someone coughed. Katrin looked thin but pretty and almost triumphant carrying Ella.

That night, after all the guests had gone and we’d cleaned up as much as we could, I lay in bed wondering if Lulu might come and hug me the way she did after “The Little White Donkey.” It had been a long time. But she didn’t come, and I went to her bedroom instead.

“Aren’t you glad I made you play the ‘Hebrew Melody’?” I asked her.

Lulu seemed happy, but not particularly warm toward me. “Yes, Mommy,” she said. “You can take the credit.”

“Okay, I will,” I said, trying to laugh. Then I told her that I was proud of her and that she’d been brilliant. Lulu smiled and was gracious. But she seemed distracted, almost impatient for me to leave, and something in her eyes told me that my days were numbered.

31 Red Square

Two days after Lulu’s Bat Mitzvah, we left for Russia. It was a vacation I’d dreamed of for a long time. My parents had raved about St. Petersburg when I was a girl, and Jed and I wanted to take the girls somewhere we’d never visited ourselves.

We needed a vacation. Katrin had just passed through the worst danger zone of acute graft-versus-host disease. We’d basically gone ten months without a day’s break. Our first stop was Moscow. Jed had found us a convenient hotel right in the center of the city. After a short rest, we headed out for our first taste of Russia.

I tried to be goofy and easygoing, the mood my girls most like me in, refraining as best I could from making my usual critical remarks about what they were wearing or how many times they said “like.” But there was something ill-fated about that day. It took us more than an hour standing in two different lines to change money at a place that called itself a bank, and after that the museum we wanted to visit was closed.

We decided to go to Red Square, which was within walking distance of our hotel. The sheer size of the square was overwhelming. Three football fields could have fit between the gate we entered and the onion-domed St. Basil’s Cathedral at the other end. This is not a chic or charming square like the ones in Italy, I thought to myself. It’s a square designed to intimidate, and I envisioned firing squads and battalions of Stalinist guards.

Lulu and Sophia kept sniping at each other, which irritated me. Actually, what really irritated me was that they were all grown up — teenagers my size (in Sophia’s case, three inches taller), instead of cute little girls. “It goes so fast,” older friends had always said wistfully. “Before you know it, your children will be grown and gone, and you’ll be old even though you feel just like the same person you were when you were young.” I never believed my friends when they said that, because it seemed to me they were old. By squeezing out so much from every moment of every day, perhaps I imagined that I was buying myself more time. As a purely mathematical fact, people who sleep less live more.

“That’s Lenin’s Tomb behind the long white wall,” Jed told the girls, pointing. “His body is embalmed and on display. We can go see it tomorrow.” Jed then gave the girls a short tutorial on Russian history and cold war politics.

After roaming around for a bit — we encountered surprisingly few Americans, and far more Chinese, who seemed utterly indifferent to us — we sat down at an outdoor café. It was attached to the famous GUM shopping mall, which is housed in a palatial, arcade-lined nineteenth-century building that takes up almost the entire east side of Red Square, directly across from the fortresslike Kremlin.

We decided to get blinis and caviar, a fun way to start off our first evening in Moscow, Jed and I thought. But when the caviar arrived — thirty U.S. dollars for a tiny receptacle — Lulu said, “Eww, gross,” and wouldn’t try it.

“Sophia, don’t take so much; leave some for the rest of us,” I snapped, then turned to my other daughter. “Lulu, you sound like an uncultured savage. Try the caviar. You can put a lot of sour cream on it.”

“That’s even worse,” Lulu said, and she made a shuddering gesture. “And don’t call me a savage.”

“Don’t wreck the vacation for everyone, Lulu.”

“You’re the one wrecking it.”

I pushed the caviar toward Lulu. I ordered her to try one egg — one single egg.

“Why?” Lulu asked defiantly. “Why do you care so much? You can’t force me to eat something.”

I felt my temper rising. Could I not get Lulu to do even one tiny thing? “You’re behaving like a juvenile delinquent. Try one egg now.”

“I don’t want to,” said Lulu.

“Do it now, Lulu.”

“No.”

“Amy,” Jed began diplomatically, “everyone’s tired. Why don’t we just—”

I broke in, “Do you know how sad and ashamed my parents would be if they saw this, Lulu — you publicly disobeying me? With that look on your face? You’re only hurting yourself. We’re in Russia, and you refuse to try caviar! You’re like a barbarian. And in case you think you’re a big rebel, you are completely ordinary. There is nothing more typical, more predictable, more common and low, than an American teenager who won’t try things.You’re boring, Lulu—boring.”

“Shut up,” said Lulu angrily.

