"Your English is so good"

In a feature on the Chinese pianist Yuja Wang in the latest The New Yorker, written by the famed writer Janet Malcolm, I was struck by a particular paragraph ---

Yuja speaks in fluent—more than fluent—English, punctuated by laughter that gives one to understand that what she is saying is not to be taken too seriously, and that she is not a pompous or pretentious person. Occasionally, there is the slightest trace of an accent (vaguely French) and a lapse into the present tense.

This attention paid to Wang's English, in her accent and grammar, is fascinating to me, probably because I have been told many times something similar. "Your English is so good. You hardly have any accent. How old were you when you came to America? Where did you learn English?"

Do I feel offended by this? Well, oddly enough, not when I was on the receiving end of what is intended as compliments, but yes when I read this paragraph by Malcolm.

I have heard that such compliments are considered a "microaggression" nowadays, which I do not necessarily disagree with. Contrary to the movement about microaggressions, however, I don't want to tell people to stopping saying such things to me. I don't want people to stop expressing aggressions, especially micro ones, to each other.

I don't know if I can explain clearly why I think that. There are many reasons. At least one of these is that the expression of microaggression reveals something about the person who is delivering it. The expression itself reveals something about Janet Malcolm, and my reaction to it reveals something about myself. Exactly what that something is is not easily described.

What exactly is it that drove Malcolm to comment on Wang's English? Did she expect Wang to speak English with a Chinese accent or Chinglish and was surprised? Wang started living in North America since 14 (she's now 29). Is it surprising? Or is it because, as a writer, Malcolm is particularly sensitive to languages, particularly accents and grammar? Or did she feel threatened by Wang on an unconscious level and felt the need to emphasize Wang's otherness?

Why am I touched by this paragraph? Perhaps I have always wondered why people complimented on my English and the lack of accent. I shouldn't have dismissed it as mundane compliment and missed the opportunity to understand them more deeply.

In principle, I do not think it is good to prohibit people to express microaggressions, or even macroaggressions. I do not believe in repression and suppression because I believe they lead to explosion. To deny others' aggression is to deny my own. If I want to be allowed to express a full range of my own emotions, then everyone must be allowed as well. As long as we don't kill each other, some verbal expression of aggression may be more healthy than pretending to be perfectly harmonious and perfect.

Without aggression, life would be so lifeless, and we would never have a glimpse into Janet Malcolm in a piece she wrote. We'd never get to know each other, even if such knowledge is always colored with our own projection.

Antony and Cleopatra Notes (1)

Re-reading Act 1, a thought struck me: This is two hearts in conflict with each other and themselves. Antony knows that he must leave the Egyptian queen for his own honor and reputation, not to mention political survival, but he can't. Cleopatra knows Antony wants to leave her and it will all end in tears. They are telling themselves and each other: Go, go away, leave. But they can't.

The Famine Pact

I've been re-watching some episodes of the French TV series "Nicolas Le Floch," based on the historical detective novels written by Jean Francois Parot. In addition to being glorious swashbuckling whodunnit fun, the series place fictional characters within the historical context of eighteenth century French politics. Being almost completely ignorant of this part of history, I can barely keep up with the intricate conspiracies and court intrigue.

One of the books entitled "The Baker's Blood," which I have not read, has to do with the Famine Pact. Under the pressure of chronic food shortage, Louis XV tried to stock up on grains during relatively good years as reserves for bad years. The intention was reasonable. Upon hearing the explanation, Nicolas Le Floch reacted as any of us would: "There's nothing shameful in that." Yet, the policy backfired and caused grain price to go up during good years and skyrocket during famine. Bureaucrats who carried out the policy saw an opportunity to make obscene amount of money through speculation, while shifting the blame on the king. Rumors began to circulate about the royalty's attempt to starve and rob the people. Riots broke out. These rumors, while untrue, directly contributed to the French Revolution a few years later.

