January 22, 2024

 DAY 1: I decided at the last minute to visit my hometown Shanghai after 13 years of absence.  I bought a plane ticket, applied for a tourist visa in a hurry.  All my immediate family members (my mother, my brother and my sister) all flew back from abroad and reunited in Shanghai.  Shanghai was a cosmopolitan city where I spent my childhood and youth.  We rented a 4-bedroom apartment on 18th floor across street from the legendary “The Wukang Mansion”, formerly known as the Normandie Apartments (built in 1924).   It was located in French Concession.  “The Wukang Mansion” has become a tourist attraction.  To me, it was like a spectacular cruise ship that was about to  depart.  It was also like a crab body, with its 8 legs (all the side streets) extending in all directions. 

DAY 2: Due to the jet lag, I woke up before dawn. I was so excited that I started my morning walking.   Going through all my familiar areas.  Walking is the best way capture all the details.  I passed by my Kindergarten in a gray bungalow opposite the US Consulate.  

Continuing…I arrived at the newly built Shanghai Symphony Orchestra  Concert Hall. This was used to be the Shanghai Diving Pool where I used to swim here during the summers. The beautiful rows of elegant apartments opposite the Shanghai Symphony came into my view. Many of my classmates from Fenyang High School used to live in these apartments which were preserved.

There were a few elegant bars and cafes cross street from the concert hall of Shanghai Symphony.  The Fenyang High  School where I studied had been demolished to make way for the bars which were right next to the  classic Blackstone Apartments with a history of more than 100 years.  After listening to a classical concert it’s a great idea to come here have a drink and have a social time with friends… 

I took a left turn and came to the my alma-mate Shanghai Conservatory of Music where I studied for 8 years. It  was the 96th anniversary, so I stopped to join the celebration.  The administration’s burgundy colored  attractive house built  in 1910 was once a Jewish club before the Communists took the power in 1949; and the music hall was once a ball room dance hall.  The library building of the conservatory is also an architectural gem where I studied diligently during my student years.  The building hidden behind the lawns was once girls’ dormitory.

 DAY 3: It is my dream to take my 91-year-old mother to visit old places we used to live.  Our family of 5 all graduated from Shanghai Conservatory of Music. The trip to Shanghai after the 3 difficult years of pandemic was really special🌹🌹🌹!  Avenue Joffre (Huaihai Middle Blvd) has brought us so many  stories… Xiangyang Park was where my grandpa walked every day..

My sister and I took our mother through Yueyang Road, where we had lived for 14 years. There were former residences of celebrities of intellectuals.  The century-old sycamore  trees along the street in the late autumn really brought a romantic atmosphere to us.  We used to walk by this street every day to go to our elementary school and middle school.  We witnessed the giant Pushkin statue was knocked down by the Red Guards at the beginning of the Cultural Revolution.  Alley 200 was the French-style garden houses where we once lived, and my mother asked us to take a look at our old home at No. 40.  It was still there.    

A golden phoenix flew out of the chicken coop! This “Jianyeli” used to be a shabby place when I was a child.  We bought our produces from the “Xiao-cai-chang” (the  outdoor market) there; we got our soy sauce from spice shop there;  and we ate our “Da Bing You Tiao (Chinese scallion pancakes and fried dough sticks) there. Today, it has become a tourist attraction with its “Shi Ku Men” styled architecture.  Sharing good memories with our mother at an exquisite Michelin-starred French restaurant…❤️❤️❤️ and letting her feel the difference of this very same location.

Next to “Jianyeli” is “Yiyuan” where my middle school teacher lived there.. My uncle’s high rising “West Lake Apartment” has changed colors from lake green to milky coffee.  We used to visit my uncle’s family a lot. 

Shanghai is a walking city, especially in French Concession.

We took our mother to the elegant Hengshan  Road, we passed by a large-scale modern art exhibition curated by the Taiwanese pop singer Jay Chou. It was a very stimulating event. There were works from young avant-garde artists from Europe, United States as well as local Chinese artists.  Quite impressive!  

DAY 4: Sinan Road has gone through vicissitudes over the time.  It was the ideal  choice for artists to settle here.  Revolutionaries also had such aesthetic tastes. Zhou Enlai, Sun Yat-sen, Mei Lanfang (the famous Peking Opera singer), and Western musicians all lived here. Sinan Road in autumn adds a layer of romance. These century-old buildings really give people a sense of fantasy, especially for mother’s  generation…❤️❤️❤️🍁🍁🍁

We had our lunch at little Ah Niang’s Noodle Restaurant on Sinan Road.  It was so crowded that people from all over the world come here. What I want is yellow croaker noodle soup. 

Fuxing Park used to be a place where “Chinese and dogs were not allowed” during the colonial period,  now it has become a sea of flowers. 

Long time no see —- Xin Tian Di (The New World)! I came here to rekindle my old dream – to visit the “Shikumen Museum” (which I liked very much, I visited it at least twice before).  It’s a pity that the museum had moved to another location. 