“Don’t you dare say shut up to me. I’m your mother.” I hissed this, but still a few guests glanced over. “Stop trying to act tough to impress Sophia.”

“I hate you! I HATE YOU.” This, from Lulu, was not in a hiss. It was an all-out shout at the top of her lungs. Now the entire café was staring at us.

“You don’t love me,” Lulu spat out. “You think you do, but you don’t. You just make me feel bad about myself every second. You’ve wrecked my life. I can’t stand to be around you. Is that what you want?”

A lump rose in my throat. Lulu saw it, but she went on. “You’re a terrible mother. You’re selfish.You don’t care about anyone but yourself. What — you can’t believe how ungrateful I am? After all you’ve done for me? Everything you say you do for me is actually for yourself.”

She’s just like me, I thought, compulsively cruel. “You are a terrible daughter,” I said aloud.

“I know — I’m not what you want — I’m not Chinese! I don’t want to be Chinese. Why can’t you get that through your head? I hate the violin. I HATE my life. I HATE you, and I HATE this family! I’m going to take this glass and smash it!”

“Do it,” I dared.

Lulu grabbed a glass from the table and threw it on the ground. Water and shards went flying, and some guests gasped. I felt all eyes upon us, a grotesque spectacle.

I’d made a career out of spurning the kind of Western parents who can’t control their kids. Now I had the most disrespectful, rude, violent, out-of-control kid of all.

Lulu was trembling with rage, and there were tears in her eyes. “I’ll smash more if you don’t leave me alone,” she cried.

I got up and ran. I ran as fast as I could, not knowing where I was going, a crazy forty-six-year-old woman sprinting in sandals and crying. I ran past Lenin’s mausoleum and past some guards with guns who I thought might shoot me.

Then I stopped. I had come to the end of Red Square. There was nowhere to go.

32 The Symbol

Families often have symbols: a lake in the country, Grandpa’s medal, the Sabbath dinner. In our household, the violin had become a symbol.

For me, it symbolized excellence, refinement, and depth — the opposite of shopping malls, megasized Cokes, teenage clothes, and crass consumerism. Unlike listening to an iPod, playing the violin is difficult and requires concentration, precision, and interpretation. Even physically, everything about the violin — the burnished wood, the carved scroll, the horsehair, the delicate bridge, the sounding point — is subtle, exquisite, and precarious.

To me, the violin symbolized respect for hierarchy, standards, and expertise. For those who know better and can teach. For those who play better and can inspire. And for parents.

It also symbolized history. The Chinese never achieved the heights of Western classical music — there is no Chinese equivalent of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony — but high traditional music is deeply entwined with Chinese civilization. The seven-stringed qin, often associated with Confucius, has been around for at least twenty-five hundred years. It was immortalized by the great Tang poets, revered as the instrument of the sages.

Most of all, the violin symbolized control. Over generational decline. Over birth order. Over one’s destiny. Over one’s children. Why should the grandchildren of immigrants only be able to play the guitar or drums? Why should second children so predictably be less rule-abiding, less successful at school, and “more social” than eldest siblings? In short, the violin symbolized the success of the Chinese parenting model.

For Lulu, it embodied oppression.

And as I walked slowly back across Red Square, I realized that the violin had begun to symbolize oppression for me too. Just picturing Lulu’s violin case sitting at home by the front door — at the last minute we’d decided to leave it behind, the first time ever — made me think of the hours and hours and years and years of labor, fighting, aggravation, and misery that we’d endured. For what? I also realized that I was dreading with all my heart what lay ahead.

It occurred to me that this must be how Western parents think and why they so often let their kids give up difficult musical instruments. Why torture yourself and your child? What’s the point? If your child doesn’t like something — hates it — what good is it forcing her to do it? I knew as a Chinese mother I could never give in to that way of thinking.

I rejoined my family at the GUM café. The waiters and other guests averted their eyes.

“Lulu,” I said. “You win. It’s over. We’re giving up the violin.”

33 Going West

I wasn’t bluffing. I’d always engaged in brinkmanship with Lulu, but this time I was serious. I’m still not exactly sure why. Maybe I finally allowed myself to admire Lulu’s immovable strength for what it was, even if I bitterly disagreed with her choices. Or maybe it was Katrin. Watching her struggle and seeing what became important to her in those desperate months shook things up for all of us.

