i spend a lot of time around second/third generation Chinese people. There are a lot of stereotypes about the Chinese way they working, interacting, studying (very hard) and where they excel (and lack)
remarkably, there are not many stereotypes about how they feel. We know white people have white guilt. We know black people are fed up. Chinese people? They kind of hide that from the world. Anyways. This is Yo-yo ma. He is a second-gen Chinese American. And just look at that smile
That’s not just a happy man, that’s the smile of a man with a deep gratitude for life. He knows his privilege. Every day, he gets to play beautiful music on an instrument he loves. He gets to inspire people for a living. That’s pretty cool
Most people do not smile like Yo-yo ma. But for Chinese/Chinese american people in general, the path of Yo-yo ma is a precedent of mould-breaking that few people can appreciate. The amount of propellent it takes to overcome the gravity of dropping out of an ivy league school, one that your entire culture attaches a life-or-death weight to, to pursue the dream of playing an instrument in front of crowds around the world. That’s a hell of a leap
You might argue he is a sort-of nepo baby. Yo-yo Ma’s parents were both musicians too. And clearly there is a precedent of Chinese American’s who play stringed instruments like the cello at a skill level incomprehensible to an adolecent, brain-rotted doomscroller in 2025. But he still had to make that choice and see it through. He could have gone a safer route. That options was there. And he made the choice to lean into his prodigious cello skills and go world class.
The bigger point though, is that he has a kind of freedom few other have. The freedom of doing what he wants to do.