During evenings, I was occupied with gatherings with my elementary school friends, high school friends, Conservatory friends, relatives, farm  friends.  They invited me to the delicious banquets, mainly Shanghai cousins…They were extremely hospitable!   I was blessed to have so many friends from different periods of my life.  

Shanghai’s public subway system is incredible!  The government spent a  lot of money on infrastructure.  There are 14 different subway lines in Shanghai now.  There are all marked bilingual (Chinese and English). The announcement on the train comes 3 languages: Mandarin, English and Shanghai dialect.  

DAY 5: After taking a 2-hour  subway and bus ride, I arrived at “Zhujiajiao”, an ancient small village with a history of nearly 800 years. Like Suzhou, It is a kind of “Venice of the Orient”, very picturesque: small stone bridges over cross winding canals, oarsmen rowing boats.  Sauntering on narrow lanes, going through small shops which sell local hams, pickled vegetables, flavored melon seeds etc.  It was a very enjoyable experience.  I had a bowl of wontons on the shore, fully wallowing in the local flavor and beautiful scenery of the countryside…🌹🌹🌹 

On the way back from “Zhujiajiao”, the subway stopped at Shanghai Jiaotong University (one of the best scientific universities in China).  It has a Chinese-style facade. Further ahead, I came to the Wukang Mansion. Diagonally opposite is the former residence of Soong Ching Ling (Sun Yat-sen’s widow) where she lived for 30 years. I went in to take a look. Her quiet two-story French-style garden house had very Western-style furnitures and tasteful furnishings.  There was a piano there.  Unfortunately, photography was not allowed. According to the guide, this villa now costs 200-300 million RMBs. In the garage, there was the car given by Stalin. Mao Zedong and other important national leaders had been socialized here.

DAY 6: The Wukang Road next to our temporary apartment is one of my favorite streets in Shanghai.  It is very charming.  Every 10 steps is the former residence of some celebrities in Shanghai.  I  pushed the wheelchair for my mother and let her fully enjoy all the details of this quaint street.  We passed by the former residences of Ba Jin (the writer), Zhao Dan (the movie star), Ke Ling (the writer) and other famous people. Romeo-styled exquisite balconies abound… Small coffee shops and boutiques were decorated to my taste.   I bought a hand weaved woolen cloak.  We also made a small detour on the way to “Fuyuan”, Alley 20 on Hunan Road, where we lived during our childhood.  Across the street there was the original site of the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra.  I went there to watch the rehearsals when I was a child.

We also came cross a youth art exhibition passed on the theme of “the Wukang Mansion”.  It was held in a small two-story villa.  During the Cultural Revolution, at least 10 people jumped out of their windows to suicide to escape the unbearable persecutions by the Red Guards.   

Walking further, we arrived at the Shanghai Drama Center. My high school classmate is a famous drama actor here

My mother has helped many musicians throughout her life.  Her  radio DJ friend hosted a spectacular banquet for us and her old friends in Shanghai at the mesmerizing “Lilac Garden” which was the former residence of Li Hongzhang’s seventh concubine. Every course was a piece of art.   I remember, when we were children, we always felt that the “Lilac Garden” was a very mysterious place…

In the evening my childhood friend introduced me to a jazz club on Julu Road.  The jazz band was called “New American Bluegrass”.   It was amazingly good to my surprise.  Among the band made from 6 musicians, 2 graduated from the Berklee College of Music in Boston, the best jazz school in America.  The mandolin and saxophone players were especially good!  The cabaret singer was apologetic about her hoarse voice due to a cold.  The ambience in the club brought me back to Berlin…

DAY 7: On a chilly early morning I took the subway to Hongkou District to visit the  famous Jewish Museum. The familiar violin solo melody of John Williams’ Schindler’s List accompanied video footage on the giant screen by the entrance immediately grabbed my attention.  During World War II, Shanghai received 20,000 Jewish refugees from Europe who fled the Nazis.  The museum vividly presented the hard life of Jews in Shanghai during the war-torn years. This museum is well worth visiting and highly recommended! 👍👍👍

In Shanghai, Victor Sassoon, the owner of the Peace Hotel, and Elly Kadoorie, the owner of the Municipal Children’s Palace, were all Jews. Shanghai Jewish Museum taught me a lot about the relationship between Jewish people and Shanghai People.  After visiting, I wrote a sincere message at the memory book of the museum…

The Bund, the former Shanghai International Settlement, which runs along the western bank of the Huangpu River.  It has nearly 2 hundreds of years of vicissitudes. It is the showcase of architecture of eclecticism: particularly Gothic, Baroque, Neoclassical, Romanesque, Art Deco, and Renaissance architectures.   I especially like the art deco architectural style here. The famous Peace Hotel (Sassoon Building) is especially enchanting.  I remember as a building with a green hat when I was a child.  Before I left China 37 years ago, I came here to practice my English with a group of  foreigners.   I had a  great memories here…Years ago, when my father was alive, I took him and my mother to the Peace Hotel to listen to the “Old Men Jazz Band”.  It’s a perfect place to learn Shanghai history.  Nostalgia for Old Shanghai has long held a  fascination for Chinese and Hollywood filmmakers.  It is the movie sites for many movies, such as Steven Spielberg’s Empire of the  Sun and Zhang Yimou’s Shanghai Triad.  This time we took our mother enjoying the afternoon tea and the band while watching people waltzing.  Peace Hotel is full of charms.  It’s ready for Christmas with beautiful decorations.  

