Author Archives: Cynthia Wang

I have to reference this video again. It’s Mercedes Cheung playing Sarasate. However, this time, I’m going to be drawing a comparison between that and this video I found of Brianna Kahane on Ellen.

This will be my once-a-month-speak-from-angry-Asian position post. I know I’ve said some not-so-nice things about Mercedes’s playing, but Zigeunerweisen is a lot more challenging than Vivaldi’s Concerto. Two things come to mind. 1) Brianna Kahane is probably more along the lines of my “just because you can, doesn’t mean you should” philosophy and is, in fact, playing something that suits her skill level at this point in her life. However, in terms of impressiveness, 2) shouldn’t Mercedes Cheung be on Ellen? I mean, a 6-yr-old playing Sarasate and Paganini is pretty darn impressive, especially since, you know, she really is playing it. Ellen’s show, being the huge mass media outlet that it is, has the capability of rocketing these kids into the public’s eye. So who does she (or, her producers) pick? Not the one with the Asian face, that I can say.

It’s obviously a lot more complex than just this, but that’s all I can come up with at 2 in the morning after 6 days of an almost non-stop cycle of work/eat/sleep/eat/work/coffee/dogs repeat many times.

Ironic that I still blog about this when I want to academically get AWAY from all this race politics and speaking from a position of repression and defensiveness thing I feel like I have to do when talking about Asian American issues. My thesis will be looking at the race of classical musicians, but I think it’ll be on a more global level and will deal with issues of cultural imperialism rather than race dynamics. Obviously lots of overlap here, but I think it’s different than speaking from within a framework in which these struggles over racial inequality have been written into our history. I’m hoping the position I take can be not-so-angry-and-repressed, and look at it more meta-ly (see, I told you it’s late – or, rather, very very early).

How the heck did this turn into some weird introspective thought process of my academic path?

I found some sad news today. One of the members of Boyzone, Stephen Gately, died recently of “natural causes” (this apparently happened back in October, but I’m only hearing it for the first time today. I remember them best from Andrew Lloyd Webber’s 50th birthday performance, when my mom and I were both in love with them – especially Gately and Ronan Keating.

In any case, I never understood how someone could die from “natural causes”. I mean, apart from my dislike for the term “natural” or “normal”, you die of SOMETHING. Respiratory failure, cardiac arrest, SOMETHING. Wikipedia tells me that Gately died of pulmonary oedema caused by congenital heart defect. Why can’t people just say that, rather than using the rather cop-out, and overly generalized term of “natural causes”? Saying someone died from “natural causes” merely intrigues us and makes us dig for more info about how they really died.

Anyway, some quick thoughts before bed.

Wow. I’ve been really MIA from this blogging thing for a while – ironic, since the Business of Media course I’m TAing requires my students to blog 2-3 times a week. I excuse my non-blogginess to spending time reading their blogs every week.

I’m back in North Carolina – taking a break before I submit my application to Northwestern’s PhD Program, blogging, listening to Dvorak’s New World Symphony, and air-conducting in the middle of Open Eye Cafe. I haven’t gotten any weird looks yet, but they’re bound to happen soon. Cris finds it amusing by puncturing the silence with, “Listening to something good?” Oh yea.

I’m also drinking some cafe mocha – and I can’t seem to sit still. It remains to be seen if I will completely crash in about an hour and spend the rest of the evening laid out on the couch feeling nauseous. Hmm…. I should probably get this application submitted before anything bad happens from this coffee…

Ok, hooray! Northwestern submitted. After completing my statement of purpose (or, really, slashing it down to meet the length requirement), took me another 3 hours to finish all the misc stuff that needed to go in.

**** five hours later ****
We’re sitting around watching Eddie Izzard. I think we learned most of our US and European history from this guy. So full I’m about to explode. I think this weekend is going to be defined by constant food coma. And my head constantly feels like it’s going to explode too. North Carolina, for some reason, wreaks havoc on my allergies. I’ve probably gone through the equivalent of an entire box of tissues since I’ve been here. I think it’s because there are things that are actually alive here — you know, in NYC, the toxins and smog in the air have killed all microorganisms. Except the cockroaches.

OK, I should concentrate on Eddie. Realize this blog is a bit disjointed, but oh well.

As I’m sure everyone’s heard already, a student at NYU committed suicide this morning in Bobst Library. It has been a sad day, what with the loss of Claude Levi-Strauss and Qian Xuesun, one must be wondering, what’s going on today?

I’m sorry if I’m a bit harsh here in this blog, but after hearing about the NYU suicide, I got very upset. I’m still pretty upset. It’s not as if I knew him, but I think I get very frustrated when I hear someone taking their own life. Very frustrated. I think it’s the stupidest, most selfish thing you can do. What are you thinking? Are you thinking about everyone who loves you, who you’re ripping apart? Do you know how many people out there would have given anything to have had the chances and opportunities you have, and they’re not able to because their lives were taken away from them by external forces? And you have the gall to take your own life?

