Midwestern friendliness and the flu

A few days ago, I came down with a mild case of what I conclude is the flu. A little headachy, slight body aches, fever that progressed daily from 99.4° to 101.4° to 100.8° to normal today, and a general blah feeling. With my Internet connection, I was comfortable at home, keeping in touch with family and friends via facebook and email. I got a lot of sympathy and good advice.

This morning, my pastor, Kai Nilsen, called to alert me that he was stopping by in a few minutes to drop off some chicken soup and a bagel for me (and he's not even Jewish!). Kai and his family have become good friends of mine, but I really am not accustomed to church pastors making house calls! I took advantage of the sunny 60° day and went outside to meet Kai. I thanked him for the soup and the bagel – but neglected to thank him for the gifts of his kindness and friendship – and explained I didn't want to risk giving him the flu, so didn't give him my traditional hug or invite him in to my virus-laden home. I did say that I was floored by the fact that I had received a house call from my pastor – on his day off – and would be posting the fact on facebook.

Kai's visit ranks way up there in my book, on a par with my having personally been cooked dinner and served by then-Governor Kathleen Sebelius in her Kansas Governor's Residence. I've told all my family and friends around the world that my life in Ohio is distinguished by the genuine friendliness of people here. Today's experience is another example of that friendliness.

This is the first time I've had the flu since 1988. I've been good at getting my seasonal flu shots each fall. I also take Chinese Yin Qiao Jie Du Pian herbal cold pills at the first sign of a sniffle. Despite these precautions, I got the flu – or maybe because of these precautions, my flu was mild. Or perhaps the mildness the result of the midwestern friendliness that I've been so blessed with.

In any case, I recalled and stuck by my doctors' old advice for the flu: "Stay in bed for 3 days. You may feel better the second day and want to go to work. If you do, you'll relapse and be in bed for 2 weeks." So I stayed home, drank plenty of fluids, including my Mom's new recommendation: honey and cinnamon in hot water (I used hot green tea, taking advantage of another friend's recommendation). I feel almost completely normal now – and very blessed. Still, I'm going to limit my contact with others for the next couple of days to be sure I don't spread any lingering virus particles.

Cornell Asian Alumni Association's 2011 Banquet

"More than any other person I know, [Rod Chu] is an international leader in higher education." – President Emeritus Frank H. T. Rhodes

The Cornell Asian Alumni Association had its 20th annual banquet on Jan. 22, 2011 at Grand Harmony Palace restaurant in Chinatown, NYC. Here are the videos that my good friend Chester Mah took of the entertainment and speeches from that fun evening.

The 350 guests who attended the dinner were astounded by a performance of Bian Lian - Chinese Face Changing Dance - by Master Jiao, introduced by Matt Palumbo. Can you count how many times he changed masks?



Did you notice that he also changed his costume? How many times? Here's a closer view that I got with my handheld camera.



I am especially happy to share these videos as I was the honoree at this year's event. Bringing greetings was President Emeritus Frank Rhodes, who was introduced by CAAA President Monica Gelinas.



Martin Tang, a Trustee Emeritus of Cornell and past CAAA honoree, came from Hong Kong to support the banquet. He introduced me ...



... and presented me with CAAA's award.

Here's the video of my remarks, which I entitled Reverence for Education - and Our Educators.



The text of my remarks is in my earlier blog.

Next came a vibrant performance of traditional Korean percussion by the student group Shimtah. This video was posted on YouTube by the group.



It was an absolutely delightful evening. I'm glad we have these videos to remind those of us who were there how much fun it was, and to enable me to share the evening with my family and friends who couldn't be there.

Johnson Dean Joe Thomas, Winston Tom, Frances Wong, President Emeritus Frank Rhodes, Frances Chu, Rod Chu, Monica Gelinas, Matt Palumbo, Cornell V.P. Susan Murphy

Congratulations and thanks to the Cornell Asian Alumni Association President Monica Gelinas, Banquet Co-Chairs Winston Tom & Frances Wong, Matt Palumbo and other committee members, and all my Cornell friends and supporters who made this 20th Anniversary Banquet so memorable.

Thanks to Chester Mah for all his hard work in taking and editing the videos and hundreds of photos! You can see Chester's photos of the evening on his photo website with password = banquet.

Year of the Rabbit

Happy New Year!