The former site of the British  Consulate and then the Seamen’s Club is a big brown attractive villa.  Broadway Mansions accompanied by the distinctive white Waibaidu Bridge also has gone through ups and downs.  I still have the photo my father took me and my brother in front of the building when we were children.  

The buildings on both sides of the Huangpu River compete with each other.  Two hundred year old European style on the west side of Huangpu River faces the newly built modern skyscrapers of 21st century in Lujiazui in the Pudong District. I remember during my childhood, we had to take a ferry to the other side of the river, 

After the Peace Hotel, we took a taxi back to the French Concession.  I pushed my mother’s wheelchair and continued with the nostalgia… There used to be a Western restaurant called “Swan  Pavilion” at the intersection of Donghu Road and Huaihai Road.  I still remember the taste of the borscht bread and the country stew.  There is also the Donghu Cinema where showed three-dimensional movies. I used to go there all the time.  Bill and I once stayed at the “Donghu Hotel” and we liked it very much. There were bars, cafes, and massage parlors  everywhere.

As we walked, the sky got dark, we passed by old ”Lyceum Theatre” and the Jinjiang Hotel (the hotel where Nixon stayed in 1972, the beginning of the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and the United States, and the signing of the famous “Shanghai Comunnique”). Lastly we went the art deco–style “Cathay Cinema” which was one of the first movie theaters in Shanghai.  The theater was a favorite of Shanghainese author Eileen Chang.

 DAY 8: I took the subway to Lujiazui, Pudong early in the morning. Thanks to my friend for recommending “Duoyun Books”. After queuing for an hour, I arrived at this breathtaking bookstore above clouds. The store is located literally above the clouds, on the 52nd floor of Shanghai’s tallest building, Shanghai Tower. At 239 metres (784 ft) it is also China’s highest bookstore. The concept is a complete cultural complex that in addition to the bookstore includes a lecture room, exhibition space, a café, a 52-metre (170-ft) bar, a restaurant and a large rooftop garden. The store inventory consists of 60,000 books and 2,000 other reading-related products.  It is a such a stunning experience to overlook  the 360-degree view of the Shanghai Huangpu River in the coffee and book smell…👍👍👍The only drawback is that today is a cloudy day. 🥹🥹☺️This is not only a bookstore, but also an art gallery and a “museum” displaying artworks…I highly recommend this “Duoyun Books” in the clouds! 👍👍👍You can find anything here: music, art, history, and life books are all-encompassing and have everything you need.  It’s huge!  

From the “Peace Hotel”, I continued westward to the bustling Nanjing Road, which is blinked with neon lights and varieties of entertainments. When I was young, we went in groups with friends.  The century old vintage shops are still there, such as Wang Kai Photography Studio, Zhang Xiaoquan Scissor Shop, Maochang Optical Shop and other time-honored brands brought a lot of memories back  During that time, it was also extremely happy experience to go to the “No. 1 Department Store” and take the escalator ride…It was so much fun!  ❤️❤️❤️

Here are the lyrics of an old popular song about the night life in Shanghai:

“Shanghai nights, Shanghai nights, you are a city that never sleeps

Bright lights, sounds of cars, singing and dancing

Just seeing her smiling face, who knows of her inner sorrow?

Nightlife is just as important as food, shelter and transport

Alcohol doesn’t make people drunk, they make themselves drunk

Troubled sky and earth, wasted youth

The hazy light of dawn makes everyone’s eyes tired

The soul returns with the turning of car wheels

She finds a new world, not a new environment

The aftertaste of nightlife like waking from a dream”

There are 2 dinner parties almost every day. I have endless topics to talk about with my old friends who are traveling together… Shanghai local food is really delicious! 👍👍👍

Take a walk and soak in the wonderful memories. I passed the century-old building “Park Hotel (once the tallest building in the Far East), “Grand Cinema” (the most popular cinema for foreigners), Shanghai Workers’ Cultural Palace, People’s Square (former horse race tracks during WWII) and other old buildings. 

At  the end of day, I had a reunion dinner with my our farm friends, we were chatting and laughing. Until the restaurant closes…

 DAY 9: My schedule in Shanghai was very intense.  Besides visiting relatives  and friends, I was trying to absorb Shanghai cultural heritages as much as possible.  Shanghai’s public system is wonderful!  Following Baidu Map (equivalent to “Google Map”) I took the subway and a bus to the former “countryside”: the “Guangfulin Cultural Site”. This was once the place where I passed by for camping when I was in high. school, and now it has become a tourist attraction… There are unearthed cultural relics here, with a history of 6,000 years, and this is the origin of Shanghai.

The Guangfulin Cultural Site is a fully preserved ancient village, which includes buildings, cultural relics such as houses, stoves, and tombs. Walking into this ancient village is like going back to the ancient times. You can see the living scenes of human beings at the time of 6000 years ago.  I learned how they produced, how they hunted, how they performed religious activities, etc. Here, you can personally feel the rich wisdoms and hardworking spirit of ancient humans. 

