Tuesday, May 30, 2006

Memorial Day Special - My violin teacher, Mr. L

[Yesterday was Memorial Day. To a lot of people, myself included, that might just as well be called Barbeque Day. Chatting at a barbeque yesterday, I somehow brought up my old violin teacher, Mr. L, whom I have not seen for over 10 years. It didn't cross my mind at the time, but it struck me later on, that Mr. L fought in the Vietnam war. In fact, he is the only veteran that I know personally. It is with fond memories that I write this.]

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Mr. L was an esteemed violinist. He was the First Assistant Concert Master for a cosmopolitan philhamonic orchestra. What that means is he plays violin for a living in a big band. He doesn't just play, he is the third in command. If the conductor and the concert master dies in a concert, he's the one resposible to lead them through the rest of the music. He would be the commander-in-chief. I don't think that has ever happened, just like there has never been a Speaker of the House that sat in as President. What did happen was when the concert master was out, Mr. L would lead the orchestra through rehearsals and concerts, and play solo.

Some people are scared to play solo. I have never been scared of that. If you know what it means to be in crossfire, to face bullets and dodge land mines, you won't be afraid to play solo. What's the worst thing that can happen to you? You make a mistake, you miss a note, you miss a beat, you are still alive. When someone is trying to kill you, you make a mistake, you die.


Mr. L is a decorated veteran. He's got a bronze star and a purple heart. He always says he's not worthy of the medals. He says the people who are worthy are dead. One day in Vietnam, he left his unit to relieve himself. On his way back, he saw four communist soldiers close by. It was either them or him, someone had to die. Well, he didn't.

To this day I get nightmares about those four people. I know I had no choice. If I didn't kill them, they would have killed me. It's not like we could have sat down for a cup of coffee and then go our separate ways. But I still feel - I'm not sure what I feel - it just feels wrong to take someone else's life. I mean, these guys are people too. They have families just like us. They are husbands, fathers, sons, boyfriends. I never wanted to kill any one.


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I first started taking lessons from Mr. L in 3rd grade. I couldn't understand half of what he said, so for the first couple years, my dad would come with me and translate. Most of Mr. L's students called him by his firstname; my dad insisted on calling him Mr. L. So I also called him Mr. L. When I first started, my dad half-joked that we were getting a good deal - on top of a violin lesson, I was getting an English lesson for free.

When I was in 7th or 8th grade, Mr. L's wife divorced him. Not long afterwards he got into an accident - some people said he got drunk and fell down the stairs. In any case, he couldn't play the violin any more. His students left one after the other, and in the end, I was his only student. My violin-english lessons then became mostly English lessons. I would get about an hour's worth of violin lesson, mingled with a few hours of lecture on whatever happened to be on his mind. These ranged from music theory, economy, religion, to politics. I never could guess what he was going to talk about, but he could always relate these random thoughts back to the Brahms concerto that I was learning. And he would always mention something about Vietnam.

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Most music teachers don't like their students playing sports, especially high-risk sports like basketball and volleyball. In these games, fingers are routinely jammed, and months of musical training could all go down the drain. Mr. L was different. He couldn't care less.

Don't worry! Go play! Your fingers will be fine. Besides, at your age, the important thing is to find something that you love so much, that you are willing to die for it. Martin Luther King said that you have not truly lived if you do not have anything that you are willing to give up your life for. What kind of things are worth dying for? Probably not violin or volleyball; some people say Freedom, Justice, Faith. But that is something you have to find out for yourself.


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Mr. L is an American. Unlike other teachers, he was always positive and encouraging. I had a report card from the music school one year, and the examiner said my intonation was poor in one of the pieces. I showed Mr. L the report card and he just laughed.

I know this guy. Trust me, he doesn't know what he's talking about. Your intonation is fine. If anything, this guy is jealous of your vibrato. I told you you are gifted with the virbrato. Next time you play this piece, just remember to show off your vibrato.


I don't think I thought twice about that - but I am quite sure the examiner was not jealous. Even now, my intonation is not the best, and I could only imagine how bad it could be back then. Vibrato, by the way, is the best cover up on the violin if you missed a note.

Not all teachers are like that. After my wining performance in a solo competition, another teacher with Soviet Union and Chinese backgrounds came up to me and said, "Your slow movement was too slow, too dragging."

The Chinese has a saying that "the deeper you love, the harder you criticize". If Mr. L were Chinese, he didn't like me at all.

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In my 8 years with Mr. L, his life changed a lot. His wife left, he lost his livelihood, and all his students left him. Yet despite all these horrible things, I have never seen him angry at anyone. The only time I thought he was angry was when Clinton became President.

I don't understand how anyone could vote for Clinton. The man is a coward. I don't think he should even be called a man. You have respnsibilities as a citizen; if you don't get them done, you are not fit to become President. When you country needs you to go to war, you don't run away, and come back to become commander-in-chief. If you are too chicken to be shot at, you can't decide if anything is worth sending someone else's kid to get shot at. If you don't understand the consequences of war, you can't make the decision to go to war.


I don't know what Mr. L has to say about the war on terror; he never said whether he thought Vietnam was justified as something worth dying for. I also wonder, if he were to meet with the current commander-in-chief today, what he would have to say.

Friday, May 26, 2006

Buy groceries online!

Do you know that Amazon started selling groceries online? Well, now you know. And not just any groceries, organic groceries.

