Aloneness Summons

Whenever your aloneness summons, glorious afternoons abide by you wherever you are. After a quiet walk, roti kaya, carrot and wolfberry juice, I turn on the telly. Live on CNN, the New York Philharmonic Orchestra performs at the North Korean capital, Pyongyang.

They opened with the national anthems. Each musical note, for a moment, silenced the nuclear propaganda and blurred the ideological differences. These differences makes such violent waves. This music silences it with this glorious sonic boom of notes.

I remember having seen the New York Philharmonic perform live. It must have been too hot in CCP’s cockpit because save for the conductor, the entire orchestra had their penguin jackets off. A penguin-jacketless New York Philharmonic is the closest was the closest I got to New York.

This afternoon in Kuala Lumpur, it was different. It’s all happening now. Somewhere in North Korea, the Americans brought their largest cultural group to a communist state and played their music. For the first time.

Act III of Wagner’s “Lohengrin.” Dvorak’s “New World” Symphony. 9, then, Gershwin’s "American in Paris." By Americans in Pyonyang.

They focus on an Asian member of the orchestra who does the clarinet solo. They zoom in on the US and NK flags standing together on a stage.

When they played Arirang, a beloved Korean folk song, the audience’ applause thundered in a very long standing ovation. And the applause and the standing ovation kept on.

I was alone, weeping unembarrassed at this little peace.