“LANG LANG” by Lang Lang and Michael French

Lang Lang, the famous Chinese pianist, is telling us in his book the story of his life and how he became the world known pianist.

“In China in 1991, a nine-year-old pianist had little hope for a career without attending the Beijing Conservatory and learning from the country’s most accomplished teachers.“
“But my father, a clever man, had anticipated all this. To make up for our disadvantages, he had ordered me to practice with incredible discipline since I was three years old.”

Even though it was painful for me to read all the difficult situations he was put in by his father, for Lang Lang to become famous, I am wondering if there are any examples of prodigy children who were not pushed to their limits by their parents. Sometimes, against their children will. (I suppose John, Paul, George și Ringo (alias BEATLES) their parents did not push them.)

“This was my father’s dream for me, and it had become mine as well.”

When a teacher from Beijing University rejected Lang Lang as a pupil, his father blind with fury said to him:

“You should die! Everything is lost. You can’t go back to Shenyang in shame. Everyone will know you were not admitted to the conservatory. They will know your teacher fired you.
Dying is the only way out!”

On the other hand, the situation of Chinese parents was different. When they were allowed to have only one child, I suppose the parents’ expectations were huge.

“Because of the one-child policy, many children born in the 1980s were pushed and pressured by their parents.
My experience of being pressed to the limit by my father was not the exception.
Parents who had not achieved their dreams put all their unrealized hopes onto their one and only child.”

Kindle, 2011