Jazz and Homesickness

On a cold January day in 2023 in Nashville, Tennessee, just before heading to the airport, I took a small detour to stop by Nashville Jazz Workshop. The venue was closed, but I stood outside for a moment, feeling as if a smooth piano melody were drifting through the air, quietly comforting my homesick heart. If this pairing of American jazz and my Chinese homesickness catches your attention, I invite you into a very personal story of mine, one that intertwines the life journey of an international student with a particular American jazz pianist. Happy 2026, from my home in Shenzhen, China.

First Tastes of Homesickness

How I decided to study abroad in the United States is a story in itself and probably warrants a separate post.

My study-abroad journey unfolded quite smoothly in sunny San Diego. I quickly made friends, adapted to the local lifestyle, and became active in various community activities. