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Today is May 11 2020 and we're here with Andy Lin, our New York member of the Houston Asian American Archive. Thank you so much for your time in the COVID-19 to contribute your voice

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regarding your stories during this very special time of history. How are you doing? I'm doing well in New York, actually. I know a lot of people think New York City's not doing so

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well, but it really depends on where you are. Some places might feel a lot safer than people think. I see. And how about the streets? Are you seeing people on the streets?

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Well actually, because the weather is warming up, so people start to come out. I always joke a little bit like New York people aren't— it's not like people don't– people don't care or afraid of the coronavirus;

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but in Manhattan especially, there aren't as many cases. So people here, we don't feel as dangerous as places like Flushing, Queens, Bronx or Brooklyn. And so we're around Times Square a few weeks ago,

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and we still don't see people on the street. But I realized when the weather warms up, or someone come out to go to Central Park to walk around. It feels like people can come up because, basically, there was

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nothing to do. Restaurants were closed. There's no activities, like all the concert halls are closed as well. So people just decided to stay home. But I know last week— last weekend.

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The weather was in the 70s, so I went out to Central Park to walk around and see thousands of people. They weren't gathering but they were just, you know, exercising, and just you know, try to enjoy the

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sunshine. Yea definitely. It's a strange spring... It is strange, because I see on the news every day like how many people, how many cases are in New

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York and how many died from COVID-19 and I feel really sad. But the same time when I go out, it feels like a different world, for some reason. Yeah, that's a real reality.

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And how has your life changed like what do you notice yourself doing more, or doing less? Well I'm definitely, I'm cooking a lot more at home. And I used to go out a lot because my— for my

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personality I like to, to do things, to go out, to see people, to hang out, to do some work, even to go to a coffee shop to work. And, but there is nothing— nothing's open and everything's canceled.

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As an active performer, it becomes very difficult for us because I know all the concert—at least for me—all the concerts are canceled throughout the summer.

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I know Lincoln Center, they closed. And they cancelled all the concerts until September. And Lincoln Center was supposed to reopen in mid May— around this time. But it also has been postponed to— I don't even know they

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know when it is either. And all the Broadway shows are closed, till the summer as well. So for, for active performers, we basically have no work besides teaching.

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Because we can teach virtually, and so the students are always urged to continue practicing and taking lessons. But besides those things, I try to, you know, I try to find things to do.

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So I run a music society, called the New Asia Chamber Music Society, and we started this music-on-air project, where we invite all the musicians— like everyday we'll have a different artist or musician to perform

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about 10 to 15 minutes of work, and they like. So during the quarantine time people are staying at home, there's nothing to do besides you know taking care of the kids, or just to go, you know

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to get online and find things to do. So we try to bring the music to people every evening at 9pm. And it has been going on since March 17.

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So, we did over, I would say, over 50 online streaming concert already. And we are planning on doing until to whenever the quarantine is over.

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And this is just a way for us to, to have something to look forward to every day, and also for people to have, "Oh, tonight 9pm, we go on Facebook, and you see online streaming of people performing".

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And also for an artistic director for New Asia CMS, and this is just a way for us to support musicians, because it's not a lot but we do pay musicians to do online streamings.

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Right. And, and, besides music stuff, I'm also associated with many different organizations. For example, the, this one called STUF, United Fund, it's S-T-U-F.

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And it's a 501 nonprofit charitable organization, and they got a lot of donations, in order for organization to, to donate masks around the United States. So in

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New York, I got around 4000 surgical masks where I can bring to medical centers or hospitals to support everyone needs it. So for me, I think it's a meaningful thing to do, especially,

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I know from Taiwan, I know Taiwan people, we have a lot of sources, and we want to help the world. So we have a lot of masks,

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coming from Taiwan, or even from China to the United States where we can support our people who needs it here. And what else have I been doing? Oh, of course.

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So for me food is— I'm such a foodie. I know grocery shopping has been very difficult for a lot of my friends and people in New York City. Especially people usually, you know, you go out, you go to supermarket to buy food;

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or you have to take subways, to go to Chinatown, to get say, dumplings, to get Chinese– Chinese groceries that you want. So I decided, since

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it's difficult for everyone, so I found a farm in New Jersey, as well as some restaurants that remains open during the quarantine time. So, we do basically delivery, grocery delivery service

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for, for people in New York City. So every week we gather— I would say— over 100 orders. And so we brought all the food to

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a certain place, and we deliver from there to all the homes. And we have things like, cabbage, onions; we have pork, beef like all kinds of groceries that you can think of.

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And then we have real processed food, or cooked food like ramen or dumplings, Chinese sausage. And even now we just got Kimchi and lots of buns, like frozen ones.

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So we can deliver to home so they have enough food to eat throughout the week. So we do that once a week, and we're thinking about continue doing it, even after the quarantine time. Wow, sounds like you've been keeping really busy, and you've been...

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I've been more busy than I thought. Which is good because, you know, being quarantined at home, people start to get creative. And you start doing things that you normally don't; and, or you start

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doing things that you wanted to but you never had a chance to. They want to spend more time with their kids, but they have to go to work every day. So it's a great time for them to spend time with, with their family.

