“Discuss three representations of glory in the works we’ve read this semester.”

That was the essay question for my Directed Studies literature final last fall. The crash course covers humanity’s best works from c. 2000 B.C.E. through the twelfth century. Glory made it to the final because it defined our history. It still does.

Yale is a brilliant community. Students push themselves to the forefront of innovation and discovery. Many hope to make a difference. But that admirable zeal can fall prey to image.

Some endeavors are great conversation starters; many are not. But the understated can be the most impactful.

This series serves to proclaim that quiet greatness. To champion the Voices of Yale that you may not hear.

In the future, I plan to interview Yalies against backdrops that better reflect their characters. But Paul’s choice to conduct his in our shared room felt right. Perhaps this series can journey out from a place of comfort as it leads me to other fascinating people.

I am in my bed, Paul in his chair. I am unsure how to start. A beat.

“Just begin where you think you should.”

***

Paul En-Xian Ji was born in Long Grove, Illinois — 30 miles from Chicago. He started to play the piano when he was four. It was not his idea.

“My dad had an ear for music, but didn’t have the money to learn,” he explains. Paul’s father would push him to practice and register him for competitions every year. “In the beginning, I didn’t want to play. I liked sports. I didn’t want to sit on a bench and knock on pieces of wood, basically.” The Paul I know is one of the most restful souls on campus. I ask what changed.

The mere-exposure effect tells us that familiarity dictates fondness. “The more I played,” he thought, “the more I had to like it, so it wouldn’t be torture.” An ouroboros was born.

Paul won his first competition at age six in France, where the family had moved. He continued to earn a blue ribbon every year. But you can find his accolades on his Wikipedia. I wanted to learn about the man behind the keyboard. So did he.

Paul is in Directed Studies with me — a year-long program of three notoriously arduous courses. I used to wonder why. Yale encourages academic exploration, but why would a professional pianist sacrifice his practice time for extra readings and writing exercises?

Over time I learned that I had it backwards. Paul is not a “pianist.” That noun is reductive. He is a student who plays piano. It is an understatement to write that the piano program at the Yale School of Music is good. But Paul preferred it to Curtis or Julliard because it is good for him. Music is just one of the many liberal arts that he happens to like. But it is one inflamed by passion.

Paul expresses his genuine love for classical music to me. Just as listeners can relate to the lyrics of their favorite artists, he connects with the simplicity of Mozart. A beat. He fears that to verbalize the magic of the music is to destroy it. But his identity as a student who plays piano tags in: “it’s kind of like when Tolstoy is trying to show that words cannot capture the sensations of Hadji Murat. It’s impossible to really know how he felt.”

Paul sustains that he does not like classical music “for its status.” I inquire. He introduces me to his piano teacher, whose illiberal dictations of tempo, dynamics and phrasing clashed with Paul’s whimsical approach. “I always found it too boring, the way he performed.” The student who plays piano was not content to play the instrument. He wanted to play with it.

Unfortunately Paul had to choose. After he graduated from the French competitions, he performed in an international one in Germany. He lost. “The judges didn’t like my style.” He looks at me. “They say classical music is about who can replicate the best.”

The understated can be the most impactful. Three years later, Paul had an epiphany as he listened to his teacher perform the first movement of Mozart’s Sonata No. 8. “I started to appreciate his consistency.” Appoggiaturas are arresting and flourishes flashy, but the character of a piece as a whole decides what a listener hears. The modesty of each beat is necessary for something bigger.

“I had followed my appetite, rather than my reason,” he analogizes. That one is from Directed Studies philosophy.

Paul was a quiet kid. It was difficult to relate to his classmates as the only Chinese student in his elementary school. He recounts a memory where he returned to his parents, crying. “Why do I look different from everyone else — why am I so ugly?” Stereotypes from students and teachers discouraged class participation.

Another hard memory: in middle school, Paul encountered a group of teenagers while on a walk in the forest with his sister and grandparents. First they hurled racial epithets. Then they hurled stones. Perhaps this triggered a fight-or-flight response. Paul’s grandparents urged him to fight. He was 13.

So he fled to the solidarity of music. “It didn’t have any prejudices. It was something quite universal, not tied to any nation.”