The style of Guangfulin’s “Duoyun Books” is in sharp contrast to the style of the “Duoyun. Books” in Pudong: one is modernistically  overlooking the magical city; one is inn Chinese traditional down-to-earth antique Huizhou style.  There are bleached walls, black tiles, horse heads decarations,, and embossed winter melon beams on the patio. I met a Shanghai couple here.  They warmly invited me to sit down to chat while cracking melon seeds and having teas.

This “Shanghai Evolution History Museum” from the ancient o the present time  is so interesting! Highly recommended! 👍👍👍

This museum provides the “Roots of Shanghai”.   The live sized figures in  the history museum vividly portrayed the life of Shanghainese people from ancient to the present. I really fell in love with this exhibition hall in Guangfulin.   Shannghai has gone through many vicissitudes.  It has just grown from a small fishing village to a prosperous 21st century powerhouse.  Accompanied by the tunes of Songjiang opera (the regional opera), you can see the Songjiang cloth at the door of a fabric shop, and you can hear the sound of reading loudly from the school in the distance… The  museum also presents life in Shanghai in the last century with “Liushen  Perfume”. and “Double Wrigley Hair Scissors” displayed in the glass. The poster of Lushan Love Story (a popular movie in the 1980’s) on the wall felt like yesterday. 

After having lunch at a friend’s house, we went to the Shanghai  Ballet, where my father used to work. I remember, when we were children, we were queuing up at Jing’an Temple to take the No. 57 bus to Shanghai Ballet, to watch big sisters’ routine training and rehearse The White-Haired Girl (one of madame Mao’s model operas) during the Cultural Revolution.  The rehearsal hall where my father worked was a nice western-style building. ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

 DAY 10: During the time in. Shanghai, I went to my alma mater, the Shanghai Conservatory of Music, to promote Bill’s works, I had a meeting with the Director of the New Music Ensemble and and. Head of the Percussion Department.

I went the Rockbund Art Museum in Shanghai  by the Bund.  The works were not very impressive.  However the Christmas market outside the art museum was very lively.

Shopping at the charming Yu Garden was delightful.  “Nanxiang Xiaolongbao” (soupy dumplings,  Shannghai local specialty) since  18th century) was still very popular and the queue was very long.

“Tianzifang” is Shanghai’s alley culture, very bohemian. It was transformed itself from legacy residential architectures and factories into an artsy area  housing bars, cafes, crafts shops, design studios, galleries and boutiques. It is ardently supported by crowds of yuppies, trend setters, designers and expatriates, who fall for temptation of old “Shikumen houses” (stone-framed-door houses) and lanes with infinite novelties.  ​

DAY 11: I took the bus early in the morning to visit my uncle and aunt whom I had known since my childhood.   We always had dinners together every Sunday in our grandma’s apartment.  I bought flatbreads, fried dough sticks, soy milk, etc in the canteen of the community where they lived.  It was like a small restaurant, the food was very economically reasonable and good.  The apartment where my uncle and aunt live is very cozy.  Both of their daughters live abroad, they have a nanny come every day.  Both of my uncle and aunt are retired scientists, we shared a lot of precious family memories together.  

Passing by Xujiahui Catholic Church, I walked in.   There are millions of churches in Europe.  For the atheist Communist China,  Western churches seem incongruous.  But Shanghai is very westernized cosmopolitan city, there are many religious believers.  The fusion of Chinese and Western elements in the church is quite interesting.

My friends hosted a banquet for me. The restaurant is in  the old building of Santa Maria Girls’ School (Eileen Chang used to study in this girls’ school). Each room is related to the lunar season. We were in the “Rainwater” room. I was so lucky, on the sixth day after the restaurant opening, I was able to try something new. The “sea urchin” (is it banned in America?) dumplings are particularly delicious! The cuisine is from Shandong region. 

Today is the weather southern California, the sun is shining brightly, and I came to Lujiazui, Pudong again. A friend introduced me to the Pudong Art Museum, which was just opened 2 years ago. He said it was the best art museum in Shanghai, which is located next to the landmark of Shanghai Oriental Pearl Tower.

The works of this modernist painter Zeng Fanzhi from Wuhan are outstanding.    Zeng Fanzhi , born 1964. iis a contemporary Chinese artist based in Beijing.  Zeng’s works have been praised as possessing an emotional directness, an intuitive psychological sense, and a carefully calibrated expressionistic technique.He was born in 1964. He is prolific and innovative in every period. Now his works have been collected by many major European and American art museums, and he has often held solo exhibitions in major cities around the world. This exhibition is worth seeing…👍👍

The current photography exhibition at the Pudong Museum of Art in Shanghai took me back the time when I was living in China. Photographer Liu Heung Shing’s first large-scale comprehensive retrospective exhibition : “Liu Heung Shing’s Lens · Era · People”.  It presented historical events, portraits of famous people during that specific period. Nearly 200 photographic works vividly showed how the images in the news at that time were created, selected and spread.   The photos of Karajan and Seiji Ozawa during 1980’s when they took their orchestras to China were very  special to me.

