When I look back at my childhood photos, there isn’t a single picture where I’m making a normal face. My eyes are always flipped to the back of my head with my tongue out, or my nostrils are flared with my fingers mashing up my face. It made people laugh and distracted them from my uneven monolids, comically round face, and nostrils that relatives claimed were wide enough to see all the way up to my brain. My grandmother tracked the slow “progress” of a nose bridge, celebrating when it finally began to look, in her words, “like a human nose.” These comments cut deep and I quickly learned that if I turned myself into the punchline, then no one else could beat me to it. The funny face became my armor, a shield against the fear of being seen as ugly.

As I began my musical journey, I constantly watched performances of artists like Perlman, Dudamel, and Yo-Yo Ma. Their faces twisted into expressions of joy, sorrow, and ecstasy in a way that I had never allowed myself to while performing. I believed I wasn’t technically good enough to earn such displays of satisfaction. The thought of wearing a face of pure bliss while my playing sounded flawed terrified me, just as much as the fear of looking pretentious while forcing a pleasant pose on an unpleasant face. To protect myself, I adopted a stoic expression whenever I played in front of everyone, one that matched what I believed was the level of my playing and kept me from being embarrassed if I slipped. This insecurity became a barrier to my artistic growth, and I was labeled as the dutiful Asian kid practicing only for tiger parents. In reality, I loved the violin deeply and my parents were puppies at best. I realized I had to let go. 

To coax my inner face out, I started by imitating the greats. I studied violinists’ quirks and mannerisms, copying their expressions in a way that sometimes bordered on parody. I tried shaking my cheeks like David Oistrakh, dancing with my eyebrows like Ray Chen, and pouting my lips like Itzhak Perlman. Not every interpretation matched what I felt inside, but mimicking gave me permission to explore freely, without the guilty thought that I was playing “beyond my station.” It was like a child learning to speak, first mimicking their parents’ mouths, then slowly forming their own words. Bit by bit, I found my own sentences. My body danced to the music I played and my face began leading my fingers along the rise and fall of the melody. My musicality reached another level far beyond what I’d settled for and I was introduced to a whole new world of artistry. My face, once hidden, became a tool that shaped the music I loved into something richer, something entirely my own.

The funny face itself wasn’t the problem, but rather the fear that came with it. For so long, I believed that hiding would keep me safe from judgment, but all it did was keep me from reaching new levels of success and joy. Letting myself be seen exactly as I am—mistakes, flaws, and all—opened a door I didn’t know existed. My face no longer needed to be a disguise, whether comical or stoic. It could finally be a true extension of me, showing on the outside what I felt so deeply on the inside.