gong xi, gong xi

Alexis, who heads the kindergarten Day just graduated from, asks me a few weeks ago: Eh, can your son perform a Chinese New Year song on the piano for our Chinese New Year lunch? It will be like, an alumni performance?

Sure, I say.

Then I realize what a hole I have dug for Day.

Chinese New Year songs are not easy. And I have never dutifully, Tiger Mum-like, pushed Day to excel. Happily pottering along his music journey with nice simple stuff, Chinese New Year songs are above and beyond what he could do.

Too bad. I said yes, the boy will have to do it.

I run through the usual suspects. All involve leaps all over the keyboard and the melody lines are not straight-forward at all.

I pick what I think is the most do-able. I hand-write a score for him. I task Por Por to teach Day. I simplify it along the way.



He learns it. He memorizes it. He plays it at the Hollandse Club, where the school hosts its Chinese New Year buffet lunch.



What makes me laugh is when he gets off the piano stool and coolly saunters off the stage all bo chup-like, as if he were taking a toilet break. Bow, kid, bow!

He tells he wasn’t the least bit nervous. Which is better than the last time!