The works presented at “Youth Environmental Protection Art Exhibition” at the Pudong Art Museum are also very good.  The ages were all 12 or 13 year olds.

From the top floor of the Pudong Art Museum, you can see the century-old buildings on the Bund across the Huangpu River.  It’s breathtaking!  

The two-week trip to Shanghai is over. Every day was packed with precious memories. I met many relatives and old friends. The weathers were also very cooperative.  I had a fantastic time in my hometown!  ❤️❤️❤️

I had to leave Shanghai.   It was a pity that I couldn’t attend my 91-year-old mother’s honerary tea party in Shanghai.  My mother was low-key and unpretentious throughout her life, and she trained a large number of children’s song writers.  During the trip to Shanghai, I reunited with several composers who often came to my home when I was a child. 

My mother was a well-known children’s song writer in China. After she immigrating to UK 23 years ago, she was not forgotten by her hometown.  We had a joyful gathering with her former colleagues and the composers she trained.  A reporter from “Xinmin Evening News” also interviewed my mother.  We were all so proud of our  91-year-old mother!   

I just received the interview article with my mother published on “Shanghai’s Xinmin Evening” (No.1 Newspaper in Shanghai). My mother has  set a good example for us! 👍👍👍

After I returned from Shanghai, the long-waited Hong Kong film director Wong Kar-wai’s first television series, Blossoms Shanghai, began airing on December 27, 2023.  The 30-episode period drama – six years in the making – is adapted from a 2012 novel of the same name by Jin Yucheng, which won the 9th Mao Dun Literature Prize in 2015 and is written in Shanghainese.

—-Joan Huang, January 22, 2024—-

It’s been almost 2 years of pandemic, now the omicron is aggressively spreading. We have to be super cautious again and have cancelled all big gatherings.

Our local Government has strongly urged staying home not traveling during this holiday season because of our hospital facility limitations. However, the festive atmosphere of in our neighborhood is still there. I walk with Gigi every morning, I’m so inspired by the feestive scenes: Christmas trees by the windows, colorful lights decorated the house, wreaths at the gates, at our front door, neighbors left their Holliday goodies. At our home, greeting cards flying like snow flakes while I’m baking Christmas cookies. I won’t let the disaster deter my spirit — to keep myself busy. The Mexican poet Octavio Paz (Nobel Prize winner in 1990) wrote: “Our festivals are explosive. Nothing is more interesting than Mexican festivals. … Through festivals, society separates itself from the past. It is liberated from the established norms. It mocks its own divine principles and laws: it denies its own self.”

The Year of 2021 is our social activitie year!  After the disastrous 2020, thankful to the invention of Covid vaccines, we began to invite families and friends again, not just relying on Zoom.    We saw our fully vaccinated family members and friends in person for the first time after the whole year.  

January: It was a dismal month with the Covid cases hit the peak and the ICU wards were in a full capacity in LA County, we were just hunkering down at home.  To bring an optimistic spirit , we rebuilt our orchard on the hill, Poncho and Cristiano were rays of sunshine.  They planted 12 fruit trees, and built a beautiful wall by using our leftover Mexican tires.  I succeeded to register for our first shots of Pfizer vaccines on 1/27.  Not much side effects for both of us.  

March: The garden luncheons began!  We bought an outdoor heater and held a weekly garden party with our fully vaccinated friends.   Finally our social life had become a little normal.  Of course,  we were keeping super cautious only in the garden.  

February: We had a Chinese New Year with An Yao and her sister who happened to have Covid test done In Chinese Consulate before going back to China.  An and I went Shanghai Conservatory together when we were in China.  She is an outstanding Guzheng (Chinese version of zither).  It’s so nice that we saw each other after 30 something years.  I made an authentic Shanghaiese banquet such as “Yan-du-xian” (a Shanghai delicacy made from a duo of cured pork and fresh pork with fresh winter bamboo shoots) and the steamed duck with “Eight Treasures” (a famous Shanghai cuisine).  We also had our 2nd shots of Pfizer.  

April: More garden luncheons with friends to share ideas.  Bill went ER once and he refused to go to the Rehab afterwards, I began to hire Angel 3 times a week.  He is a real Angel who has tremendous positivities.  

May: Planting vegetables, cooking with my own produce, walking Gigi kept me so occupied.  It’s not too bad we fully enjoyed our home.  Bill also got used to the pastoral life at home.  We “zoomed” a lot.  Bill calls them “computer parties”.  We kept in touch with families and friends from all over the world.   

June: Solitary life is the best time to be creative.  I kept writing blogs on “WeChat” (in Chinese) and “Wordpress” (in English).  I shared my cooking experiences and other life observations with my readers all over the world.  I’m absolutely galvanized by their comments and supports.  My old Shanghai Conservatory friends, Anthropologist Professor Li Wei and his talented wife An Yao (We saw each other in February) came,  that was so lovely to reunited after a long period of 30 something year.  To see our local Shanghai Conservatory friends was lovely after a long period of isolation.  My   mostly lovely niece Becky got married to her soulmate fiancee on 6/26, but, due to multiple complications, I wasn’t able to attend the wedding.  Lindsey (Bill’s grand daughter)’s visit inspired us to visit LACMA after 1 year and half of absence.  