Few Chinese Horoscope books contain overall prognostications for the year. In my large collection of these books, one of the few that does is the first edition of Theodora Lau's The Handbook of Chinese Horoscopes, published in 1979. Unfortunately, in the later editions of this book, her overall predictions for each year have been removed.

To provide my friends with this interesting information, here is Ms. Lau's overall forecast for the Year of the Rabbit, plus her predictions for how individuals will fare this year, given the animal that represents their birth year. (To determine what animal you are, see my table of animals for birth dates.)

The Year of the Rabbit – 2/3/2011-1/22/2012

A placid year, very much welcomed and needed after the ferocious year of the Tiger. We should go off to some quiet spot to lick our wounds and get some rest after all the battles of the previous year.

Good taste and refinement will shine on everything and people will acknowledge that persuasion is better than force. A congenial tone in which diplomacy, international relations and politics will be given a front seat again. We will act with discretion and make reasonable concessions without too much difficulty.

A time to watch out that we do not become too indulgent. The influence of the Rabbit tends to spoil those who like too much comfort and thus impair their effectiveness and sense of duty.

Law and order will be lax; rules and regulations will not be rigidly enforced. No one seems very inclined to bother with these unpleasant realities. They are busy enjoying themselves, entertaining others or simply taking it easy. The scene is quiet and calm, even deteriorating to the point of somnolence. We will all have a tendency to put off disagreeable tasks as long as possible.

Money can be made without too much labor. Our life style will be languid and leisurely as we allow ourselves the luxuries we have always craved for. A temperate year with unhurried pace. For once, it may seem possible for us to be carefree and happy without too many annoyances.

How you will fare in the 

Year of the Rabbit

Rat: A calm and quiet year. Still, the Rat must be careful with money. There may be some misunderstandings within his family or at work, but he will make new contacts in business. New members will be added to his family.

Ox: A fair year for the Ox, although he still has many loose ends to tie up and other problems to settle. He could still lose on some investments or fail to collect debts owed to him. His health is protected although he may experience some sorrow at the death of someone close to him. Progress is steady.

Tiger: A happier year for the Tiger. Some good news is forthcoming and his love and business affairs look rosy again. There are still obstacles in his path, but he will surmount them with little difficulty. All in all, he will be quite content with his achievements.

Rabbit: A very auspicious year for the Rabbit native. Promotions, career advancement or financial success can be foreseen for him and he will reap unexpected benefits or recover lost funds. His plans are easily executed and there may be happy tidings at home or celebrations at the arrival or homecoming of new or old members of the family.

Dragon: Calm returns to the Dragon’s life in the year of the Rabbit. Fair progress can be expected as the winds of fortune blow on his sails again. His home life is more settled, although he could experience minor health problems. A stable time as no financial upsets or bad news await him.

Snake: A fairly happy year for the Snake although many commitments keep him very busy. A year of not being able to spend enough time with those he likes because of fulfilling other promises. Money comes and goes easily.

Horse: A lucky year for the Horse, especially in his investments. His life will be smooth but very involved. He can expect happy news or new members in the family. A protected year in which he can venture anywhere and encounter few problems.

Sheep: A fair year as the Sheep chalks up some gains at work and in his finances. He could also suffer an upheaval at home or some repercussion for past neglect. Health problems are caused by accidental injuries. But he will emerge from all his troubles with more gains than losses.

Monkey: A good year. The Monkey’s prospects are bright again and he will receive help from unlikely people or places. Tranquility is restored at work and home, and business is back to normal although his gains will only be modest. A time for him to seek out new opportunities or make changes in his environment.

Rooster: A fair time for the Rooster if he remains conservative in outlook. Investments this year are shaky and he should not speculate, as loss of money is indicated. He is also prone to miscalculations and his profits may be eaten away by unpredicted expenses. It would be advisable for him to join forces with others this year instead of acting independently.

Dog: A favorable year for the aspirations of the Dog. He can start his own business this year or go into partnership. He will be able to advance his position and can reorganize things for the benefit of others. Problems are solved with a minimum of complications.

Boar: A fair year for the Boar with some modest results. Obstacles still crop up but there will be no major upheavals. He makes some financial gains and is able to consolidate his position to a good degree. Home life is calm and happy. Much entertaining and socializing foreseen.

