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I was raised, myself, by extremely strict but also extremely loving Chinese immigrant parents. To this day, I believe that their having high expectations for me, coupled with love, was the greatest gift that anyone's ever given me. And so that's why, even though my husband is not Chinese, I try to raise my own two daughters the same way.

Playing the Beethoven symphonies, for example, is a consummate experience for a musician because Beethoven speaks so directly to who we are as people.

And we're fortunate if we have parents who are great and loving and inspiring. But, unfortunately, there are people who don't have that.

My parents are very humble people who have simple lives... they live in a pleasant little town in China.

If you go to Japan for instance, you should know that they have a different way of playing Beethoven or Brahms. But if you play with them Mozart, Debussy, Mendelssohn, they have a wonderful light feeling for that.

I don't take much from my own father, because he was a very austere, quiet, private man who would come home from work, go to his parlour and play Beethoven on his piano.

Beethoven can write music, thank God, but he can do nothing else on earth.

The joys of parents are secret, and so are their grieves and fears.

We are a global society, and one does not have to be from Germany to give a great performance of Beethoven.