Being a diplomat and historian, Parot seems to be quite sympathetic to both kings, Louis XV and XVI. He describes them as trying but failing to reverse the course of doom. Without the benefit of hindsight, Louis XVI supported the American Revolution against the British Empire, only to boost his own subjects' confidence in creating their own republic. Could they have done anything differently to avoid the revolution? The answer seems to be no. They were doing the best they humanly could. One could argue --- and Parot does argue --- that by then the system was too corrupt to be saved by any one person, even le roi. But then it's clear that nonpolitical factors, such as population growth, immigration failure (unlike Spain and Britain), weather, and other random events have as much or more effects on history than human policies and wisdom.

What disturbs me in all this is how little we seem to understand history. We don't know why the American Revolution was a success, but the equally promising French Revolution deteriorated into a bloody mess within four years. It was the French idea to begin with! Hell, we still have no idea what caused World War 1, and that was only 100 years ago! Is history a series of random chaos that can only be observed but never predicted? Or are we merely waiting for a theory to make sense of our own past and future with just the right variables and math? What is the force of history? And are humans both self-deluded participants and powerless puppets in the process?

Perhaps most curious, why do people behave in the same way over and over? "The Queen says, let them eat cake." "The King wants to starve you all." "The federal government is going to break into your home and take away your guns and wives." "The President eats babies for breakfast." Time has stood still and the same rumors are whispered across hundreds of years. Nothing has changed. "The people," as they are called --- are they real individual persons or recycled copies of the same marionette, generation after generation?

The TV series run up to early 1780s, with a disillusioned Le Floch sailing to the New World at Marquis de Lafayette's beckoning. (One cannot hear the name "Lafayette" without conjuring up the irresistible Daveed Diggs in mind.) There is an eeriness in this. Before a disaster hits, before people begin chopping heads off, we are all going about our business as if everything is normal. We may smell the rottenness around us and hear grumblings of discontent, but the smell and noise have always been there and nothing's happened so far ... 

Jason Moran: Armory Concert

To be honest, when I was first attracted to Jason Moran's music, it was not jazz but rather a piece he adapted from Ravel. I think it was his penchant for cross-genre blending that got me. The idea of mixing and crossing over was also what drew me to the Moran-Denk concert at Kennedy Center. Subsequently, I read about his multimedia projects that blend music with visual artists and other types of experience, even skateboarding.

A few days ago Moran released an album of recordings from his performance at the Park Avenue Armory. I have not heard it, except a sample of "Reanimation." The review in NYT makes it sound extremely intriguing.

Sure, his roots are unmistakably jazz, but he has expanded his mind and fingers into not only other genre of music but also other senses. Somehow this spirit is both universal and uniquely jazz-y.

Moran and Denk

Jason Moran

Jeremy Denk

Last October, I saw a performance involving Jason Moran and Jeremy Denk, a dialog of sort, between a jazz pianist and a classical pianist of similar age and, I believe, similar sensibility. It was part of Jason+, a series organized by Moran, who is the director of jazz programs at Kennedy Center.

Neither pianist is confined within their respective genre. Moran was classically trained and has a modern bent on jazz. His idol / inspiration is Thelonious Monk, who was himself an experimenter. I first heard about Denk was on an NPR program, in which he discussed Bach's Goldberg Variations. His inspiration, besides Bach, is Gyorgy Ligeti.

It was a tense time for me, when half of my brain was always waiting for the phone to buzz with news about my mother's illness --- and indeed it buzzed during the performance that evening. Nevertheless I was engrossed by Moran and Denk. They pounded their pianos alternately, each running down a catalog of representative pieces they had selected. Denk went from Bach to Ligeti, and Moran went from James Johnson to Monk. Denk showed off a bit of improvisation. Moran stuck to a fairly traditional and crowd-pleasing approach, although from some of his recordings I knew he could be more modern if he wanted to.

I don't know enough about music to comment intelligently about their skills, which I assume superb, or the music itself. However, the chronological order of their selected pieces struck me with the parallel of two separately evolved genre of music. The lineage of Denk's catalog grew out of central Europe --- Austria, Germany, and Czech some 400 years ago --- and later spread to Russia and western Europe. Moran's genre is one and half centuries of American music rooted in transplanted African slaves. These two lines of music, invented by a small number of people, have formed the two dominant strands in the whole world.

