“It was scary.

I walked into a room where three adults who all had pieces of paper were writing down notes from the last person who played the piano.

It was intimidating.

I had only ever played the piano for my parents and teacher.

The judges were like, ‘You’ll be fine, just play.’ But at that moment, I felt like they were expecting something from me.

I started playing the piano in second grade. My family just loves music, and my mom was always into the piano. She would play the piano at home, and I would just watch her and listen to the piano CDs in the car.

When I first started, I was playing basic pieces. It’s honestly kind of boring. I expected to play crazy concertos, but I couldn’t. You have to learn the basics first, and that’s where a lot of people stop playing because they’re like, ‘This sucks. This is boring,’ and that’s what I thought at first, but then my mom stopped teaching me, and we got another piano teacher.

Her name was Mei Rui. Her guidance helped me to get even more into playing because she just let me do whatever. I stopped learning out of the book [and] started playing really hard pieces. At first, I sucked, but then once I kept playing and kept at it, I got better, and I could play pieces pretty well.

When I’m not prepared, I always try to perfect things as good as I want them to be, I don’t sign up for stuff where I don’t think I’m going to do good. I always put my best foot forward. My performance at the Charleston International Music Competition ended out fine. I played Nocturne in C sharp minor by Chopin pretty well [in front of the judges]. I didn’t get anything, but the accomplishment was a good experience.

When I fidget [during competitions], I’m nervous. I think judges expect something because they’re there to see good pianists. Looking back on it, just being there and being able to perform and play something isn’t about caring what other people think [about you].

It’s that you’re there doing it yourself.”