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And for me, just a good time for me to sit down and think, what do I want to do? What else I can do? Not just for myself but also for people around me. Wow, sounds great. So, this has been a time of reflection for

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you as well? I think for, yeah for me and for people, especially living in New York, you know like, your life is always so busy, so hectic. You have so, like 10 or 15 things to do a day.

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And you stop thinking, what's really, what's really affecting your life. And what you can actually do to your life, or for your life, and for people. And I think for many New Yorkers, it's just a great time to have—

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yeah I think "reflection" is a good word— to stay home to, to rethink and to create. And we don't know what's gonna happen after a few months because at least I know for musicians, for us

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as performers, we probably won't have any opportunities for not a while. So I think it's also important for us to think about how we can deliver music and art to people in a

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different form. And that's why you go online these days you see so many online streaming concerts. And I know, I even know my neighbor who's a trumpet player, he would open the window every single night around like

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7pm, just to play for like five minutes; then people arond here will cheer for him. Yeah, just many many different ways to, to go through this difficult time.

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Do you think any of these, um, new creative ways of communicating will become a new normal? It's very possible, especially, um, I think people are so used to, you know, getting your groceries and

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food delivered to your home. And even at the quarantine time, people partly take this as, as a, as an option. Right, like you don't always need to go travel from

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Manhattan to Flushing, which is, which is almost an hour away to get, like, like dumplings; when you can be delivered to you every— you know every week. And even, even music or— I wouldn't

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say for artists— I think for normal people who work at companies, at offices. I think a lot of the people who realize that working at home is not such a bad idea.

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So there will be more and more people working from home, where they can spend time with your family. I think we should just always think positively. Definitely, yeah. And how about for musicians because you're a performer;

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see this development of live streaming with all these 5G, like technology developments, are we going to keep live streaming, instead of having offline performances?

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Well, I think if we had a choice, performing on stage and live, for people I think it's always better and less streaming. Just because you feel more fulfilled by you feel people sitting there, cheering for you.

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You feel people breathing, or reacting to what you do; where you know through online streaming, you're facing an iPad or an iPhone, computer where you don't feel about, this machine is reacting to what you

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do. But we always craving to perform for people. And that's why these streaming, live streamings are going on. Even though a lot of the live streaming, there is no— we don't get paid for it.

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But it's just for us to share music because when we are sitting at home practicing. And it's not just for ourselves. It's also for people who share what we passion, what our passion is as well.

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Yeah, we definitely miss your playing from February for our concert sponsored by Rice University. Yeah, your virtuoso skills definitely brought so much joy to the Houston community.

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Thank you so much! It was a great time for me to be there. Feels like a long time ago although... Wait, wasn't that? It was two month ago.

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Right? Time actually flies during the quarantine time. You wake up, you're thinking, "Oh, what to cook today? What else can I do today? To make a, make this a fun

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day to live? And, or you want to be productive in many ways. Yeah. So during this quarantine time, how have your relationships with your

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loved ones, like your family or your roommates, like how has it changed? Oh this is interesting because quarantine time happened just right after I moved out by myself. So I

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used to live with my sister and two other roommates. But now we're all on our own. But the same time, my mom is also visiting from Taiwan, so she has been staying with me for the past month or two.

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And I guess I haven't spent that much time with my mom's ever since I came to study abroad in 1997. So it's a great time for me to get to know my mom more and letting her know what I've been doing.

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Guess what, I'm no longer a kid. Because every time when I visit Taiwan or she come visit, it's only like a week or two. And we never got to know each other's life so well. So it has been very loving

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and interesting time actually. And, and even people, because it was online streaming concert; so people also find, "Oh, we can also do online party." So, almost every night or

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every other night, I'll go online to, you know, ask some friends to, "Hey let's chat, and let's have a drink!" through, you know, through zoom or through Skype, through Facebook. And it has been very fun because then you stop having to

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travel to places, or you can actually do that anytime you want in the day. So we actually get to hang out, get to talk to many of my friends for a lot of the times.

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Yeah, sounds lovely. Yeah, we know you also, in addition to your performance role, you're an advocate for many of your musician friends. How would you like the kind of system to...

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or how do you foresee the system of the artist and like entertainment or the musician industry change in the future? That's a very tough question and I don't, I don't think I have a good answer for you.

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Because even for myself, I'm also thinking, maybe performing is not the only thing that I should do my life. I think these days for artists, or especially musicians, you not only need to play well.

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You need to know how to market yourself. So I know these days a lot of people are making recordings, they have been doing a lot of projects that they normally don't have time to do because they are busy rehearsing, performing and

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traveling. So I think, online things, online performing, and also recordings; different things on the internet, will become a new trend for a lot of the musicians especially. Because we know, even after quarantine is

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over, people are probably gonna be hesitant to go to the concert halls to watch a concert. And so, I'm sure for a live concert is gonna be a while for it to happen.

