Food is so important in Chinese culture. Millions of books say what you should eat in each week of each season, on Monday rather than Sunday, full-moon or half-moon, rain or thunder. Food is the number one subject talked about every day, even more than the economy.
In the cultural revolution of the 60s, my future parents – who were middle-class musicians – were taken away to work on distant rice farms in the countryside for five years, where they ate very little. So, I was the only child – because of the one-child laws – of parents who’d had their career dreams shattered. I have no memory of my father smiling.
We lived on Shenyang air force base in one room, with a kitchen we shared with four other families. When I was two, my parents spent half their year’s salary on an upright piano and I’d play it while the smells of bean oil, soy sauce, dumplings and hotpots drifted down the corridor. It was an inspiring infancy. But, when I was five, Father became very strict. He said I must become the best pianist in China.
At 5.45am I’d be woken up for an hour’s practice before a breakfast of 15 minutes. At noon, home from school for 45 minutes’ practice and lunch of 15 minutes. After school, two hours of practice before a 20-minute dinner, then two more hours of piano practice, then supper and school homework. My mother’s dumplings – with a secret ingredient that makes them so juicy yet so clean – are the best in the world and knowing I would have her food as a reward always gave me great energy at the keyboard.
Wanting me to enter Beijing Central Conservatory of Music, Father gave up his job in the vice squad and we moved to Beijing, without my mother, who then ate very little so she could send us money from her job as a telephone operator. Father and I lived in a one-bedroom flat with mice and his cooking was not good. He boiled tasteless vegetables and made lousy half-cooked things and had me practise until later and later each night, which sent neighbours crazy. I started eating”‘fast”-type food and became the plump kid hanging onto the back of Father’s bike. One year, my mother came to visit and said I’d doubled in size. But just having her cook for a few days made me feel a million times better.
I had piano lessons with a woman I called Professor Angry who’d say things like, “You play like you throw music out of the window”, or “You must play more like Coca Cola”. She really liked to cook so would compare music with food or my playing with eating – “You sound like tasteless chicken” or “You do that like a chopstick”. To this day, I still don’t get what she meant by “You play like a potato farmer”. (There’s nothing wrong with potato farmers and I’m sure they can be good piano players too.)
When Professor Angry said I wouldn’t be suitable for Beijing Conservatory and stopped tutoring me, my father said I should kill myself by taking pills or jumping from our 11th storey window. I was nine and I hated him for that, and I stopped playing and ate with my back to him.
At 12 I travelled to Germany – with my father and tutor Zhu– to compete in the 1994 International Competition for Young Pianists. In Ettlingen, we were housed with an elderly couple and a shepherdThe countryside was so beautiful I was thinking of Schumann, Liszt and Beethoven anew. Every breakfast we’d eat sausages while Beethoven’s 6th Symphony serenaded us from the gramophone. From what I’ve learnt since, Ludwig was a sausage lover.
On my travels I’ve been most delighted by Peruvian cooking. They have incredible food in Peru that is sort of somewhere between South American food and Asian food, with inspiration especially from Japan. What I try to avoid is really spicy food. I’m so afraid of spices. The first time I’d came to America I’d gone on a summer camp. I was the only one attending with their father. The canteen seemed good for the first few days but the food – salads, bread and desserts - never changed and there was no Chinese food and I missed it. Even in America today I seek and eat mainly Chinese food– plus Japanese and a little Italian
My mother travels and tours with me, more than 300 days a year, and borrows friends’ apartments around the world so she can cook for me. Her Chinese home food is my favourite. It is the best and will remain always the best.
I’m a goodwill ambassador for Unicef and others, and sometimes I have to take the challenge of playing while people dine. To try to play Beethoven during a meal is not a good idea.
New York Rhapsody is out now (Sony Classical)
