CHAPTER 1
January 1, 2004
My Age—63
Returning to my apartment around 8:25 p.m. ...
Nearly twenty hours ago, the New Year was announced as a hugeball dropped in Times Square. Gathered people on the streetsang "Auld Lang Syne" and shouted "Happy New Year!"
I think Times Square's New Year's Eve festivities are worthexperiencing once, with people pushing, pulling, and millingaround. After that, it is wiser to watch it on television. I had dinner atKumkangsan Restaurant and then returned to my studio apartmentand turned on the television.
On January 1 every year, Public Broadcasting Service TV'sannual event was a program of Johann Strauss waltzes, performed bythe Vienna Philharmonic as many handsome and beautiful dancerswaltzed to the performance. It was narrated by Walter Cronkite.
I've felt close to Mr. Cronkite since he calmly announcedon television the news of President John F. Kennedy's shockingassassination on November 22, 1963, when I was in Hawaii.
The conductor on the PBS program was Maestro Muti. I saw himconduct his Detroit symphony, as a house conductor at a Renaissancearea, when I was in Detroit in 1972. I also may have seen him as aguest conductor at Carnegie Hall or Avery Fisher Hall with the NewYork Philharmonic. Elegant waltzing makes women proud to beborn a woman. I enjoyed waltzing when I was younger.
On the other hand, the tango is like expressing nonverbal fightingand hiding a man and woman's passion. When doing the tango, thereis a half-lying pose on the dance floor—it made me feel as if I wasin bed with a stranger! So I avoided the tango—although my storychanged delightfully when La Kumparsita was played.
Nowadays, I am very thankful that I didn't fall or trip over stonesor grass roots.
Oh, Vienna! Beautiful Vienna! I was sightseeing there in the1980s. A long time ago, when the Roman Empire was expanding,Roman soldiers from the warm and balmy south were advancingto the cold north. Those soldiers remembered their hometown'sfragrant and aromatic wine drinking, so they planted grapevinessent from Rome. From that time on, they knew the place as Vienna,which meant the place where wine trees grow.
Political power also has changed through history. The Hapsburgsroyal family had political power. They became friendly withGermany, the German language became their national language, andAustria started to expand. When Princess Maria Theresa wanted toascend to the throne, Austrian nobles rejected her by saying, "Austrianever had a queen in her history," but Maria Theresa liaisoned withHungarian nobles. "If you make me a queen," she told them, "I willgo through political procedures to make my crown prince the kingof Hungary first and then an emperor of Austria." Nobles of Hungaryhappily agreed. Maria Theresa became an empress and ruled theunited Austro-Hungarian Empire.
Empress Maria Theresa had sixteen children—princes andprincesses—and one of the princesses, Marie Antoinette, marriedFrance's King Louis XVI but later became a tragic heroine andguillotine victim during the French Revolution. During MarieAntoinette's princess time in Austria, she would come out througha door in the wall via the royal family's secret path in the gold-gildedwinter palace in Vienna to the reception room.
Once, the great boy musician Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart wasin the reception room, and he fell down. Princess Marie Antoinetteassisted him to his feet, and Mozart was always thankful to her. AfterMozart's sudden death, his wife, Constanza, remarried a baron, andhe heard about this genius musician's story through his wife. Hewas so impressed that he began to buy back Mozart's works, one byone—they had been sold for a cheap price to pay living expenses.
So many of Vienna's historic and legendary stories center onEmpress Maria Theresa and have spread by word of mouth. Inaddition, the empress's statues are still standing in a few places.
At one restaurant in Vienna, I was eating an American-style beefsteak. One of the violin players came to my table, and I requested thathe play the Blue Danube waltz. I'd walked the banks of the DanubeRiver, walked Vienna's wood path, and saw the famous Vienna OperaHouse. Since Mozart's time, the Viennese have been proud of theopera house, as they are the most opera-loving people. During WorldWar II, they were bombarded, and their only enjoyment was to hangaround the opera house. That alone would cause them to be thankfuland satisfied, even though they couldn't get tickets when the war wasover and opera was performed.
Our tour guide told me that they were so thankful to theAmericans after the war that, as a token of their appreciation,they gave the United States a special product of Austria—a crystalsnowflake-shaped chandelier and candle sconces for the New YorkCity Metropolitan Opera House. The tour guide asked me whetherI'd seen them. I told her that I thanked the Austrian who gave suchbeautiful chandeliers and that I enjoyed those chandeliers whenever Iwent to the Metropolitan Opera House. I said I also enjoyed Mozart'soperas, such as Don Giovanni, The Magic Flute, and The Marriageof Figaro, under those chandeliers. As soon as she heard that, webecame friends at once.
Vienna's dark eastern wall belonged to a Communist country.From Vienna Airport, people can go to Warsaw or Belgrade—easternCommunist countries. I also remembered one sad story ofSouth Korea's beautiful actress Miss Yoon Junghee, who was living inFrance when someone kidnapped her to Belgrade, and she sufferedunnecessary hardship and returned to France. Austria paid theRussian authorities a lot of money and goods every year, but Austriathought it was better to pay than to have Russian troops come.
The Austrian national religion is Roman Catholic, and they still doa Latin mass. I just joined because I was familiar with the Latin mass;it was as if I came home, because South Korean Roman Catholics useda Latin mass until a Korean mass was permitted. Johann Strauss'swaltzes were played at any time and any place in Austria. I onceheard South Korea's famous violinist Miss Jung Kyungwha playingRichardo Strauss's "Alps Symphony." I was sitting in the front row atthe New York Philharmonic's Avery Fisher Hall in New York City. Iheard the Vienna Boys Choir at Avery Fisher Hall in New York City. Isaw a...