I can’t say I understand, that I understand the dark places he might have been in, the situations he might have been going through. Even in my darkest days (and believe me, I’ve been through enough of those in recent times), the thought of ending my life never crossed my mind. I would never EVER cause that much pain to the people I love. I don’t cry for him. I cry for the ones who loved him, and I’m angry for them. For what he took away from them.

“You should have taken a long break instead of a long drop, instead of a leap of faith.” ~Brandi Carlile

*I’m at a serious writing block and a block in general for academic stuff right now, so I decided to take the time and finish this blog entry….* I started writing this on Halloween, and am finishing it up now.

It’s funny how elementary some of our thesis topics can sound. Alex and I were at Dr. Fox’s tonight after the Park Slope Halloween Parade, and we were sitting around chatting, when the topic of our theses came up. The conversation went something like this:

Alex: I’m doing my thesis on Hulu!
Cynthia: I’m looking at Classical Music on YouTube!
Alex: Man, it’s we’re in 2nd grade, how simple we can make our thesis sound!

Anyway, the funny thing is, it never occurred to me how eerily similar my “journey” to find my Master’s thesis topic echoes my senior thesis project at Northwestern, until this morning (in the shower, where most of my epiphanies happen, I suppose).

For those of you who don’t remember (I mean, why would you?), my senior thesis was a 25-minute film called “The Ship Game”, based on three childhood friends who ended up going to the same college – a music composition major (Sarah), a violinist (Audrey), and the third character (I actually can’t even remember the character’s name – I just remember Henry Martone played him) – but he was the violinist’s brother, and the music composer’s boyfriend). The story focused mostly on the violinist, having something to do with getting into Juilliard and getting accepted into some violin competition (you know how I found it? I googled “international violin competition” and picked one that sounded good and foreign – hey, I never said this movie was well-researched)

Oh wait, I think I remember. The competition was called Hanover. I think. Maybe I just think it’s Hanover because that’s where my brother goes to school.

Anyway. Before settling on this particular narrative, I shot a film the previous year that was completely cast Asian American, and echoed some of the soap operatic story lines of Korean dramas. It was natural to think about doing something involving the community again for my senior thesis, but, for some reason, I wasn’t excited about it. I don’t think I even got as far as any sort of outline or storyline before I settled on a story that was based on a childhood game I played, then took it further to explore themes of drug dependency and suicide. Hmm. Ok, anyway. The point is, I went back to my roots in classical music. Strangely. And, on top of that, no one in my cast was Asian American (which I got a little bit of flack for).

Ok, so this pattern is repeating in grad school now. My original thesis topic was looking at Asian American artists in the digital realm, and this whole idea of “making space” because on the Internet, we can “publish, then filter” rather than in the real world, where we must be filtered first before publishing. I just wasn’t excited about it though. I came to this realization when I found myself talking more about Alex’s Hulu’s project more than my own…and more excitedly.

After much soul-searching (and many a late night watching too many YouTube videos), and Hahn-Bin’s concert at Carnegie, which I couldn’t seem to stop talking about for the next two weeks, I decided to tackle questions I had about how we perceive and consume classical music, and how that changes on the Internet (because I just love the Internet), or in general, when the venue changes.

So, interestingly, I’m back to this whole classical music thing. Who says history doesn’t repeat?

I apologize for the discombobulation of this blog. They started banging and clanging and doing construction on my apartment complex very VERY early this morning, which kept waking me up over the next four hours. I tried putting earbuds in and turning up a lullaby very loud, but that only seemed to help marginally. Grrrr.

Grace: who are u mtg with tomorrow?

…is how Chicago welcomes me and Ray back home. We just got in, immediately inhaled Jimmy John’s, bought some snacks for the weekend, and are holing up in the hotel until we have to brave the weather and head downtown to meet Teresa for dinner! Tonight, Lou Malnati’s deep dish pizza. That is the mission.

Chicago food consumed so far:
Jimmy John’s

I’m at the Best Buy near my apartment right now typing this blog out on an HP Netbook – Intel Atom Processor N270. I’ve been thinking about getting a Netbook, but then I think, why bother? I am going on two trips before the end of a very VERY busy semester and was thinking a Netbook might help in terms of making sure I get work done on the road. But, Netbooks cost money, and I already have a laptop. I’m just not sure I need one, although it would be nice…

Ahh decisions. I thought I was better at this decision thing than most people… if I get one, I’d like to get one before my Chicago trip on Thursday (yea, Thursday, and if I get it before then, I think I’d be wondering if it were just an impulse buy).

Ahhh!!!

Oh, I just noticed that this one is out of stock. Splendid. I guess that makes my decision (at least for tonight) easier.

I received this email today:

“Dear Steinhardt Graduate Student:

Are you in graduating in January or May? Would you like your picture taken in
academic attire to give out to family, friends or as a souvenir of your
accomplishment?”

(and then there were more details of when and where and who and what and all that good stuff that I didn’t read because…)

Am I just way too unsentimental if my gut reaction was “Uh…no, thank you.”