It could also have been my mother. To me, she’ll always be the quintessential Chinese mother. Growing up, nothing was ever good enough for her. (“You say you got first place, but actually you only tied for first, right?”) She used to practice piano with Cindy three hours a day until the teacher gently told her that they’d hit a limit. Even after I became a professor and invited her to some of my public lectures, she always offered painfully accurate criticisms while everyone else was telling me what a good job I’d done. (“You get too excited and talk too fast. Try to stay cool, and you’ll be better.”) Yet my own Chinese mother had been warning me for a long time that something wasn’t working with Lulu. “Every child is different,” she said. “You have to adjust, Amy. Look what happened to your father,” she added ominously.

So — about my father. I guess it’s time to come clean with something. I’d always told Jed, myself, and everyone else that the ultimate proof of the superiority of Chinese parenting is how the children end up feeling about their parents. Despite their parents’ brutal demands, verbal abuse, and disregard for their children’s desires, Chinese kids end up adoring and respecting their parents and wanting to care for them in their old age. From the beginning, Jed had always asked, “What about your dad, Amy?” I’d never had a good answer.

My father was the black sheep in his family. His mother disfavored him and treated him unfairly. In his household, comparisons among the children were common, and my father — the fourth of six — was always on the short end of the stick. He wasn’t interested in business like the rest of his family. He loved science and fast cars; at age eight, he built a radio from scratch. Compared to his siblings, my father was the family outlaw, risk-taking and rebellious. To put it mildly, his mother didn’t respect his choices, value his individualism, or worry about his self-esteem — all those Western clichés. The result was that my father hated his family — found it suffocating and undermining — and as soon as he had a chance he moved as far away as he could, never once looking back.

What my father’s story illustrates is something I suppose I never wanted to think about. When Chinese parenting succeeds, there’s nothing like it. But it doesn’t always succeed. For my own father it hadn’t. He barely spoke to his mother and never thought about her except in anger. By the end of her life, my father’s family was almost dead to him.

I couldn’t lose Lulu. Nothing was more important. So I did the most Western thing imaginable: I gave her the choice. I told her that she could quit the violin if she wanted and do what she liked instead, which at the time was to play tennis.

At first, Lulu assumed it was a trap. Over the years, the two of us had played so many games of chicken and engaged in such elaborate forms of psychological warfare that she was naturally suspicious. But when Lulu realized I was sincere, she surprised me.

“I don’t want to quit,” she said. “I love the violin. I would never give it up.”

“Oh please,” I said, shaking my head. “Let’s not go in circles again.”

“I don’t want to quit violin,” Lulu repeated. “I just don’t want to be so intense about it. It’s not the main thing I want to do with my life.You picked it, not me.”

It turns out that not being intense had some radical, and for me heartbreaking, implications. First, Lulu decided to quit orchestra, giving up her concertmaster position in order to free up Saturday mornings for tennis. Not a second goes by that this doesn’t cause me pain. When she played her last piece as concertmaster at a recital at Tanglewood and then shook the conductor’s hand, I almost wept. Second, Lulu decided that she didn’t want to go to New York every Sunday for violin lessons anymore, so we gave up our spot in Miss Tanaka’s studio — our precious spot with a famous Juilliard teacher that had been so hard to get!

Instead, I found Lulu a local teacher in New Haven. After a long talk, we also agreed that Lulu would practice by herself, without me or regular coaches, and for just thirty minutes a day — not nearly enough, I knew, to maintain her high level of playing.

For the first few weeks after Lulu’s decision, I wandered around the house like a person who’d lost their mission, their reason for living.

At a recent lunch, I met Elizabeth Alexander, the Yale professor who read her original poem at President Obama’s inauguration. I told her how much I admired her work, and we exchanged a few words.

Then she said, “Wait a minute — I think I know you. Do you have two daughters who studied at the Neighborhood Music School? Aren’t you the mother of those two incredibly talented musicians?”

It turns out that Elizabeth had two kids, younger than mine, who studied at the Neighborhood Music School also, and they’d heard Sophia and Lulu perform on several occasions. “Your daughters are amazing,” she said.

In the old days, I would have said modestly, “Oh they’re really not that good,” hoping desperately that she’d ask me more so I could tell her about Sophia’s and Lulu’s latest music accomplishments. Now I just shook my head.

“Do they still play?” Elizabeth continued. “I don’t see them at the school anymore.”

“My older daughter still plays piano,” I replied. “My younger daughter — the violinist — she doesn’t really play so much anymore.” This was like a knife to my heart. “She prefers to play tennis instead.” Even if she is ranked #10,000 in New England, I thought to myself. Out of 10,000.

“Oh no!” Elizabeth said. “That’s too bad. I remember she was so gifted. She inspired my two little ones.”