Isn't it strange, I thought, that the music from other regions of the world and in the thousands of years of human history has not achieved nearly as much sophistication and universal appeal? Indian music may provide some competition, but other places not so much. China, for its massive number of people living through a space of a couple of thousand of years, has produced no music of any worth whatsoever.

A Unifying Theory: ASOIAF

While the Game of Thrones TV series have turned into fan fiction of the ASOIAF novels (or, as some may say, parody), this fan fiction has the advantage of having learned the grand finale from GRRM himself. The main characters' fates and big story arcs will likely to be generally consistent. For example, Jon Snow has been resurrected. Arya Stark is heading back to Westeros. Cersei Lannister will blow up King's Landing with wildfire. Daenerys Targaryen has tamed Drogon. Looming events include the dominance of Littlefinger Petyr Baelish and the Others and their zombies swarming over the Wall.

In the two novels plus 11 chapters released to date, a trend that is more pronounced than geographical convergence might be the spiritual "homecoming" of major characters. Daenerys has changed her principle from "If I look back I am lost" to re-examining her past. Jon Snow was about to ride to Winterfell before getting stabbed by Bowen Marsh and co. Tyrion, oddly enough, connects to home by selling it off to Brown Ben Plumm and his Second Sons army.

The human Arya may not be heading home up to the chapter "Mercy," but her constant warging into Nymeria suggests that her spirit may have already returned. Most notable, Bran's "return" reaches into the past of not only his family but the entire history of First Men and Children of the Forest, native populations of the ancient and mythical North. This, perhaps, is the grand and ultimate homecoming that the story is heading toward.

Thus we are faced with a question: What is home? What is the origin or true identity? Here another pattern emerges. Some of the main characters are not human but rather beasts. Below are the definite cases:

Characters of No Importance

It occurred to me only recently that Shakespeare would often stick a character in a play that does not serve the plot but speaks for the average person or, more likely, the playwright himself. The character of no importance observes the absurdity of everyone else in the play and the absurdity of life itself. He sometimes takes part in the action, but always maintains a detached outsider's viewpoint. Some examples that are particularly memorable to me are:

• The Fool (King Lear)
• The Bastard (King John)
• Enobarbus (Antony and Cleopatra)
• Thersites (Troilus and Cresida) 

There is a long list of Shakespearean fools on Wikipedia, but those characters are identified by the traditional definition of a theatrical fool, who serves a particular function on stage. Thus, Falstaff is classified as a fool even though he is also a central character in Henry IV. 

What I'm talking about, however, is a character that channels Shakespeare's own opinions, which is perhaps closer to the role of chorus, except this "chorus" is a lot more irreverent and cynical and sometimes vicious, and never represents the values and perspective of nobility. 

In general, Shakespeare seemed to be fairly careful in disguising his own opinions and had very limited use of chorus-like devices. When he did use a person as the chorus, he is there to tell the audience about stuff like "previously on this series ..." or "imagine some visual effects here ..." 

Given all the caution, Henry V is an extraordinary play in which he presented two nearly-opposing viewpoints: One of the king and his noblemen and one of the average soldiers. The two sides came to a head when Henry disguised himself to visit the camp at night before the battle of Agincourt and heard the real thoughts among his men. A couple of guys said:

Then I would he were here alone; so should he be sure to be ransomed, and a many poor men's lives saved. ... 

But if the cause be not good, the king himself hath a heavy reckoning to make, when all those legs and arms and heads, chopped off in battle, shall join together at the latter day and cry all 'We died at such a place;' some swearing, some crying for a surgeon, some upon their wives left poor behind them, some upon the debts they owe, some upon their children rawly left. I am afeard there are few die well that die in a battle; for how can they charitably dispose of any thing, when blood is their argument? Now, if these men do not die well, it will be a black matter for the king that led them to it; whom to disobey were against all proportion of subjection.

The guys never appear again. After the battle, the king hanged his old buddy Bardolph.