Reprogramming Directive

This is a repost of an old blog entry I made during my stay in New York City as an exchange student to New York University at the beginning of 2008. That single semester was the most incredible four months and has changed my life more than I could possibly imagine.

The Phantom of the Opera is a through-composed stage musical by Andrew Lloyd Webber, one of the great masters of twentieth century musical theatre, written for the one and only Sarah Brightman (his then-wife). It is one of the longest-running musicals in history, opening in the West End in 1986 and is still showing as of the date of writing this post. Phantom is one of the earliest musicals I was introduced to; I fell in love with it the first time I heard the music at age of 10 at a New Year’s Eve party held by a family friend.

I saw the 2004 film (also produced by Andrew Lloyd Webber) before I ever saw the stage musical and I loved it. This is my review of the stage production on Broadway.

Originally posted on Thu, 28 February 2008 at 01:59 while listening to “The Phantom of the Opera”, OST ‘The Phantom of the Opera’ and feeling in love.

I love New York.

So I finished up my Corporate Finance case study and sat my Futures & Options mid-term and wondered what I was going to do with a whole evening of lovely free time. Then it hit me. Times Square is only a stone’s throw away. I ate an early dinner, scribbled down the addresses of about four different shows and headed out.

I originally meant to see something else, like Chicago or A Chorus Line, but Phantom was the closest theatre to the subway station and I couldn’t just walk past. I thought it would be less packed on a Wednesday night but incredibly the line of people wound all around the foyer, out the door and onto the sidewalk. I have loved Phantom for so long that I couldn’t resist. Didn’t get my beloved front and dead center mezzanine seats as I did for Rent, but I did get front and center rear mezzanine for $36 USD and it was pretty decent.

The Phantom of the Opera, showing at the Majestic Theatre, 245 West 44th Street.

I got there at about 7:20 PM or so and there was already a huge line of people queuing up and people trying to sell souvenir programs for $10 each (I love Phantom, but not enough to pay $10 for a program). Doors opened at 7:30 PM sharp and I walked into this absolutely gorgeous theatre, all ornate woodwork with gold leaf, plush carpets and velvet, and chandeliers everywhere. Sadly my camera chose this moment to die so all subsequent pictures are from my phone.

Me in the Majestic Theatre.

The ceiling of the theatre.

The stage at the very beginning (prologue/auction scene).

The stage at the very end.

The sets were absolutely fantastic and I wish I had photos. The whole sequence of “Little Lotte/The Mirror” into “I Remember…Stranger Than You Dreamt It” was done brilliantly, with Phantom leading Christine through a trapdoor in the stage then down a tilting walkway from side to side to make it seem like they descended into the bowels of the opera house. Then the lake scene, just wow, there was a lot of dry ice for mist on the lake and the boat and candles gliding around. Other memorable sets were the giant staircase for “Masquerade” which was so lavish and wonderfully done and the roof of the opera house for “All I Ask Of You”, oh and the “Hannibal” scene with the giant elephant!

They made really good use of stage space the whole time, there was a walkway on top of the stage where the Phantom cut down the chandelier, and it was connected to the gargoyle where he hid and did “All I Ask Of You (Reprise)”.

There’s a bunch of miscellaneous comments I had on other stuff about the staging. Costuming and lighting was great for the whole show. There was quite of bit of pyrotechnics used: explosions to signify the flashback in time at the beginning, when the Phantom appears/disappears, then Phantom throwing fireballs in the graveyard scene during “Wandering Child” and there was a point where there were massive gouts of flame going up on stage (I think during Don Juan Triumphant?). Totally. Awesome.

Musically I was so impressed by Howard McGillin. He makes a brilliant Phantom and his voice is so wonderfully expressive. If it were possible to fall in love with a voice, I would be so in love right now. He conveyed such depths of emotion in his singing and then he acted the part of a genius caught between sociopathic violence and a pitiful yearning for unrequited love so perfectly. *swoon* Loved him. Jennifer Hope Wills did pull off a great Christine, but I think my rather subdued praise is due to listening to Sarah Brightman on repeat.