At fifteen Paul competed in the French talent show Prodigies. Think American Idol for classical music. Millions of viewers watched. He won.

The animus vanished. The mayor of his adoptive hometown of Fontainebleau awarded him Bellifontain D’honneur — “Bellfontian of Honor.” Interviews flooded the national news. Le Parisien. Le Figaro. Classmates warmed to him.

The media asked Paul where he wanted to study. He revealed that he had considered the Royal Academy of Music in London. His teacher came across the article and warned him. “‘Don’t ever tell the public that you’re leaving the country,’” Paul recalls. “‘It will upset the people.’”

First they threw stones. Then they threw roses.

Amid the cacophony, Paul applied to boarding school. He would attend Eton College in Windsor, England. Though it was not a conservatory, Paul insists that Eton made him a better student who plays piano than anywhere else would have. “It was the musical culture there. I worked with many non-piano musicians and played in the Eton Symphony Orchestra. I learned so much.”

Then came college applications, and with them, imbalance as the new threat to artistic freedom. A student, Paul had to write his essays. A student who plays piano, he had to sustain his practice. A student who plays piano at Eton, he had to take his A-Levels — think AP exams that are the sole determinant of your grades.

An hour in, we had yet to encounter a major theme of my relationship with Paul: religion. I still wonder why we discuss it so often. Our backgrounds seem a likely candidate. Paul is Christian, I am Jewish. Our common ground fosters curiosity for our branching paths. Talk of messianism, eschatology and my confusion over Trinitarianism have set our late night records. So it would again.

Paul has always been religious, but those pressures of his senior year hardened his faith like a diamond from coal. Trust in a higher power brought him peace. Knowledge of a divine plan allayed his uncertainty. “I was too much of a ‘Hamlet’ before Eton,” he laughs.

A test of faith: the day before his economics and English literature A-Levels, Paul had to catch his train to England. It was canceled. He and his dad quickly pivoted to the Eurotunnel Shuttle. On the ride to England, Paul memorized quotations from the Canterbury Tales. Upon arrival, his dad discovered that he had lost his wallet, and with it, a place to stay. Paul imagined “dad and son both stressed about their impending dooms.” Then he looked up at his father.

Bo Ji was calm. He had synthesized the diamond long before his son. Another epiphany. Life would crystallize—not shatter—Paul’s faith. “It was quite a beautiful moment.” Peace.

Paul’s dad later taught him that balance is a trinity. Like son, he referenced the text: “‘[s]ome trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name’” (Psalm 20:7). That message proudly hangs in the courtyard of Morse, Paul’s residential college. His chariot is his talent, his horse his dedication. But when a wheel or leg breaks, his trust resides above.

He made his exams. I suspect that he did just fine.

***

I met Paul in August. On the surface we were different people. Paul was quiet. I was loud. But then we got to talking. Apparently we were both in Directed Studies. “The curriculum has been fascinating, but so quick,” he summarizes. “I have to learn not to be bogged down by details, but also to pay attention to the ones that are important.” His Eton experience had palliated the stresses of imbalance. But to cure the disease — to learn to balance—is why we are all here.

Courses. Clubs. Jobs. Parties. Friends. Relationships. Everyone develops a personal style and arrangement. Paul prefers consistency.

“Because of piano, I’m not good at ‘winging it.’” He laughs. “I’m like my mom in that way. My dad is good at multitasking.” One may teach the other, but dad and son are not the same. Yundi Li’s rendition of “La Campanella” is rightfully distinct from Rubinstein’s.

Piano outlines the contour of Paul’s life and personality as our accomplishments should. It brought him here. Whenever we dispute which of Chopin’s Nocturnes is best, or discuss Madame Bovary, or just silently enjoy each other’s company when reading or writing, I have piano to thank.

Piano remains the mainspring of Paul’s career as our accomplishments should. But it takes him away. Occasionally a friend enters only to be greeted by his empty chair. “Where’s Paul?” “He’s practicing.”

Paul nods softly. “Balance.”

In the cacophony of college, we should cheer for friends and their feats. But we should not forget their silent contributions. The understated can be the most impactful. The most human.

Paul smiles at me. “Thank you for the chance to reminisce. I hope we make more time to sit down and talk soon.”

So do I.