"Reverence for Education - and Our Educators"

The Cornell Asian Alumni Association honored me at its 20th Annual Banquet on Saturday, January 22, 2011 in Chinatown, NYC. The following are my remarks to the 350 guests who attended. I've posted the videos of my speech and the evening in another blog.

Introduction

President Frank Rhodes, thank you for your eloquent, kind, and generous remarks. We are all honored by your presence here this evening, but sorry your lovely wife Rosa couldn’t join us. We wish her a speedy recovery. We are all indebted to you for your outstanding leadership and continued service as Cornell’s 9th and one of its greatest presidents.

Martin Tang, you again have demonstrated your love and commitment to Cornell and your fellow Asian Alumni by flying over from Hong Kong to support this evening’s festivities, and also agreeing to take on the difficult task of finding something nice and impressive to say about me. Thanks for all you’ve done and continue to do for Cornell!

Acknowledgements

There are so many others here whose presence I should acknowledge. Given the large number, I was tempted not to do so.

I recall the numerous weddings and new baby parties I’ve attended in this and other Chinatown restaurants in which speakers went on and on introducing the attendees. I used to get upset and weary of these long acknowledgements until a speaker explained – in English for the non-Chinese speaking guests – that the reason these acknowledgements are made – as they have been for thousands of years – is that these dignitaries were the legal witnesses of the event, serving the purpose of a being able to attest to it.

So permit me to extend Chinese tradition by acknowledging some of the many notable guests here at this evening‘s 20th Annual Banquet of the Cornell Asian Alumni Association.

Please hold your applause until after I get through them all – or we’ll be here all night!

Cornell Executives:

• Student Affairs Vice President Susan Murphy
• Cornell Plantations Director Don and Sue Rakow
• Cornell Art Museum Director Frank Robinson
• Industrial & Labor Relations Dean Harry Katz
• Johnson Dean Joe and Marney Thomas

My family and friends – some who’ve come from afar to be with me on this special evening:

• My mother, Frances Chu, from Westchester
• My niece Karen and her husband Gian – both Cornell Class of 1996 – and their children AJ and Alexandra from Boston
• My longest and dearest friend from our high school years together at the United Nations International School Dr. Michael Richardson, who flew in from Chicago for this evening and his daughter Adassa
• Johnson School Classmates from class of 1971 – Randy Hatch, Tom Senker, and Jack MacPhail
• Friends from NYC, NJ, CT, and Westchester, including celebrated WPIX newscaster Kaity Tong, fashion designer Zang Toi, and philanthropists Miranda and Hamburg Tang

The Chancellor of the State University of New York, and my friend and colleague from our years together in Ohio, Nancy Zimpher.

Cornell Trustees: Gene Resnick, Bob Harrison, Marcus Loo, Paul Salvatore, and Sheryl WuDunn

Members of the Cornell University Council’s Administrative Board: Ken Gurrola, Annie Wong, and my fellow vice-chairs Katrina James and Jay Taylor

CAAA President Monica Gelinas, banquet committee co-chairs Winston Tom and Frances Wong, and all the banquet committee members.

All the students who took a break from their studies to come down from Ithaca to be with us this evening.

And finally, CAAA's past honorees: Martin Tang, Sheryl WuDunn, Jane Hyun, and Annie Wong

My apologies to all of you whom I inadvertently failed to mention by name, but thank you all – friends of Cornell and of the Cornell Asian Alumni Association – for coming and making this evening so special!

Thank you also for your support for the idea of a new Pan Asian Garden at the Cornell Plantations. Congratulations to Plantations Director Don Rakow for all you have done to make the Plantations a place that continues to inspire and inform generations of Cornellians and visitors.

Now everyone smile so I can capture this moment for Facebook! If you want to see the photo, please “friend” me on Facebook – look for Roderick Chu.

Reverence for Education

I am especially pleased that Cornell Trustee and past CAAA Honoree Sheryl WuDunn is here this evening with her husband, NY Times columnist Nicholas Kristof. They jointly have won a Pulitzer Prize and the Dayton Literary Peace Prize for Lifetime Achievement.

I follow Nicholas Kristof’s postings on Facebook and was pleased to see his column this week entitled “China’s Winning Schools” because it provided a wonderful backdrop this evening.

In his column, Mr. Kristof explains that 4 of the 5 places in the world with the highest student educational performance in math, science, and reading have a Confucian legacy of reverence for education.

