“It’s B sharp, not A sharp Matthew! This isn’t some piece that you can just play with and throw around recklessly. How many times have I told you that?” screeched Ms. Tanaka.

Knowing what was to come, I slowly raised my hand to scratch at my neck, making sure that the side of my face facing her was concealed to the greatest extent possible. “I’m sorry,” is all that I manage to utter with my eyes staring at the golden pedals beneath my feet.

“Sorry isn’t going to cut it Matthew Zhang! Do you really think that you can win the Chopin Master’s Competition? You always say, ‘Oh, I promise I won’t make that mistake again,” but two hours later, your fat, lazy fingers slip up and hit that same wrong note again!” continues Ms. Tanaka, as she hovers over my shrinking figure.

“I promise you, Ms. Tanaka, I won’t make that mistake agai—,” I stop. “Oh s***,” I think to myself.

“And that is exactly why you are going to fail the Chopin. I swear that if you weren’t my child, I would have kicked you out of this house by now for being so intolerable and ignorant. Now get back to the Waltz before I burst an artery. Why can’t you be more like David Choi? He has already placed first at Chopin, unlike you with your lousy second place. I bet that he practices twice as much as you do, and at least eight hours on the weekends!” Ms. Tanaka half-shouts as she lightly sits back down at her own piano, arms crossed

As I started Chopin’s Waltz in B Minor over, I couldn’t help but to think to myself how my parents would allow a complete stranger to treat me like an animal. It was already unjustifiable for my parents to do so, but a stranger? Whenever I told my parents, or rather dictators, that there were faults in Ms. Tanaka’s teaching, they would rebuke me and tell me that I complained too much and should be grateful for my three hour lessons with the prestigious Ms. Tanaka twice a week. Furthermore, my mother believed that Ms. Tanaka would be the perfect parent, even going to the extent of overseeing every minute of my piano practicing at home.

“Zhang He, why can you not follow Ms. Tanaka’s instructions? She told you that your rubato sounded like a cat dying. Why aren’t you fixing it? Do you just hate piano. Do you want to quit?” My mother puts an emphasis on the last word.

“I would rather burn in hell than continue piano under the tutelage of Tanaka,” I almost say, but instead I substitute it with a jaw-clenched, “no, I would never qui--.”

Mother quickly cuts in, “I thought so, you always say that. If that is really so, then why don’t you practice more? I really don’t think an hour a day will be able to keep up your level of playing, which is mediocre on a good day. You will never be as good as David or even Kevin. How do you feel about that?”

I knew how to respond to this. “I feel utterly ashamed, mother,” I reply with a sassy demeanor, on the verge of pushing over my bench and kicking down the front door.

“What tone did you just use with me Zhang He?” my mother says, standing up from her stool and facing me.

“I’m sorry, it won’t happen again,” is the only thing that comes to my mind as a response. I say it.

“’Sorry’ isn’t going to cut it, ever. ‘Sorry’ isn’t going to win you the competition! Now practice until dinnertime and fix the rubato before I call you to eat,” is the last thing she says before walking to her room to watch the Chinese channel.

I start the piece again, but on the wrong note. I stop, baring myself for a piercing shout from the living room. There isn’t one and I relax.

“Zhang He what did you just do? One hundred more times perfectly and then you can eat dinner. And I mean one hundred perfect times with perfect rubato,” is the last thing is hear from her as she slams the door to her room.

I start up again, wondering if my mother is really Ms. Tanaka in disguise. They’re extraordinarily short, overwhelmingly demanding, and psychotic about the piano. My mother tells me on almost a daily basis that I’m fortunate the have the chance to become a virtuoso instrumentalist, a chance which she never had in rural China. Something which I never told her was that I would give anything to have never even started piano, but she would have told me that I was lying to her and that I secretly harbored an intense love for the instrument.

My fingers fly through the last few measures of the Waltz and stop. I initially wonder my next move, hesitant because I knew that mother was in the other room simultaneously listening to me practicing. I supposed this stemmed from Chinese traditionalism—the constant obsession with perfection, the never-ending quest for first place. And to reach these goals, one must diligently master something, or else be perennially doomed to a life of failure and worthlessness. Being normal isn’t good enough for the Chinese; you have to be a protégé. I remembered that I had ninety-nine more runs of the Waltz, so I continued.