A gender neutral rest room with illusion of disillusion, and an cello piece not following any western techniques in an insanely good acoustic music hall in the basement

Today, at the invitation of one of my college old friends, I went to the Legions of Honor Art Museum to attend a solo recital by Zhu Yibing, the foremost cellist in Mainland China.

As a country bumpkin coming to the city, I was quite greedy for my time there and wanted to make the most of the day. I first revisited Andy Goldworthy’s Wood Lane. From there I walked all the way down to the Presidio Visitor Center.

The wood lane just experienced one of the biggest downpours in San Francisco’s history. I could still see the shadow of the pouring rain on the ground but the trail survived pretty well.

When I finally reached the visitor center, there was a “gender neutral restroom” next to the center. It was very clean and very busy. People hurried in and out.

The most striking feature of this rest room is that the two row of toilet rooms shared the hand washing sinks in the middle. In other words, unlike all the traditional public rest rooms, there is no wall between the two rows of toilet rooms and their adjacent sinks.

This gives all of us a false illusion that the person who was stepping out of the toilet room and washing the hands on the opposite side is a mirror reflection of ourselves! And he was a man with a beard in my case!

This was actually my second time using this rest room and that false illusion of a mirror in front of me was still very real. Many visitors almost want to use their hands to touch the invisible line as if what they saw was a super clean mirror until they were facing another person standing just right in front of them from the opposite side, with a total stranger looking, sometime even another gender. That brought shock and giddy smiles from every one of us.

I think just from tourist perspective, this is a very cleaver design and attraction of “things you must experience in San Francisco”. On the more profound psychic level, the mirror illusion of seeing another total stranger as yourself is very intriguing and keeps you thinking — do I really know who I am?

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I grabbed a Cuban sandwich from one of the nearby food trucks and found a table on the Presidio Tunnel Tops park, while slowly eating, enjoyed the views of the Golden Gate Bridge, Angel Island, Alcatraz, and the classic San Francisco skyline.

Afterward, I made my way to the museum.

I had planned to wear something formal for the concert, with a nice dress and high-heeled boots, but the parking lot was packed. After circling around, I had to drive almost half a mile down the hill to find a spot.

When I got out of the car and took a long look at the far end on the top of the hill that I had to climb to get to the venue , I quickly gave up on the idea of wearing my dress and heels. With a bit of embarrassment, I rushed into the concert hall with my hiking outfits. I mentally apologized to my well-dressed fellow attendees of this concert.

This was my first time listening to chamber music in the basement of this museum, and the acoustics were absolutely fantastic. It ranks among the top three concert halls I’ve experienced (after the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires and the former East Berlin Music Hall). The advantage of this space is its compact size, which makes it easier to control the acoustics (especially since it’s underground).

So, I will definitely keep an eye out for chamber quartets and solo performances held here in the future and attend more often.

Zhu Yibing’s level is absolutely on par with Yo-Yo Ma, though he seems to face the same challenge that many exceptional musicians encounter: right time right place and the right people and luck.

His performance of the famous Inner Mongolian piece “The Shepherd’s Song 牧歌” was extraordinary. Not only did it demonstrate how the cello can express the delicate emotions of Eastern cultures, but his technique was also far from the traditional Western approach to the instrument.

After the show, we got a chance to get some selfie times with the musician. I expressed my sincere admiration for his interpretation of this piece. Professor Zhu told me that it was a living Buddha who personally helped him fine-tune the performance of this piece. “You’re right,” he said, “I completely abandoned Western techniques when playing this piece.”

I was fortunate to listen to Zhu Yibing’s interpretation of “The Shepherd’s Song” in this intimate, top-tier concert hall. The sound quality was so good that you could almost distinguish the subtle differences in pressure on each string of the bow. It was truly a blessing in life.

Thanks to my old pal for the invitation, and I’ve discovered a new hidden gem in the city.