“It was her decision,” I heard myself saying. “It was too much of a time commitment. You know how thirteen-year-olds are.” What a Western parent I’ve become, I thought to myself. What a failure.

But I kept my word. I let Lulu play tennis as she pleased, at her own pace, making her own decisions. I remember the first time she signed herself up for a Novice USTA tournament. She came back in a good mood, visibly charged with adrenaline.

“How did you do?” I asked.

“Oh, I lost — but it was my first tournament, and my strategy was all wrong.”

“What was the score?”

“Love-six, love-six,” Lulu said. “But the girl I played was really good.”

If she’s so good, why is she playing in a Novice tournament? I thought darkly to myself, but aloud I said, “Bill Clinton recently told someYale students that you can only be really great at something if you love it. So it’s good that you love tennis.”

But just because you love something, I added to myself, doesn’t mean you’ll ever be great. Not if you don’t work. Most people stink at the things they love.

34 The Ending

We recently hosted a formal dinner at our home for judges from all over the world. One of the most humbling things about being a Yale law professor is that you get to meet some awe-inspiring figures — some of the greatest jurists of the day. For ten years now, Yale’s global constitutionalism seminar has brought in supreme court justices from dozens of countries, including the United States.

For entertainment, we invited Sophia’s piano professor, Wei-Yi Yang, to perform part of the program he was preparing for Yale’s famous Horowitz Piano Series. Wei-Yi generously suggested that his young pupil Sophia perform as well. For fun, teacher and student could also play a duet together: “En Bateau” from Debussy’s Petite Suite.

I was incredibly excited and nervous about the idea and nurturingly said to Sophia, “Don’t blow this. Everything turns on your performance. The justices aren’t coming to New Haven to hear a high school talent show. If you’re not over-the-top perfect we’ll have insulted them. Now go to the piano and don’t leave it.” I guess there’s still a bit of the Chinese mother in me.

The next few weeks were like a replay of the run-up to Carnegie Hall, except that now Sophia did almost all her practicing herself. As in the past, I immersed myself in her pieces — Saint-Saëns’s Allegro Appassionato and a polonaise and Fantaisie Impromptu by Chopin — but the truth was that Sophia barely needed me anymore. She knew exactly what she had to do, and only occasionally would I yell out a critique from the kitchen or upstairs. Meanwhile, Jed and I had all our living room furniture moved out except the piano. I scrubbed the floor myself, and we rented chairs for fifty people.

The evening of the performance Sophia wore a red dress, and as she walked in to take her opening bow, panic seized me. I was practically frozen during the polonaise. I couldn’t enjoy the Saint-Saëns either, even though Sophia played it brilliantly. That piece is meant to be sheer virtuosic entertainment, and I was too tense to be entertained. Could Sophia keep her runs sparkling and clean? Had she overpracticed, and would her hands give out? I had to force myself not to rock and back forth and hum robotically, which is what I usually do when the girls perform a difficult piece.

But when Sophia played her last piece, Chopin’s Fantaisie Impromptu, everything changed. For some reason, the tension in me dissipated, the lockjaw released, and all I could think was, She owns this piece. When she got up to take her bow, a radiant smile on her face, I thought, That’s my girl — she’s happy; the music is making her happy. Right then I knew that it had all been worth it.

Sophia received three ovations, and afterward the justices — including many I’ve idolized for years — were effusive in their praise. One said Sophia’s playing was sublime and that he could have listened to her all night. Another insisted that she had to pursue the piano professionally because it would be a crime to waste her talent. And a surprising number of the justices, being parents themselves, asked me personal questions like, “What is your secret? Do you think it’s something about the Asian family culture that tends to produce so many exceptional musicians?” Or: “Tell me: Does Sophia practice on her own because she loves music or do you have to force her? I could never make my own children practice more than fifteen minutes.” And: “How about your other daughter? I hear she’s a fabulous violinist. Will we hear her next time?”

I told them that I was struggling to finish a book on just those questions and that I would send them a copy when it was done.

Around the same time as Sophia’s performance for the justices, I picked Lulu up from some godforsaken tennis place in Connecticut about an hour away.

“Guess what, Mommy — I won!”

“Won what?” I asked.

“The tournament,” Lulu said.

“What does that mean?”

“I won three matches, and I beat the top seed in the finals. She was ranked #60 in New England. I can’t believe I beat her!”

This took me aback. I’d played tennis as a teenager myself, but always just for fun with my family or school friends. As an adult, I tried a few tournaments but quickly found that I couldn’t stand the pressure of competition. Mainly so we could have a family activity, Jed and I had made both Sophia and Lulu take tennis lessons, but we’d never had any hopes.

