PIANO MAN: Lang Lang opens up his life in A Journey of Thousands Miles: My Story

China's charismatic young piano maestro Lang Lang recently published his autobiography titled A Journey of Thousands Miles: My Story, in which he shares how he began his musical career and his understanding of classical music. The book travels from the first meeting between his parents to Lang's solo concert at New York's Carnegie Hall in November 2003, and particular attention is paid to the relationship between the 26-year-old and his father.

Lang has been an idol to millions of young Chinese piano learners. Starting to learn piano at 3 years old, he is the first Chinese pianist to have ongoing cooperation with all major orchestras in the world and holds solo concerts in every renowned music venue across the globe. Lang's talent, passion and excitement when performing have impressed all who have seen him.

In the book, Lang said that his father was a key figure during his formative years, especially on the difficult path of mastering the piano. His father encouraged the young boy hoping Lang would fulfill a dream he himself had failed to realize. To nurture his son's musical skills, Lang's father sacrificed his own career and became fixated on the success of the boy, to the exclusion of all else. Young Lang lost most of the childhood that should have been spent having fun. The tension between father and son reached breaking point when in a fit of rage Lang's father told the boy that the alternative to not practicing diligently was death.

But for Lang today, there are other aspects of life he enjoys beside playing the piano. "There are a lot of things in life I find interesting, such as playing computer games, visiting various museums, watching TV, taking a walk or just chatting with friends," Lang said, "All these might be very common things to others, but I think they are relaxing and sometimes more important than piano."

He also thinks that the artistic world has many limitations and many artists isolate their lives from others. To avoid this he likes to live his life as an ordinary person.

In an interview with local newspaper Beijing Youth Daily, prior to the publication of the book, Lang spoke of why he would like to publish his life story. "When I am playing the piano, the audience, especially foreigners, will see a Chinese on the stage, but they may want to know about my life away from the stage and about the musical road that I am traveling on," Lang said.

"I was born and grew up in China, and my music career started in China and now most of my work time is spent outside China," said Lang. He thinks that readers may be interested in how he sees China and the world.

Lang said that during the past three decades as he was growing up, China has experienced dramatic changes in every aspect of life. He hopes foreign readers may get to know of these changes through his own story.

Lang said that he feels happy to see that although the number of Chinese children who are learning piano is growing, the parents of these piano learners tend to be more rational than his father's generation.

"I can feel this kind of change from the questions that many parents ask me, " Lang said, "Nowadays, parents  ask me if it is good for a child to learn piano as a hobby rather than the question of how to become a pianist."

Lang said that he would like to share his own story about learning piano with others, hoping it would be helpful to Chinese piano learners and their parents.

A Journey of Thousands Miles: My Story has already been a big hit in China since publication. At a national book fair held in central China's He Nan Province late April, the book sold out quickly, according to staff book fair organizers.

In northwest China's Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, when the book failed to arrive at bookstores on time, avid fans flooded outlets in Urumchi, capital of Xinjing, demanding to know when it would be on sale, according to a local website.

Lang signed over 1,000 copies that were sold out in an hour in Beijing on May 11th at a book launch in the capital. His parents were on hand at the signing and Lang proudly told the crowd that the book was a gift to his mother on Mother's Day.

The Chinese version of A Journey of Thousands Miles: My Story had an initial print run of 150,000 copies, of which more than 100,000 were ordered. The English version of the book will be published in July by Spiegel & Grau, a division of the Random House's Doubleday group. Other language versions of the book will also be published this summer and distributed worldwide.