The MeiLiZhou Church is beautiful. After all, the name means “beautiful isle.” Sleek modern lines make up the contemporary campus, and stark natural maple decorate the inside. Engraved Ten Commandments hang on the front wall, illuminated by sunlight streaming in from the windows. Located as part of a resort, the…
Having arrived in Hangzhou on the high speed train Wednesday afternoon, which was delayed by a few minutes, Drs. Cai Hongxin and Liu Chao picked me up at the station and got me situated at the Foreigners’ Residence. My parents arrived from Hong Kong and joined us at the warm…
From Shantou, I flew to Shanghai. Before coming to China, I had written Dr. Chen Shiyi, and I told him that I will be giving a shoulder talk at Sir Run Run Shaw Hospital, which will quote a paper he published a few years ago. He insisted that I visit…
Sunday morning, on my first full day here, my dad and I walked around town and visited some of our relatives’ businesses. My mom’s older cousin is in the toy industry, and the younger runs a bicycle shop. It’s good to see that their business is really successful. My older…
Between leaving home and arriving at my destination in China, the journey has taken 42 hours. It started off with a shuttle to LAX, leaving at 8:00 Thursday morning. I arrived in plenty of time, checked in, and had Panda Express for brunch. The plane, which looks like it has…
This piece is titled Seagulls and Forgetting Schemes 鷗鷺忘機. The story originates from a passage in the Han dynasty text Liezi 列子. Therein, a seafarer finds that that seagulls have no fear until he intends to catch them to bring home. Like rolling waves, initial series of harmonic glissandi invite…
After church, we had a lunch barbeque at Dana Point’s Salt Creek Beach. On the menu were Grillers burgers and salt & vinegar chips. Many friends brought specialty dishes as well. The water was warmer than usual, and the climate was perfect. I went for a run along the beach…
At my tenth lesson, my teacher gave me this piece to learn. It is the slightly shortened version of Pu’an Zhou 普庵咒. Apparently, the full version is extremely repetitious. As it is, this is the longest piece that I’ve played. The earliest form was published in 1592 and later…
We’re having Alex and Nicolas visit from Europe as part the American Shoulder and Elbow Surgeons’ traveling fellowship. Chris arranged for us to take a tour of the San Andreas Fault, sponsored by the San Bernardino County Museum and led by Kathleen Springer. Our first stop took us by Lost…
Like my most recent pieces, this composition, Summoning the Wind and Thunder 風雷引, is from the collection of the Mei’an guqin handbook 梅庵琴譜 and uses the lowered third string tuning. As with most pieces of the Mei’an tradition of briskly paced rhythm, this song employs unison and octave chords to…
Today’s excursion took my brother and me to Bergamot Station to visit Stuart Green’s show. This exhibit highlights some of the key points of color theory. Dr. Green’s self-directed study of color theory—much influenced by Feininger, Itten, Albers, and faculty members of the Bauhaus School of Design—led him to take…
It’s Alice’s birthday!!!!!
Also in the Shang tuning mode 商調 and from the Mei’an handbook 梅庵琴譜, this piece, Autumn Evening Moorings 秋江夜泊, is a tonal painting depicting Su Dongpo’s 蘇東坡 (1037–1101) poem of the Red Cliffs 前赤壁賦. The site was where he thought the famous battle took place in the winter of AD…
This next piece, The Phoenix Seeks His Mate 鳳求凰, is an introduction to playing in the Shang tuning mode 商調 and is of the Mei’an school of guqin playing 梅庵琴派. The story of this song is about the poet Sima Xiangru 司馬相如 (179–113 BC) as recorded in the Shi Ji 史記.…
It started from a Facebook invitation, where I basically invited everyone who I thought would be interested in going. We all met in the Allen Way cul-de-sac just before 6:00 this morning and drove to the parking lot. There were orthopaedic residents, Ben, Mark with Sarah, and Lucas; medical students,…
This past week involved a lot of traveling. Instead of lugging around my dSLR, I decided to use my iPad. It generally took good pictures, but the dynamic range seems much lower than I’d like. I left Tuesday afternoon, after surgeries, and flew to Sacramento. From there, I rented a…
Chris readies the smoke to subdue the bees. He dons the bee suit, and I put on the head and face protection. We head over to the grove. Chris injects some smoke into the hive, and we crack the lid open. The bees suddenly become very active, but we’re both…
Like the two previous pieces, Tune of Utmost Joy and Three Repetitions at Yang Pass, Spring Dawn at the Jade Tower 玉樓春曉 is based on the RuiBin 蕤賓 tuning mode. The origin is from the MeiAn school of guqin playing 梅庵琴派, which is part of my teacher’s tradition. The tune…
One of my favorite melodies, Three Repetitions at Yang Pass 陽關三疊 captures the essence of the poem by Wang Wei 王維. His work, titled Seeing Yuan Er Off to Anxi 送元二使安西, depicts two friends about to part ways: one staying within what was then civilized China, and the other leaving…
It seems ironic that this song—Tune of Utmost Joy 極樂吟—sounds the most melancholy as set in a minor key. It isn’t truly in a minor key, but the guqin is tuned to the RuiBin 蕤賓 mode, where the fifth string is tightened a half step. In the modern tuning tradition,…
Forty years ago, at this time of the year, my parents spent their honeymoon in Japan. We brought them for Japanese food to relive their memories.
Forty years ago today, my parents got married! Their marriage has been a wonderful one. We celebrated this amazing milestone with a dinner at home: grilled vegetable stack, quinoa pilaf, and asparagus.
It’s almost the Fourth of July, and our vegetable garden has overgrown this year. Much of the produce for the menu came from the yard: field greens, broccoli, green beans, beets, onions, rosemary, lemons, and limes. With all the vegetables, we made: Roasted beet salad with goat cheese and field…
Very early on Wednesday morning, I leave home for the airport and arrive with the usual lead time to find the security line going across the entire baggage claim area and almost out the door. I nearly miss my flight. After transit through Dallas-Fort Worth, I make it to Reagan…