“Are you still playing at the Novice level?” I asked Lulu. “The lowest level?”

“Yes,” she answered amiably. Ever since I’d given her the choice, we’d gotten along much better. My pain seemed to be her gain, and she was more patient and good-humored. “But I’m going to try the next level soon. I’m sure I’ll lose, but I want to try it for fun.”

And then, out of the blue: “I miss orchestra so much,” Lulu said.

Over the next six weeks, Lulu won three more tournaments. At the last two, I went to watch her play. I was struck by what a fireball she was on the court: how fiercely she hit, how concentrated she looked, and how she never gave up.

As Lulu notched herself up, the competition got much tougher. At one tournament, she lost to a girl twice her size. When Lulu came off the court, she was smiling and gracious, but the second she got in the car she said to me, “I’m going to beat her next time. I’m not good enough yet — but soon.” Then she asked me if I could sign her up for extra tennis lessons.

At the next lesson, I watched Lulu drill her backhand with a focus and tenacity I’d never seen in her. Afterward, she asked me if I would feed her more balls so that she could keep practicing, and we went for another hour. On the way home, when I told her how much better her backhand looked, she said, “No, it’s not right yet. It’s still terrible. Can we get a court tomorrow?”

She’s so driven, I thought to myself. So. . intense.

I talked to Lulu’s tennis instructor. “There’s no way Lulu can ever be really good, right? I mean, she’s thirteen — that’s got to be ten years too late.” I’d heard about the explosion of high-powered tennis academies and four-year-olds with personal trainers. “Also, she’s so short, like me.”

“The important thing is that Lulu loves tennis,” the instructor said, very American-ly. “And she has an unbelievable work ethic — I’ve never seen anyone improve so fast. She’s a great kid. You and your husband have done an amazing job with her. She never settles for less than 110 percent. And she’s always so upbeat and polite.”

“You’ve got to be kidding,” I said. But despite myself, my spirits lifted. Could this be the Chinese virtuous circle in action? Had I perhaps just chosen the wrong activity for Lulu? Tennis was very respectable — it wasn’t like bowling. Michael Chang had played tennis.

I started to gear up. I familiarized myself with the USTA rules and procedures and the national ranking system. I also looked into trainers and started calling around about the best tennis clinics in the area.

Lulu overheard me one day. “What are you doing?” she demanded. When I explained that I was just doing a little research, she suddenly got furious. “No, Mommy—no!” she said fiercely. “Don’t wreck tennis for me like you wrecked violin.”

That really hurt. I backed off.

The next day I tried again. “Lulu, there’s a place in Massachusetts—”

“No, Mommy — please stop,” Lulu said. “I can do this on my own. I don’t need you to be involved.”

“Lulu, what we need to do is to channel your strength—”

“Mommy, I get it. I’ve watched you and listened to your lectures a million times. But I don’t want you controlling my life.”

I focused my eyes on Lulu, taking her in. Everyone had always said she looked just like me, something that I loved to hear but that she vehemently denied. An image of her at age three standing outside, defiant in the cold, came to my mind. She’s indomitable, I thought to myself, and always has been. Wherever she ends up, she’s going to be amazing.

“Okay, Lulu, I can accept that,” I said. “See how undefensive and flexible I am? To succeed in this world, you always have to be willing to adapt. That’s something I’m especially good at that you should learn from me.”

But I didn’t really give up. I’m still in the fight, albeit with some significant modifications to my strategy. I’ve become newly accepting and open-minded. The other day Lulu told me she would have even less time for violin because she wanted to pursue other interests, like writing and “improv.” Instead of choking, I was supportive and proactive. I’m taking the long view. Lulu can do side-splitting imitations, and while improv does seems un-Chinese and the opposite of classical music, it is definitely a skill. I also harbor hopes that Lulu won’t be able to escape her love of music and that someday — maybe soon — she’ll return to the violin of her own accord.

Meanwhile, every weekend, I drive Lulu to tennis tournaments and watch her play. She recently made the high school varsity team, the only middle school kid to do so. Because Lulu has insisted that she wants no advice or criticism from me, I’ve resorted to espionage and guerrilla warfare. I secretly plant ideas in her tennis coach’s head, texting her with questions and practice strategies, then deleting the text messages so Lulu won’t see them. Sometimes, when Lulu’s least expecting it — at breakfast or when I’m saying good night — I’ll suddenly yell out, “More rotation on the swing volley!” or “Don’t move your right foot on your kick serve!” And Lulu will plug her ears, and we’ll fight, but I’ll have gotten my message out, and I know she knows I’m right.