July: It’s purely our “staycation” accompanied by a soothing pool, relaxing jacuzzi and an abundant organic vegetable garden. I cooked a lot for our friends.  During this pandemic, the positive side what I got is that I’ve been polishing my cooking skill.  On July 4th we had a traditional barbecue  with Leslie, David, Kazi and John.  On Bastille Day, I made Coq au Vin and ratatouille to remember our dear late French friend Charlotte.  We celebrated the French Holiday with June,  Shed, Doris and Tuck.  

August: I did a lot of gardening under the scorching sun, then jumped into the pool. Doing this routine was a really paradisal feeling. The highlight of the month was to celebrate the Chinese Valentines Day – Qixi Festival: looking at the starry milky way from our garden. 

September: For Bill’s birthday celebration, we celebrated it with Bill’s niece Linda and nephew-in-law Ken plus 2 zoom parties, I also took him to the Los Angeles Farmer’s Market for nostalgic purpose, he tasted a lot of food.  We had to cancel the Ojai Festival last minute due to Bill’s illness.

October: Bill’s Encounters III was beautifully performed by Jon Lewis and Wade Culbreath during the “Hear Now Festival”.  We had a Chinese friends reunion party after 19 months of separation. main occasions. 

November: A busy family visiting month.  Firstly we met Heather (Bill’s granddaughter)’s family, welcoming the littlest Geneva; secondly my niece Becky and her newly wedded husband Chris came for honeymoon from UK; Lastly Jennifer (Bill’s daughter)’s family came for Thanksgiving.  A lot of cooking tasks for me: vegetarian, barbecuing, Chinese, turkey feast etc., kind of challenging.  We celebrated our 30th anniversary quietly after everyone left.  

The year of 2021 is about to end, Covid is still active, we’re fighting Omicron, but we see the light of at the end of the tunnel — the medicines are coming.  At this time, we cherish you for your love and friendship. We wish this holiday season will sparkle and shine. We hope pleasures will accompany you, and your family.  Peace on earth! 

Wreathed in smiles and boxed in happiness, 

Joan, Bill & Gigi

December, 2021 

Since the beginning of November, our home has been entertaining our house guests with family members. I’ve been busy with cooking and enteerWe’re indeed very hospitable.

Also, when the US border opened on 11/8, my newly wedded niece and her husband booked plane tickets traveled from UK. As the aunt and the uncle, we were honored to be able to provide the honeymoon “resort” for the newlyweds and give my niece a milestone 30th birthday party in our garden.

​Recently, there were many upsetting news in terms of violences, which is worrisome. On the occasion of Thanksgiving holidays, we’re roasting the turkey to thank the Indians on this land, and hope that the beacon of democracy in America will always give us hope. I really like the following quartet. Different ethnicities sing a song together: America, the Beautiful! This is my ideal America!

Thirty five years ago, I flew over the Pacific Ocean from Shanghai to Los Angeles, the colorful and multi-ethnic second largest city in the United States.  When I arrived the campus of UCLA, for the first few days, I was culturally shocked with the demography of student body since I came from a homogeneous country.  Little by little, students of various skin colors could gather in a classroom to discuss same subjects; could eat in a cafeteria with joy and laughter.  In our “Analysis of Western Operas in the Twentieth Century” class, my professor asked us to take out our own musical instruments and create multiple collective projects “From the Micro World to the Macro World”.  It was an eye-opener and a marvelous education.  Just within weeks, I immediately eliminated racial barriers and made friends with my white brothers, black sisters, and classmates from all other ethnicities.  Five years ago, I composed a nonet entitled Coalescence to express my personal experience towards he United States as a polyglot  country: “The inspiration of the piece came from my ‘Word a Day’ on my desk calendar.  It says: “…come together and form one mass or whole…”  US is a polyglot country, I’ve benefited from other cultural heritages through my own various experiences in this ‘Melting Pot’”.

The five movements in “Fusion” are: 1. Peking Opera (Asian) ; 2. Jungle Song (African); 3. Greensleeves (European); 4. Cockroach Blue (Latino); 5. Dancing with Sheep (Australian).

Like several of my other compositions, Coalescence is also my attempt by mixing Chinese traditional instruments and percussion instruments from all over the world together.  There are 5 movements, I’ve adopted 5 folk songs from 5 different continents: Asia, Africa, Europe, North America and Australia.  

