“There’s this joke about how Asian parents make you learn piano or violin. In elementary school, there was this class where there was a teacher teaching violin, and [my mom] just enrolled me and made me rent a violin. I actually really hated it at first, [but] it’s gotten better.

I feel like for my parents, it’s more of a cultural thing. They see other Chinese families [with kids playing instruments], so they want to do it as well. In some cultures, it might be seen as more refined or elegant to play classical music, but I also think they just wanted me to develop a skill and try out stuff that I might be good at. They made me try out a lot of things. I tried ice skating, but I quit that pretty soon. The whole point is that my parents made me try a lot of stuff when I was young to see if I was suitable for any of those. Violin was just an example of one of those things.

Overall, I am very thankful. I realized I’m privileged to have had those opportunities to try those things at a young age and decide whether or not I like them.

A lot of people at school, when they play music, it’s for a college application because it’s something they’re good at. For me, I look beyond that. Sure, it might help me out with college, but it also serves a main purpose that’s going to last after I get into college for the rest of my life. Violin has helped me discover music as a whole. It helps me form a closer connection to it, beyond just listening to it but also being able to play it. In a lot of ways, music is medicine. Just like how you might go on a run to clear your mind, sometimes just being able to breathe and play five minutes of your favorite piece can get you to calm down when you’re not feeling that good emotionally, and I find that sometimes after I practice violin I can focus on schoolwork more. It’s a very enjoyable hobby to just play violin because I feel like it is the thing that will last for the rest of my lifetime. I think that’s what my parents were really aiming for when they got me to try it out because they really want me to find stuff that I can enjoy in my free time. In the future, I might get off work and just play violin a bit, and it’ll make me happy. That’s what really matters.”