Search for "Gatorade", and you can find some pretty sweet deals. Don't say I didn't tell you.

Thursday, May 25, 2006

Firefox keyboard shortcut

I'm a big fan of keyboard shortcuts, vi, gmail, alias...Now thanks to a friend at work, I am more efficient at browsing as well. Especially when combined with search strings, these firefox shortcuts are great.

This is all you have to do:
1. copy/change the html below into a file ending in .html
2. select Bookmarks > Manage Bookmarks in Firefox
3. select File > Import... in the bookmark manager
4. select "From File"
5. find your file and continue

After you are done, you can type "s love" on your browser address bar to find love.

<dt><a href="http://a9.com/%s" shortcuturl="s">A9.com >Search
</a></dt><dt><a href="http://www.google.com/search?q=%s" shortcuturl="g">www.google.com > Search</a>
</dt><dt><a href="http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=%s" shortcuturl="d">www.dictionary.com</a>
</dt><dt><a href="https://mail.google.com/mail" shortcuturl="m">mail.google.com/mail</a>
</dt><dt><a href="http://bloglines.com/myblogs" shortcuturl="b">bloglines.com/myblogs</a></dt>

Sunday, May 21, 2006

Bay to Breakers

The results of this year's bay to breakers is out. Given I barely prepared for this, my time wasn't too bad. I finished the 12K (7.46 miles) race in 1:13:57, which put me at 2860 out of more than 60,000 people. (I ran under a friend's name, so you would have to use bib number 8338 to get my time.)

Friday, May 19, 2006

Wednesday, May 17, 2006

boarderchic.com


For all you lady boarders out there, check out this site: boarderchic.com

I met the owners from volleyball, and they tell me everything in the store is made in the USA.

Tuesday, May 16, 2006

Adam Smith and N. T. Wright

N.T. Wright, Bishop of Durham, gave a sermon at Menlo Park last sunday. I am glad I got to hear him speak. Like the music of Bach, I found N.T. Wright to be wonderful in many levels. He comes across immediately as a deep thinker and a serious scholar, but at the same time, he was very approachable and had a great sense of humor. He talked about three current issues that the Western world faces: Gnoticism, Imperialism, and Post-modernism. Then he talked about how his new book: Simply Christian was relevant in these days. The sermon should be available online soon on the church website. Once I verified my notes I may blog about this more.

I started reading his new book - it seems very well written and Bach-like - but before I send you all to Amazon.com, let me say that there is one minor point I do not agree with him. His book starts out talking about justice, how everyone has an inner desire for fairness. That is all very good. But one of the examples he gave was that of the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer.

First of all, I don't believe the poor is getting poorer in abosolute terms. My gut feeling is that the lifestyle of the poorest 10% of the world has been improving year to year. Secondly, global commerce is not social injustice. As long as people volunteerly work at so-called "sweat shops", there must be something more fair and just about working there, than at other local businesses. (One may argue that global corporations have so much economy of scale that local businesses cannot compete; but I have yet to hear of an area where the only employer is a global evil empire.)

While it is good to try to improve working environments around the world, one must take into account the different standards of living. A dollar in the U.S. cannot buy you a cup of coffee, but can get you a decent meal in Tibet. The poor in America is definitely well off compared to the poor in China or India. Which brings me to the other Englishman in the title of this blog: Adam Smith. I am reading his classic "The Wealth of Nations", which by the way, somehow got used at work. In the first chapter, he talks about the creation and distribution of wealth. If I understood correctly, it is the uneven distribution of wealth that Bishop Wright finds offensive.

Smith has something to say about that:
Compared, indeed, with the more extravagant luxury of the great, his [the poor's] accommodation must no doubt appear extremely simple and easy; and yet it may be true, perhaps, that the accommodation of an European prince does not always so much exceed that of an industrious and frugal peasant, as the accommodation of the latter exceeds that of many an African king, the absolute master of the lives and liberties of ten thousand naked savage.

Instead of lobbying to tax the ultra-wealthy, who earned the wealth in one way or another, perhaps those industrious and frugal peasants, who feel the pain of the savages, should simply do what they can with their own money to help. Instead of boycotting Nike or Starbucks, perhaps we should be reminded that even if a worker at a "sweat shop" only gets a dollar a day, that is a dollar more than they would have gotten if no one buys Nikes. When people groups join the global economy, they gain from the efficiencies in division of labor. This in turns results in better productivity, and eventually, better standards of living. To artificially inflate the cost of labor in a country where labor is cheap, and thereby distributing wealth to the factory workers in those countries, does not seem to me to be the optimal way of distributing wealth.

Of course Tom Wright did not get to the details on how to alleviate social injustice in the sermon. Perhaps he has some wonderful ideas as well.

Monday, May 08, 2006

Tool of the Month (April)

Here's the long-awaited tool of the month - zillow.com! How on earth did I pick zillow over google calendar? I'm the decider, stop asking questions.

Zillow is a fun little tool, you can check out how much your friend/boss/enemy's house is worth.

Enjoy.

Return on Investment

In the last month or so, this blog has brought in a grand total of $12. My little experiment on ShareBuilder, over $200. My day job...phew, I'm glad I have my day job :-)

Wednesday, May 03, 2006

Free stuff

Some freebies that maybe of interest:

Free access to wall street journal online
Free access to napster songs (up to 5 times per song)
Free investment money $25 from sharebuilder if you open a new account by referral (from me, for example)