Here is my Coalescence No. 4  “Cockroach Blue”

(Conductor: Frank Epstein, Clarinet: Alexis Lanz, Erhu: Tao He; Guzheng: Hui Weng and New England Conservatory Percussion Ensemble)

Joan Huang: Coelescence No.4 “Cockroach Blue”

Thanksgiving is celebrated on the fourth Thursday of November every year. Last year was so miserable. The unprecedented the epidemic has reduced the reunion of the relatives of more than 20 people to just us two and Gigi, and we roasted a big turkey with only two people. It is really unimaginable. This year Bill’s the children will be coming…

The following famous oil painting on Thanksgiving comes from the legendary American painter Norman Rockwell entitled “Freedom from Want”: 

“The painting was created in November 1942 and published in the March 6, 1943 issue of The Saturday Evening Post. All of the people in the picture were friends and family of Rockwell in Arlington, Vermont, who were photographed individually and painted into the scene. The work depicts a group of people gathered around a dinner table for a holiday meal. Having been partially created on Thanksgiving Day to depict the celebration, it has become an iconic representation for Americans of the Thanksgiving holiday and family holiday gatherings in general. The Post published Freedom from Want with a corresponding essay by Carlos Bulosan as part of the Four Freedoms series. Despite many who endured sociopolitical hardships abroad, Bulosan’s essay spoke on behalf of those enduring the socioeconomic hardships domestically, and it thrust him into prominence.

The painting has had a wide array of adaptations, parodies, and other uses, such as for the cover for the 1946 book Norman Rockwell, Illustrator. Although the image was popular at the time in the United States and remains so, it caused resentment in Europe where the masses were enduring wartime hardship. Artistically, the work is highly regarded as an example of mastery of the challenges of white-on-white painting and as one of Rockwell’s most famous works.” (From Wikipedia)

 I remember I went his museum in Tanglewood when I was a composer fellow in 1993. It was such a memorable visit.  His style is realistic, humorous and vivid.  I love the way he portrayed the daily life of American people in colorful ways.  His paintings remind me of stage dramas and the figures on the painting come to live.

Thanksgiving is the biggest holiday in the United States and is equivalent to the Chinese New Year. As a multi-ethnic country, all immigrants from other continents are mostly thankful to the native Indians, who are the native settlers of America.

In 1621, a passenger ship “Mayflower” full of Puritans arrived at the colony of Plymouth, Massachusetts. It was winter, and the new immigrants who came to the New World were hungry and cold, and fell sick and died. Gradually, with the help of the local indigenous Indians, the new immigrants learned to hunt, grow corn and pumpkins, and then have a good harvest. During the harvest celebrations, the new immigrants from Europe invited the native American Indians to thank God for the gift.

Therefore, since 1941, the United States has set Thanksgiving Day on the fourth Thursday of November each year, with a day off, and Friday “Black Friday” usually marks the beginning of the Christmas gift shopping.

The weather in Altadena has been particularly good these days, the sun shines on the body as warm as spring. Look the sky, it is sapphire blue and the herringbone-shaped geese flying south. Taking Gigi hiking in the nearby Eaton Canyon National Park, I feel especially fantastic. It is the season with orange persimmons and oranges. Although the Covid-19 has reached its peak again, we have become accustomed to a quiet and isolated life at home.  For the past 30 years of our marriage, we have almost never missed the Thanksgiving feast of the family reunion of 30 people at the house of Bill’s niece Linda, then recent years at the house of Bill’s grand niece Kim.  Year after year, they were always memorable “turkey feasts” and we never forget. However last year the government did not allow family reunions. We could only celebrate the Thanksgiving alone, and only zooming with relatives and friends online.

Although I have done countless kinds of American and Chinese banquets, the Thanksgiving banquet is still a novice. Last year it was the first time to cook a Thanksgiving meal during the epidemic. This year, I will continue to work hard to serve our family. The dining table has been set up:

I will cook a full set of “Thanksgiving Dinner” seriously. The advantage is that the leftover turkey can be used for many purposes.

Tonight’s “Turkey Feast” recipe will be listed as follow:

1) Lobster and Corn Chowder and Dinner Rolls

Lobster is among Bill’s favorite food.  I will make this first mouthwatering course as the prelude to the scrumptious Turkey entry.  Every sip and bite was very enjoyable, dipping dinner rolls to the rich chowder while smelling the aroma rising from the oven. 

2) Maple-Ginger Roast Turkey

In the traditional Thanksgiving banquet, turkey is the main dish on the table, usually stuffed with a “stuffed belly” (a food mixed with giblets, bread cubes, various vegetables and seasonings). Then bake in the oven for several hours. Since there are only two of us, I bought the smallest turkey  possible (but it still weights 16 pounds). I will roast the turkey according to the recipe from Sheila Lukins’ cooking book Celebrate!

3) Referring to this short video, I’ll make a few more dishes:

4) Pumpkin Pie

Pumpkin pie is essential for Thanksgiving. The local Indians taught the new immigrants to grow corn and pumpkins in early days.  During the harvest season, the new immigrants used their harvested pumpkins to make pies to thank the native Indians.

During Thanksgiving, which is different from previous years, we would like to be particularly grateful for the heroic dedications of the medical workers who are saving lives at the forefront of the epidemic.  Also, we’re thankful to the people who risk their lives in important positions such as supermarkets, pharmacies etc.  

We also want to be especially grateful for the new vaccine invented by scientists. At the end of the tunnel, we finally saw the light at the end of  the tunnel.  Pfizer, Moderna, J & J, etc. have been keeping reporting good news, bringing the hope to people around the world. At the same time, also the Covid medicines are also in sight. Both Bill and I have had boosters a month ago, and we hope that we have a certain degree of immunity.