Tim Martin Gleason as Raoul was…good but compared to Phantom and Christine, he just kind of paled beside them. His diction wasn’t as clean and crisp and his delivery didn’t pull on the heartstrings enough. He seemed to sing at two extremes a lot – he’s either “yelling” in a dynamically flat way or a very nice softer, more expressive sound. I wish he had more gradations in his performance, like the other two leads (the ranges in their voices are unbelievable). He’s supposed to be the understudy for Phantom; I’m not sure that would work out so good, just because his Raoul didn’t really grab me. Patricia Phillips did Carlotta very well too, but I kept thinking about Minnie Driver’s version in the film and felt it was a bit too similar and Minnie Driver’s version was stronger.

Final comments on musicality before I sleep – orchestra was really, really good. And diction overall was fantastic. You could hear every single consonant being clipped off and it was done so strongly and cleanly that it would echo a little around the theatre. Except for Gleason. He was kind of slack on a lot of his diction. Blah, and now this is ending on a down note. Well, when all is said and done, it was still a great show and I still loved it. But on an overall basis, I’d have to say Rent left a stronger impression on me. Soooo…I will blog about Rent (which I saw like a month ago)…soon!

It’s taken for granted that at least once in your life, you will do a whole lot of soul searching and wonder “Who am I and what am I doing here?” Sometimes this crisis happens very late in life (the “mid-life crisis”), sometimes people are really pro-active and start asking as soon as they can talk. These days, it’s often happening to people in their twenties or what’s been termed a “quarter-life crisis“.

I first heard this term about a year ago from a colleague as her twenty-fifth birthday was approaching and she started questioning whether she was in the right career. Myself, I started questioning where I was going back in 2007, after I had finished my Ernst & Young internship and during the final year of my Bachelor of Commerce degree. I was 20. Either I got to an early start or my colleague is going to have a much longer life!

At the time, my colleague and I commiserated, discussed our options and gave each other a few suggestions on what we could do about our situation.

One year later, my colleague has taken full advantage of the opportunities which opened up to her and she is now working in the Ernst & Young London office, in a completely different capacity (i.e. not an audit senior).

One year later, I’m still here, working as an audit senior in the Ernst & Young Sydney Office.

We both had comparable motivations, education and skill set and opportunities. Why was she able to change her situation so completely in a year and why am I still here, one year later?

Chinese Tradition in Ancient Times

Disclaimer: This is a purely anecdotal account based on my own upbringing and the upbringing of my family and friends and not intended to be held as a historically or statistically accurate statement of fact.

Ancient China was a scholastic meritocracy, where education was the ticket to a better social position. By studying hard, you were more likely to pass the Imperial Examinations, which meant you could gain a position at court, even if you were born into a poor peasant family, bringing honour to your family. That is why to this day, Chinese people believe white collar jobs are better than blue collar jobs and see only four generally acceptable career paths: doctor, lawyer, accountant/business person and teacher. That is also why Chinese people believe jobs at big prestigious companies or governments are better than jobs at small- and mid-sized businesses.

Chinese culture also has a very deep rooted respect for elders. Your elders have lived longer than you; they have more life experienced because they’ve “crossed more bridges than you’ve walked along roads” and “eaten more salt than you’ve eaten rice” and so they are wiser and more knowledgeable. You do not disrespect or dishonour your elders or your family. You do not disobey your parents.

Chinese Tradition in Modern Day Society (20th/21st Century)

While there are no more Imperial Examinations, in Hong Kong and China, the university entrance exams have taken over instead. Getting into a good university can make a huge difference.

As a result, many Chinese parents demand academic perfection. Chinese kids are brought up very differently to their peers.

• They are sent off to intensive after school coaching classes very early on, as early as primary school.
• They don’t have play-dates with other kids; they go to piano or violin lessons or go home and do extra homework.
• Because of physical build, Chinese kids generally play sports like badminton, table tennis or gymnastics, rather than track, field, football, or cricket.
• Chinese kids don’t take non-traditional subjects or subjects which don’t to either one of the allowable career paths or a white collar job.

