A Piano Recital Story

My family moved from New Jersey to Wisconsin in 1984.  At that time, my oldest son, Victor, was 7 years old.  Victor took piano lessons when he was 5 years old. So when we settled in Wisconsin, we found him a piano teacher in our neighborhood.  The new teacher also taught adults.  Therefore both my son and I enrolled to the new teacher’s class.

We bought a decent piano in our new home.  In the evening after supper, both my son and I practiced at the piano.  To be honest, my piano musicality was quite limited.  But, at the time, I was thinking that my diligence in practicing piano could be a good example for my son to practice piano every day just like his dad.

There were approximately 5 adult students and 15 children students in her class.  The children's students were  playing music at their appropriate levels. Victor was playing the Suzuki lessons at level 4.  I was given Bach’s Invention. 2 in C-minor’ piece to practice.  Bach’s Invention was a challenging piece for me.

Three months later, the teacher said to the kids that there would be a piano recital for all the kids.

I then asked the teacher. Do parent stdents also need to play at the rehearsal ? 

The teacher said no. She said that the recital was only for kids.  

I didn’t know what I was thinking at the time. I said to the teacher that I would love to play at the recital.

The teacher then said, “For kids, everyone needs  to memorize the music. They would play the  piece without the music; but for adult, you can bring the music with you.” 

Again, I was overconfident. I told my teacher, I would memorize the piece and play the piece without music. 

So, my son and I were working very hard at the piano, at least half an hour a day. .  I felt very confident at the time of recital which was approximately 2 weeks after her initial announcement. 

The rehearsal took place at the  Houdini Museum, a historical museum of Appleton.  The museum had an antique piano.  Some antique piano might have keyboard stickiness issues. 

All the kids were at the recital. However, I was the only adult in the recital. I was at the last to play in front of the audience.

The kids seemed not to be bothered by the keys in that antique piano.  One by one, they all played their music well.  One by one, they bowed, and one by one the audience applauded.  

It was my turn. I suddenly felt tinkling with my feet and my fingers.  It was probably the feeling of a stage flight. 

I sat in front of this antique piano and hit the first C minor chord  on the piano; I immediately felt  the keyboard stickiness of this antique piano.  Worst of all, I froze in front of this piano while the audience was waiting anxiously for me to start and finish the music.  After few embarrassing moment pass, I do not remember how did I came out that embarrassment. My wife said that I did not play at all. But I think my teacher sat besides me to help me the initial phrases and I regained my composure to finish the rest.

Few years later, Victor switched from the piano to Cello, and after that, I did not touch that piano.  That was 1990.  When we moved from Wisconsin to Ann Arbor in 2023, we donated the piano to a church which needed a piano at the time.

Victor’s cello skills are really shining.  Today, he continues to practice and give  a cello performance.  On September 22, 2024, he and his friend played Shostakovich’s cello and piano concerto at the Ann Arbor Reform Church. 

Although my musicality is quite limited, I continue to sing in the choir of my church.  I also play recorders at Ann Arbor Recorder Society here.

Both the choir and the recorder group perform in front of the audience.  But one thing is for sure,  I will not perform solo in front of the audience. 

The Hawaii Trip

 In the August of 2023, my wife and I flew to Los Angelas to join other members of my wife’s family to board a Prince Cruise into the Pacific Ocean with the final destination of the Hawaiian Islands.  

There were 10 of us; the youngest was in the 60’s and the oldest in the mid 80’s. We were not in the prime age; most of us have chronicle health conditions. 

It tooks us approximately 7 days to reach the Big Island of the Hawaii.  

There are approximately 1000 islands, large and small.  But there are only 5 major islands, Kauai, Oahu, Malokai, Maui, and the Big Islands.  Kauai is the oldest which is approximately 5 million years old; The Big Island is the youngest which is approximately 0,7 million years old. Kauai is situated at Northwest of the Big Island. 

Hawaiian Islands are formed from the volcano created from a moving Pacific tectonic plate passing through a magna, a hot spot of Earth crust. The Pacific tectonic plate is moving in the  northwest direction with a speed of approximately 100 mm per year.  Just like a moving cake passing through a hot candle, the cake melt at the hot spot.  If the pressure is high enough, it erupts just like volcano.

The volcano creates mountain summit and deep base. Mauna Loa has an elevation of 13,679’ .  The trade wind and the summit height host 4 out of 5 climate groups.  Hilo is the wettest city on the Earth.  Aka Fall has rainfall almost every day.  They belong to the Tropical Continuous Wet zone.  However, coastal areas especially the south and west sides of the summit slides are dry year-long.  Example is the Mauna Loa Resort.  At the summit top, such as summit of Mauna Loe, occasionally, there are also snow falls. 

Hawaii is a dynamic living entity.  It is a place where work of wind and water, the rise and fall of the land; sun and long dances of time creates not just an island of culture and people but various climate zones between light and shadow, fire and ice, as well as rain and dry. 

Some of us hired a tourist guide on the Big Island. He took us to the summit to visit the Volcano National Park.  Although it was August, it was actually very cold at the summit.  At the summit, the guide introduced us to the Hawaiian state tree, the Ohia-Lehua which has a twisted tree trunk but a beautiful red flower on top of the tree trunk. 

It was not supposed to be the blossom season of the tree; however, one the tree had a beautiful red flower on the tree trunk. 

Being curious, I came close trying to smell the fragrance of the flower, accidentally the flower came off.  Here, the trouble began as the tree and the flower were created by the greatest Volcano goddess, Pele, of Hawaii. The legend says that the Pele was once in love with a young, strong and handsome man, called Ohia and made a proposal to Ohia to marry him.  Ohia turned down the proposal because Ohia agreed to marry his sweet heart, Lehua.  Furious Pele chased this couple to kill the couple and burned everything on her path.  

Many other god and goddess asked Pele for mercy. Pele agreed and  turned this couple into a tree and a flower on top of the tree.  The tree and the flower are inseparable; thus anyone trying to separate the couple would bring the misfortune.  

Now, I had accidentally picked the flower.  So what had misfortunes happened to us ? 

It had many.  Two days later after the incidence, the youngest member of our group had a Covid.  Although Covid did not kill her or even made her very sick, she was locked in her cabin for the rest of the journey. She could not enjoy the show, the line dance, the Hawaiian dance, even watched the sunrise or the sunset of the Pacific Ocean. 

On the day we were disembarking from the ship, my sister’s husband who has severe Type II diabetics and requires daily insulin injection had a racing heart and was out of breath during the disbarking process.  He had to be sent to the ER for emergency treatment.  He was OK.  

When I arrived home, I was worried about bad luck or misfortunes that could happen to me. Miraculously, I am OK so far.  Do you know what I did ? 

I paint the Ohia-Lehua tree on a piece of paper with a black pen and a red pen. I sketched the most ugly, twisted tree then on top of he tree, I sketched  red flowers.  Somehow, this effort of repairing the curse seems to work.  

Then it comes to the final question.  When the members of our group were sick, were they the results of the curse? Or, there were frail in the first place ?