Happy Thanksgiving to our families and friends around the world! Knowing that the nearly past 2 years are extremely difficult, but we believe after the cold winter, the spring will be auspicious, promising and blooming again!

I’m ending my blog with the Thanksgiving message from President Biden and the First Lady:

It’s autumn again, it’s cloudy right now in Los Angeles right now. The colorful maple leaf photos seen from the circle of friends are enviable. I love autumn, esptecially like the song Autumn Leaves sung by Frank Sinatra.

Public places in Los Angeles opened one after another: we also started to go to the Disney Concert Hall for the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra concert. A week ago, Bill and I went the Disney Concert Hall for the first time for over a year and we saw so many young people sitting around us. I feel that going to concerts is the fashion of the 21st century, I think that the world-renowned 40-year-old music director Gustavo Dudamel conductor and the famous Modernistic architecture attracts the younger generation. I must say: “I am so fortunate to live in a deep blue and. trendsetting city!”

Disney is a buzzword in Los Angeles which is a polyglot city with holiday themes almost every day. Now there are many Disneyland around the world, However, in history, the first Disneyland opened in LA in 1955. Over the 3 decades of my marriage to Bill, we have accompanied our children to that historic fantasyland year after year. The theme of Halloween is naturally extremely popular among children.

It’s hard to believe that for a year and half, Bill, Gigi and I have been hunkered down at home.  During this quiet period, a peaceful life allows me to study and write: composing and writing blogs… Seven seasons (2 springs, 2 summers, 2 autumns and 1 winter) have passed, now it comes the last day of October – Halloween.  Every year in the past (except for last year, for “tricks and treats”, I would prepare candies to the neighborhood kids who dressed in fanciful costumes. 

Halloween falls in autumn, and it is a festival to be in honor of autumn. There were piles of fat pumpkins with round pedicles and bright golden yellows all over the places near our home.  The supermarket also sells colorful and unorthodox shaped heirloom pumpkins, which are really natural art treasures. Movie figures, grotesque masks and weird costumes in stores attract children, and, of course, piles of colorful candies everywhere.  

One of the most indispensable elements of Halloween is to carve pumpkin lanterns, and then put candles on them to make pumpkin lanterns.

Although it is the last day of October, our Southern California summer has just passed. The day was short, and I realized that autumn had arrived. The sky is clear and there are no clouds, the birds are beautiful in the morning, the colorful roses are competing again, and the flowering season in October is another peak. Taking Gigi out in the early morning is my happiest time, talking to my mother in the UK, listening to the news, looking for inspiration to new works, and viewing the front garden of the neighborhood. Gigi is a very friendly dog, through her, I have made a lot of my friendly neighbors. The variety of Halloween decorations is dazzling. Despite that the United States is currently in an era of extreme polarization, people still have the same fun, fear, and carnival about Halloween. We use Halloween to release our depression, to inspire our inspiration, and to celebrate this holiday in a safe and unique way!

This is our neighbor’s enthusiasm for “Halloween”, they created a kaleidoscopic landscape!

Every Halloween, at Disney Concert Hall always had organ concert (except for last year). For this Halloween, the famous silent film organist Clark Wilson will perform a haunting score for John S. Robertson’s 1920 Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, starring John Barrymore. Film critic Leonard Maltin described Clark Wilson as a “master of silent film and showman of the first order” for his organ accompaniments of silent films.

Wearing a mask, washing my hands for 20 seconds, and keeping 6 feet socially have become my instinctive habit. Drink a “devil” cocktail and dance to the music.

I’ve decorated the dinner table for us two.

Halloween gives people wild and crazy imagination, I searched the dazzling information on the Internet, I decided that the menu for tonight:

1) Hot Dog Buns with “Finger Sausages”:

I found this photo in CNN, it caught my eyes immediately, Bill loves hot dogs.  It’s natural and needs some “carving work”.

2) Jicama Salad: Jicama is very popular vegetable in Southern California. It is crispy and crunchy and great to mix it with tri-colored sweet peppers, coriander, cucumber, orange, and lemon juice!

3) Red-hot Short Ribs of Beef

Cut the short ribs and add various condiments: onion, garlic, mustard, olive oil, lemon juice, orange paprika, and chili sauce. Bake them in the oven for 2 and 1/2 hours. The fragrance fills the kitchen and is mouth-watering.

4) Sunny Sweet Potato Mash

The orange sweet potato is the color of “Halloween”.  Simply add butter, lemon juice, brown sugar and ginger powder and bake it in the oven for 45 minutes.  After baking, crush it. very delicious!

5) Sauteed Vegetable Combo

At present, my vegetable garden has zoocchini and green peppers, I stir-fried with olive oil and garlic.  They are delicious!

6) Orange Sorbet:

I’m lazy, just bought the “Halloween” colored orange sorbet from the supermarket and the ready made “Halloween Fudges and Brownies”.  They are golden and brown colored. 

I am finishing my blog with Grieg’s Peer Gynt Suite No. 1, “In the Hall of the Mountain King”.