Failure is not an option. Admitting defeat by quitting is not an option. Also, the definition of “failing” is not the same as the school’s definition or the standard definition of below 50%. “Failing” in modern Chinese culture is a flexible term which can refer to any or all of the following:

• Not equalling or bettering your previous result in that subject
• Getting a lower mark than your friend, or your parents’ friends’ son/daughter/niece/nephew
• Not being at or near the top of your class/grade

I am very lucky and blessed to have Chinese parents who don’t adhere blindly to Chinese Tradition. They never sent me to coaching class after coaching class; they never told me I couldn’t do subjects like Drama; they supported me when I wanted to do an insane array of extracurricular activities; and most of all, they never demanded more than me giving everything my best effort.

I’ll illustrate with a flashback to a Year 11 Parent/Teacher Night. I was taking Extension I Mathematics with the intent to take Extension II Mathematics in my final year. I had never failed anything before my life but on my last class exam, I got 4 out of 32.

Completely. Unacceptable. By any standards, let alone Chinese Tradition. My parents weren’t furious, they were only concerned. But even with my awesome parents, I was still affected by this Chinese Tradition mentality. Failure. Unacceptable.

I’ll never forget sitting in front of my maths teacher (hands clenched in my lap, face burning with embarrassment and trying to hold back tears) as she told my parents that I was better off dropping out of Extension Mathematics altogether and just stick with plain Advanced Mathematics. I did not like maths. It was not my favourite subject. Being Chinese and failing at maths (well, failing at anything, but particularly failing at maths) is like dishonour. I felt I had to prove my teacher wrong and prove it to the world. So I never dropped that class. I refused to “quit”, took Extension II Mathematics and got a great result in my HSC exams.

Escaping The Chinese Tradition Trap

The Chinese Tradition Trap is rooted in an unwillingness to “admit defeat” because “failure is unacceptable”.

While companies use internship programs to screen candidates for permanent positions, it’s also a way to see what a particular career path is like. Probation periods also work along similar lines. Usually by the time you’ve been in an industry for anywhere between three to six months, you have a good idea of whether you like being there. At any point in time I could have decided that auditing and accounting is not for me. Many of my peers did – only 5 of my intake of 13 interns still remain at Ernst & Young; the rest figured out the internship wasn’t what they wanted and made their moves.

Similarly, going through high school, there was a huge perception that you had to get your subject choices right so you could get into the right degree for the right job; and if you didn’t get all of that right, that was it. Having gone through university now, I know that’s not true. You can change your subjects, your majors, your university, even your degree. You can choose alternative pathways like vocational education, summer school and short courses or pursue further studies after your undergraduate degree with graduate diplomas and masters degrees. There are an incredible number of ways to get to where you want to go.

My colleague had a very different upbringing so I don’t think she ever got stuck in the Chinese Tradition Trap. She was able to view her options objectively and consider them on their individual merits without automatically associating one of them with failure. As a result, she didn’t hold back and she was able to fully pursue the opportunities that came her way.

But for me, quitting the internship, changing degrees, majors or even subjects was unthinkable. On some level of my mind, I equated that with admitting failure, and it was unacceptable to fail. Thus, I never seriously took up any of the opportunities that came my way.

Not for a minute did I consider that the true failure was being unable to say to myself “This is not for me” and spending a lifetime doing something I don’t like.

It’s a question we get asked a lot as little kids, perhaps in kindergarten or even pre-school, not just by our friends, classmates or teachers but family, parents and the world at large. Answers vary from the “ordinary” (“I’m going to be a teacher/nurse/business person!”) to the exotic (“I’m going to be a firefighter/pilot/famous!”) and to the fantastic (“I’m going to be an explorer!”).

Some of us grow up to be exactly who we wanted to be. For those lucky few, I congratulate them in their achievements, their single-mindedness and ability to stay focused on their goals. Some of us grow up not knowing who we want to be, but find ourselves falling into our dream career along the way. I congratulate them too.

Most of us grow up to be something other than who we wanted to be. Maybe it was because of pressure from family and friends. Maybe we lost sight of the goal. Maybe we thought we weren’t good enough. Maybe we let the opportunities slip by.