As a College Board Trustee and Chancellor, I’ve seen the results in this country, with students of Asian heritage, on average, outpacing the educational performance of whites and other minorities.

Growing up with a Confucian father and grandfather, I was the beneficiary of my family’s high expectations and sacrifice to provide me the best education I could get.

My mother, of course, joined in those expectations and sacrifices, and has been an exemplary role model of integrity, achievement, and giving. She is our dinner co-chair Frances Wong’s predecessor as a president of the Rotary Club of Chinatown. Among her many notable accomplishments, Mom was one of the first woman Rotary Club presidents in the world – when she was the first Asian woman vice president of Chemical Bank – and continues to serve on her Rotary District’s Foundation Board. And like most moms, she’s also been very proud and encouraging of her children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. Thanks Mom!

Importance of Education – Our Debts

About 12 years ago, when was to receive my first honorary degree when I was Ohio’s Chancellor, my Mom told my then 99-year-old grandfather that both his grandson (me) and his great-grandson (Karen’s brother) would be receiving doctoral degrees that year. She told me how my grandpa perked up and said (in his native Toi Shan dialect) that he didn’t realize that I had gone back to school. When my Mom told him I hadn’t, he gloomily told her “Oh, that doesn’t count. Those are the kind of degrees they just give away.”

Despite my achievements in private business, in government, and in education, in some ways I had always been a failure in my dear grandpa’s mind because I hadn’t earned a doctoral degree.

I remember how disappointed my father was when I wasn’t admitted to Cornell for my undergraduate studies and so went to a slouch of a school, the University of Michigan, instead. Pop had been admitted to Cornell after returning from his post-World War II U.S. Army assignment in Shanghai, where he met the beautiful young woman who would become my mother. However, as a poor immigrant, even with the GI Bill benefits, he couldn’t afford to attend the school of his dreams and instead enrolled in Hunter College. This is why I am so pleased that CAAA and my family have endowed student scholarships at Cornell for needy students.

I’m glad I was able to get admitted to Cornell for my MBA and experience the wisdom of my father’s dream of getting a Cornell education.

I tell you this story because it says how important our families can be in keeping our egos in check. But also because it demonstrates Nicholas Kristof’s point of how important securing a good education for their kids is and has been to so many Asian families throughout the world.

The sacrifices my parents made afforded me the opportunity to learn from them and from talented faculty and fellow students in some of this country’s finest schools.

That education has served me well and my education has continued throughout my life. I’ve learned how vitally important education is not just for personal success, but also for the vitality of our communities, our nation, and our democratic way of life.

This realization is why I am passionately continuing to seek ways we can better educate all Americans – so we can re-kindle the American Dream that I’ve been so fortunate to have lived. It is why, in these difficult economic times, we must all continue to support our educational institutions and educators while at the same time insist that they reinvent themselves to take on the difficult yet critical task of successfully educating many, many more of our fellow Americans for an ever changing and challenging future.

Learning and Love

It was the German writer Goethe who observed “Everywhere, we learn only from those whom we love.”

So this evening, I am proud to acknowledge my debt to my family and my friends, but especially to my professor, advisor, and friend for 42 years, Joe Thomas, now Dean of Cornell’s Johnson Graduate School of Management, who embodies for me the strength and love that most of us here tonight have for our dear Cornell.

I offer you all my very best wishes for a joyful, healthy, and bounteous Year of the Rabbit. Gung hai fat choy. Sun tai geen hong. Man see yue yee.

Thank you all for this wonderful honor and delightful evening.

Imperial Garden's Chinese Buffet

Imperial Garden - Buffet-side Seating

On weekends for lunch, you might find me at one of my favorite Chinese buffet restaurants in Columbus: Imperial Garden. I love Chinese buffets, because Chinese food is my favorite cuisine. But when I eat out alone or with a few friends at a regular (non-buffet) Chinese restaurant, the old rule-of-thumb of ordering one dish per person to share means we don't get very much variety. Fortunately, at even a smallish good buffet, there's quite enough variety to satisfy my diverse hunger.

One requirement of any buffet, though, is that they have enough diners who will empty the food trays quickly enough to ensure that fresh trays of food are continuously coming out from the kitchen. I have tried almost every Chinese buffet restaurant in Columbus and have learned well enough to walk out if I don't see enough fellow diners in the restaurant. This has never been a problem at Imperial Garden.

