During the first few days of November, I scheduled my fourth meeting with Vera Wang. The one major thing I began to notice about her was that she always had free time to meet up, and was willing to meet with me whenever I asked. I don't know whether our schedules just happen to match up perfectly, or if she doesn't have much to do outside of the classroom. Nonetheless, I am very pleased to have a conversation partner who is free to meet with me. After all, there have been numerous stories about other conversations being missing in action. As I approached Union Grounds, I was unsure what Vera and I would talk about, simply because we seemed to have exhausted almost every potential conversation topic in the past month. However, this all changed when she arrived with her friend named Tristan, a brilliant piano player who also originated from China.
I was not expecting Vera to bring somebody to join along in our conversation, but was pleasantly surprised when she did! After spending a lot of time introducing one another, I really enjoyed speaking with Tristan. He definitely speaks much more fluent English, and actually brought up various topics that he wanted to get my opinions on. The most interesting thing about Tristan is that he is actually a fantastic piano player. After explaining that he lives in Irvine, TX and commutes to TCU each day, I asked why he bothered to live so far out of the way. It turns out that he is a professional piano player who happens to have a manager in the Dallas area. His manager had attended one of his concerts in Beijing a few years ago, and ended up offering Tristan a contract to come play and perform in the United States. With an opportunity like that, Tristan ended up signing with him, and currently lives in an apartment provided by his manager. Being a proper businessman, Tristan immediately handed over his business card and told me to check out some of his work. Since getting back from our conversation, I have gone online and heard several pieces that he performed. He is fantastic.
The most interesting thing about our conversation was how much more willing Vera was to engage in conversation with us. Rather than being shy and bashful, she ended up telling a plethora of stories when topics arose. A great conversation we had with each other regarded the freedom of people in the United States versus that of the people in China. Both Vera and Tristan noted that they loved the fact that they were now allowed to have Facebook accounts in America, simply because it was not allowed in China. The other thing they mentioned was how difficult it was to be granted permission to travel to America for college. It was apparently a very long and painstaking process to obtain government approval to come here, but well worth it in the end. Tristan said that the technology here is also much easier to access, like Apple products for example. I know that due to riots and people storming stores in China, it is not very common for Chinese people to have iPhones, unless they purchase them overseas. Vera told me that since attending TCU she has purchased an iPhone and finds it very difficult to live without it. With social media that she had never accessed like Facebook and Instagram, it is very difficult to stay focused on school work.
Another funny conversation we all had was in regards to Halloween. I asked if either of them had dressed up to celebrate the American holiday, and only Vera admitted to it. Due to the required Colby Halloween festivities, she and her French roommate stood at their dorm room and handed out candy to local children for hours on end. The other thing she mentioned was that she decided to dress up as a vampire, which I thought was hilarious to imagine. All in all though, Vera concluded that Colby Halloween was a terrible experience because of how many people came by her room, and because of the amount of candy she ended up consuming.
In all, I really enjoyed my conversation with both Vera and Tristan. I think the two of them having each other's presence made them much more comfortable while talking with me (I mean come on, look at how ferocious I seem). I hope to follow Tristan's journey as a professional piano player in the future, and will hopefully meet up with him in the near future. On the other hand, I am also looking forward to seeing Vera in the coming weeks, as we finish up our semester together.
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