We grew up, forgot how to dream and now we ask little children, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” and we chuckle at the answers. Sometimes in affection, sometimes in amusement; oftentimes in part-disbelief and part-condescension.

For me, it was fear.

Ever since I can remember, I grew up living and breathing music. I loitered outside the door when my aunt gave piano lessons on the weekends in her Hong Kong apartment, sneaking peeks through the keyhole and then climbed up on the stool and tried to mimic her students between lessons. There’s a baby photo of me with one of those telephone keyboard hybrid toys, smiling as I dial away on the keys. After we moved to Sydney, I remember not wanting to eat dinner because I wanted to finish learning the “A Dozen A Day” piano exercises I started two hours before, a timeframe in which my parents thought I would surely tire of the activity and happily come to the table for food.

I went to class singing songs in my head – if it was a music class, it became either singing or playing songs aloud – and between classes there was more music with choir practice, auditions for school productions, chamber choir rehearsal, vocal ensemble rehearsals, piano lessons, piano competitions – the list goes on and on. I collected a bunch of trophies and certificates from eisteddfods and exams; performed in the Sydney Opera House and the Sydney Town Hall; held various roles in various school productions; I even went on a month-long tour of Italy with school, singing in St Mark’s Venice Cathedral.

It all stopped in Year 11. After I had gotten my L.Mus.A and finished my music HSC two years early, it came to a critical point where I had to make a call. Would I continue to pursue my music dream? Or would I look somewhere else?

I decided to look somewhere else. Despite dreaming – for years – of studying music in New York, I decided to play it safe. I studied “traditional” subjects, like English, Maths, Physics, Chemistry, Software Design and Development. I stopped all my extracurricular music activities – I turned down being Choral Captain, quit the vocal ensemble, the chamber choir, and the choir – and focused on academic studies. I applied for and got paid accounting internship offers with both Ernst & Young and KPMG, a great UAI and got into the prestigious University of New South Wales, arguably one of the best in the southern hemisphere for studying a Bachelor of Commerce with a double major in Accounting and Finance.

This world of numbers, rules, regulations, accounting and auditing standards and legislation is as far away from music as you can get.

Sometimes I run into people I got to know in the piano competition circuits around Sydney, like Van Anh Nguyen, who stuck with their dream of music and brought it to life. She’s established her own entertainment agency, a music school and found a way to make it all work. I really admire her courage.

When a little kid tells us “I’m going to be an explorer!” we don’t tell them that we already know everything there is to know about the world (we don’t), we don’t tell them there are no more lands to explore (there are, unless you’re living The Truman Show) and we don’t tell them this isn’t a practical career. We tell them “That’s wonderful!” and to study history and geography, join the boy scouts/girl guides/brownies/Duke of Edinburgh/Outward Bound programs and give them books about famous explorers or exotic places.

It’s not until that kid grows up (and in today’s society, that sort of happens around about the middle of high school, when you get your first chance to pick your elective subjects) that we start crushing their dreams. If it’s our son or daughter, we’ll smile a worried or an exasperated kind of smile and timidly question “But honey, don’t you think you should try something more practical? How would you pay the bills? What about accounting? There’s always jobs in accounting and they pay well.” If it’s our friend, we treat it as a big joke and laugh it off – or worse, dismiss it completely. “Oh come on, you don’t really want to do that, you’d have to give up XYZ then!”

Why do we do discourage and obstruct each other as we get older? Is it because we’re resentful that we didn’t stick to our dreams? If so, why do we take it out on other people instead of doing something about it ourselves?

When we see someone do something as remarkable as actually achieving their goals, we talk about how amazing it is, treat them as a one-of-a-kind individual who had the luck of the universe on their side and we write it off as something beyond our ability to accomplish. And we go back to our daily lives and forget all about it, though some of us might secretly wish that person was us.

I don’t think those people are one-of-a-kind people. I think we can all be who we want to be. And I think the key lies in those around us and ourselves in believing we can be who we want to be.

“What do you want to be when you grow up?”

I don’t want to be an external auditor anymore.

I’m 23 years old today and I’m going to turn 24 this August. I think I still have plenty of time left to grow up. And when I grow up, I want to write Broadway musicals.