Imperial Garden's buffet - offered only at lunch on Saturdays and Sundays - has the largest variety of really interesting and original Chinese (specifically, Shanghainese) dishes in Columbus. (Most Chinese buffets cater to an American clientele who prefer what is called "Chinese-American food.") And the dishes are really good here! However, most are dishes that most non-Chinese diners have never experienced. They have sometimes been labeled on the buffet, but the signs are written only in Chinese. So even if my non-Chinese friends are adventuresome enough to try new dishes, they have no idea what they are eating. This photo blog is for those friends, to provide them with a photo menu and diary of the dishes usually served there. Although they often introduce different dishes, many stay the same from week to week.

There are 2 buffet tables. Start with the one in the back of the restaurant. That one has appetizer dumplings and three soups: a savory soup, bean curd soup (to which one typically adds sugar to make it a dessert soup), and a sweet dessert soup (typically, red bean). It also has a few light desserts (usually sesame balls and orange wedges).

Pot Stickers

Cold noodles with hot pepper, bean sprouts, cilantro

Fish soup with preserved cabbage

My first plate selection, with Fried Cruller, Chinese Chive Dumpling

A selection of dumplings, some cold noodles, and a bowl of soup make a nice appetizer course.

On to the hot dishes: about 20 of them, plus 2 additional soups and rice. It's hard to have even just a little taste of all of the entrees, so I concentrate on my favorites the first time around, and go back for another plate to try other dishes. It would take a third plate to have a sampling of all of the dishes, but I never make it that far; I try to save space for a sesame ball and water chestnut gelatin, when offered, for dessert.

Although my family is Cantonese, Mom was born and raised in Shanghai. So while Pop and Yeh-Yeh (Pop's father) cooked Cantonese food at home and most Chinese restaurants in my childhood NY were Cantonese, it was a special treat to go to the 2 Shanghai restaurants in Manhattan (one in Chinatown, the other up on Broadway and 92nd St.). So both real Cantonese and Shanghainese food are comfort food for me - and it's certainly comforting for me to enjoy Imperial Garden's food.

Working on this blog is getting me hungry! I'm glad I've invited friends to meet me there this Sunday for lunch! If you'd like a personal tour of this food for lunch, just give me a call; I'd love to guide you and your palate!

Rice Noodles

Shanghai Bok Choy

Fried Chicken Wings

Roast Duck

Beef Tendon with Bamboo Shoots: my favorite!

Braised Pigs Feet

Chinese Radish with Hot Peppers

Sea Weed

Tendon Beef with Peanuts

Fish Fillets with Pepper Sauce

Chicken in Peanut Sauce

Pigs Ears with Vegetables

Baby Squid with Celery: another favorite

Pork Belly with Cabbage and Carrots

Japanese Eggplant

Pork Intestine with Tofu (don't say "yuk" until you try it!)

New Zealand Mussels

Pressed Tofu with Pork and Bamboo Shoots: my virtuous favorite

Salt-cooked Whole Shrimp

Beef Tripe

Egg Drop and Hot and Sour Soups

White Rice

Sweet Rice Sesame Balls with Black Bean Paste

Main Buffet Table

Das Rheingold - The Metropolitan Opera's New Production

Robert Lepage's new production of Das Rheingold is a winner! I saw it last night in its third mounting at the Met. While Wagner is not for everyone, I came to enjoy his operas early on. His music is stirring – especially as conducted by the Met's James Levine – and the Met's cast, headlined by Bryn Terfel and Stephanie Blythe, gave magnificent performances, as they usually have done. My comments here, then, focus on the new production.

I had been concerned about what Lepage would do in his production of Wagner's Ring Cycle since seeing his production of Berlioz's Damnation of Faust 2 seasons ago.

For that opera, Lepage created 4 tiers of walkways in large frame for the Met stage, fronted and backed with video projection screens. It was a clever treatment to accommodate the opera, which was written with over 20 scenes (doing that many physical scene changes would have been challenging, even for the Met, and the set costs would have been prohibitive, given the relatively few performances the opera would have over the years). Still, the set didn't use the entire 54'x54'x54' space of the Met's huge stage; I've described that set as being more than the 2 dimensions of a video screen, but not fully 3D – more like 2 1/3 dimensions. Would Lepage limit Wagner's heroic scenes to 2 1/3 dimensions? Horrors!