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Um, so it's a great time I think for us to think about what else we can do to bring the music to everyone. In a way I think it's probably a positive thing that we start thinking about that, because it has been difficult

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for us to bring people to concert halls to listen to concerts. Because people either don't have time, or they don't want to spend the money, or it's not their priority to do. But now if everything becomes very easy

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accessible. Then it's a good time for us to share and to tell people, "oh, music or art is something that you can get every single day, and becomes a very important thing in your life." And I think that's probably

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a great time for us right now to– to start working on that. Yeah, definitely. Like, I see a lot of the roles of the musicians that have been... like on

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Facebook or any of the have so many people like yourself bringing live music and creativity to people which has felt as much as before.

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So thank you for... Of course. I know a lot of my friends are so bored staying at home after working. They'll be like, "Um, what else can I do?" So they go online to find things to do as activities. And that's how they

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encounter a lot of different performances, different artists. You start seeing people sharing, "Oh," they found, "this online performance sounds so good!" They start sharing, when they normal– normally don't really go into concert halls.

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I think, I think it's great. In a way, the COVID has brought us a little closer together in certain aspects. Well, on the other end, we have been reading a lot about the xenophobia and anti-Asian

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American incidents. Have you personally experienced anything like that? I haven't, at least I haven't actually in my time in New York at all.

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Um, I think, I mean racism or anything is always there. But it's about how you present yourself on the streets, when you walk. You always encounter people who are— there's hatred in their life;

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not only to Asians, not only to Black people, or any other race. But those people who are negative about their life about... I think if you always

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show the positive side by yourself, it's less likely that you will encounter those things happen to you, especially in, in New York. And, yeah.

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That's great. Yeah, it's definitely about us, not only about the other people. You don't know how they grew up, you don't know their environment. And the only way you can

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protect yourself is to not be afraid. Definitely. So have you experienced any stress or anxiety during the quarantine? Well, yes, in the beginning, when I'm not having to

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perform. I feel like, "oh, stress free!" Because you know you have nothing to worry about the next day. You wake up, you're like, "Eh, I can practice a little bit or I can do something else." Since there's no concerts coming up.

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But after a week, from an active performer to not performing at all staying at home, it starts to build stress. Because for musicians, artists,

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creating, performing is a way for us to release our stress, to release the passion that's in ourselves. So when that's building up in– in my head, in my heart, you really crave to go out to do something.

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So, it happened for— I think it last for about– about a couple of weeks, when I feel the stress I cannot perform. I don't know what I can do.

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And of course, income is also a factor. And it's good that the government has, has the unemployment insurance, and those are great for artists.

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So it helps. But it also helps not to go out to eat, to hang out. And that saves a lot of money as well at the same time. For sure. And, on the bigger picture,

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how would you see this pandemic has revealed about the social structure? For example you're seeing the people who are less privileged being more impacted in this pandemic. And how has it revealed about our society

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in general? Hmm.. Ok. It's a very difficult question to answer. Hmm. Well, this pandemic, people start to think,

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or I start to think, all lives are equal. Because if you, if you get affected, then, it's either you're healthy or not, or anything can happen any day. Because we are living through a history.

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And I think everyone will just need to stay strong and go through this together. Because if anyone, any community thinks this is not a big issue, then this COVID-19 will never end.

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And for the social structure, of course, people with low income they have less resources, like they have the resources to get mask, to get help to even buy food. But now, because of this, a lot of charities, a lot of

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organizations they start to gather people, gather donations to help those people who really need it. So you still see a lot of love, especially on the internet, people, people always say, "Let's do

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this together. Let's donate this much money to this community, to this Medical Center." So I try to see a positive side that raised people's, raise people's, um...

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What's the word? Raise people's... um, people's good heart, where people... Because we– we see so many negative things online, so we all try to share the positive thing.

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What we can do to provide the world a better place to live. Yeah, definitely. That's great to hear your perspectives and be able to see through you about the things going on in New York and the way people

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are sharing... I think I might be a little luckier just because I live in Manhattan. But I know a lot of people, a lot of places are a disaster.

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So I really hope there are more things I can do, or everyone can do to help us to get better. Yeah, thank you, for– from those people in need, like the masks and the grocery shopping.

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I'm sure those are tremendous for the society in general. We're just doing the best we can do. Is there anything else you'd like to share with us? Well, I just think wearing masks is very important.

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Even after the quarantine is over, since it's gonna go around for– for quite a while, especially with the flu, that's coming up in the fall, like all those things. I think keeping yourself healthy, is a great way to keep everything

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else safe and everyone else healthy too. Yeah I hope we get through this and we'll be able to see performers like you and your fellow musicians, be able to play live

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in... I'm sure people will treasure it more when we can start doing live concerts; not just musicians, but also for audience, to be able to go see a live concert. I'm sure people are looking forward to, to happen

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again. Yeah, most definitely. That's the end of my questions and thank you so much! And I hope your mother and your sister are doing well in New York.

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And thank you on behalf of the Houston Asian American Archive. Thank you so much, Ann. Thank you.