My concerns were magnified with last season's Opening Night presentation of the new Luc Bondy production of Tosca, replacing the spectacular and much loved Franco Zeffirelli version. News stories of the event reported the production was loudly booed on opening night. I saw it 3 days after its opening and felt the sets, though somewhat minimal, weren't so bad.

But it was a tactical mistake to offer replacements of the lavish Zeffirelli sets with miminal Bondy ones on an Opening Night performance, in which patrons are charged a hefty surcharge and forced donation to see so little. How could the Met charge so much and offer so little to see?

The pre-production publicity about the new Ring Cycle production started to allay my fears. The stories of a gargantuan 45 ton machine in a production costing over $20 million certainly suggested there would be something to see. And seeing something is part of what opera at the Met should be all about. I find myself in a fundamental disagreement with NY Times opera critic Anthony Tommasini, who seems to dislike anything other than minimalist productions, often stating that the visual spectacle of grand productions by Franco Zeffirelli and others distract from the singing and the music. I can get minimalist anywhere – including Columbus, Ohio. With the world's largest opera stage and budget, the Met should mount productions that can be experienced only there!

Well, Lepage's production of Das Rheingold meets my criterion. And it enhanced the story of the opera instead of distracting from it.

The scene opens with the machine's 24 planks extended as a slope, then slowly tilting in unison, lifting and revealing 3 Rhinemaidens on cables to dangle before the angled undersides of the planks as if swimming in water. The visual magic continues, as the planks tilt further until the top sections are fairly horizontal – providing the Rhinemaidens a platform on which to rest – and the bottom sections tilt as a giant slide toward the stage.

The visual magic then started, with the sections changing from their blue hue to a field of river stones – stones that reacted to pressure from the Rhinemaidens' bodies. As the performers' tails swished or they touched their bodies to the platforms, the river stones slid down the slope, as real rocks would! At first, I thought these were carefully choreographed motions made to synchronize with projected movies on the planks. As I watched transfixed, though, the coordination was too perfect. Could it be the planks were touch-sensitive and the images moved in reaction, just as a computer's touch screen display would?

At that point, I longed to find an application for my computer that would replicate this magic! I recall seeing something similar in an app for my iPhone when I first got it. A quick Google search failed to locate such an app or website; finding one – if it exits – will take some effort.

For the rest of the 2 hour 35 minute opera – the longest single act in the Met's repertoire without an intermission (the cognizenti know to go to the bathroom just before the curtain) – the planks transform, becoming backdrop, roof, and stage.

I understood one of my fellow Opera Club member's comment that having seen the performance on Opening Night, he wished there were more use of video on the planks. Yet, perhaps, more video would have distracted from the performances. There are three more operas to come in the Ring Cycle; I expect Lepage will continue to dazzle even the most jaded Metropolitan Opera goers as his productions develop.

The other aspect of note in the production is the use of the planks as surfaces to be climbed – with the help of cables supporting the performers. Except for the Loge character – who walks backwards up the steeply angled planks (aided by a cable and winch) to sing a few of his arias – the singers are all represented by Cirque du Soleil-like body doubles in the same costumes as the singers when the cable walks are called for. When Wotan and Loge traverse to and from the Nibelung realm deep in the earth, the planks are used as an Escher-like staircase, with the stair treads mounted vertically, like a wall. The characters walk the stairs with their bodies jutting perpendicularly from the stairs, pointing straight out to the audience.

The final scene has the gods ascending the Rainbow Bridge to their Valhalla castle. They do so by walking straight up section of steeply angled and beautifully lit planks, their bodies, again, jutting out almost parallel to the stage floor. As they approached the top of the planks, they rotated to a horizontal position, admitting the gods to Valhalla. Visually and metaphorically, it was very powerful, in keeping with Wagner's stirring score. I'm glad the bridge worked for my performance; it didn't on Opening Night. The body doubles did such a good job that I heard some in the audience complain that they would force singers to undertake such strenuous physical activities! It was clear through the Leica binoculars that I use as opera glasses that it wasn't Stephanie Blythe who was walking up the Rainbow Bridge.

So my verdict: While I enjoyed the realism of the Otto Shank production of the Ring Cycle, I always felt it was visually rather dark and somber. Lepage's production is exciting, yet for all its theatricality, I didn't find it overly distracting. I'm ready for more! Number 2 in the cycle, Die Walkure, will premiere on April 22nd, then the remaining two come next season. They'll be hard tickets to get!

[Thanks to the Met's website and news stories on the web for the photos I've used here. The Met, of course, does not permit photography in the theater.]

Wicked: Questioning what we know

As a frequent Metropolitan Opera goer, I haven't gotten out to see many Broadway shows in recent years. So I was delighted to catch up with the performance of Wicked during its latest Columbus run. While not the same caliber experience as the opening cast on Broadway, the touring company versions we get here compare well to the later casts of long-running shows in NYC. Wicked was no exception: bright, energetic, entertaining, with an appreciative audience; it made for a very enjoyable evening.

Wicked is currently the longest-running show on Broadway (it opened in Oct. 2003). I wanted to see it mainly to learn the backstory it presented to The Wizard of Oz. For those who haven't seen it, Wicked tells the Oz story from the perspective of the Wicked Witch of the West. We learn how the Cowardly Lion, Tin Man, and Scarecrow came to be as well as many other aspects of the story that, thanks to Judy Garland, is so well known to all of us.

While I was being entertained by the show, songs, and story, I kept thinking how we grow up thinking of history in one way. Of course, The Wizard of Oz is fiction, not real history. But Wicked asks us think whether the story we know so well is what really happened.

So while I was watching and listening, I thought about Josephine Tey's book The Daughter of Time and learning at Cornell several years ago what the study of history is all about. (See my prior blog: Why Study History?) In her book, Tey turns around the story of King Richard III and asks the reader to question whether history's view of the wicked hunchbacked Richard portrayed by Shakespere in his play (and by Lawrence Olivier on the screen), is really accurate. History, after all, is written by the victors, and in Richard III's case, depicting Richard as wicked served the purposes of the succeeding Tudor dynasty. Tey raises her question, though, through a fictional mystery story, much as Dan Brown raised his question, 52 years later, on Jesus Christ's real relationship with Mary Magdalene in his wildly popular The Da Vinci Code.

A more direct history vs. history challenge has been raised by Gavin Menzies in his book 1421: The Year China Discovered the World in which Menzies challenges the story American schoolchildren have learned for generations: that the European explorers starting with Christopher Columbus discovered the sea routes that led to the Americas, Africa, and Asia. The romantic history we were taught is that Columbus and other Europeans were so bold that they questioned the flat earth notions of the time. Menzies reveals documentary and other evidence that Chinese Admiral Zheng He led Ming Dynasty treasure ships around the world in and after the year 1421 and prepared maps that reflected the world - maps that ultimately Columbus and the other European explorers had seen that helped them in their voyages.

American education has long been criticized as being far too Euro-centric. My purpose in this blog entry isn't to carry on that debate (I'll leave that issue to a future blog), but to raise the issue of questioning what we know.

Questioning what we know can be a dangerous pursuit. Neil deGrasse Tyson, director of the Hayden Planetarium at the American Museum of Natural History,  wrote of the slings and arrows he suffered in questioning what we all think we know in his book and PBS show The Pluto Files. When Tyson and other astronomers downgraded Pluto's status from "planet" to "Kuiper Belt Object" he and his colleagues were vilified by the venerable NY Times and scores of third-graders (at least until the Times published another story, 5 years later, acknowledging the reasonable position the scientists had taken). So many of us learned (and had drilled into us) the fact that there are 9 planets in our solar system; that history must be respected and protected. As one who once aspired to be an astronomer myself, my sympathies are with Tyson. But the reasons for my sympathies go further.

One of the fundamental purposes of post-secondary education is to develop critical thinking. But thinking critically about issues - whether they be about stories, histories, or the definition of scientific terms such as "planet" - is not merely an intellectual ability. Critical thinking is also a disposition: a willingness to undertake the hard work of questioning what we are being presented with. Such disposition does not come naturally after 12 or so years of elementary and secondary school education in the U.S., since much of what we learn in school is so often presented as unquestioned fact to be accepted and memorized.

With the continually growing volume of factionalized political argument we are faced with, the future of our democratic system of government and the future of our country depend on our ability to instill more Americans with the ability and disposition to think critically about the "facts" we are presented with and the choices we are being asked to make. I am delighted that a Broadway show might get some in the audience to question what they know and so help underscore the importance of critical thinking.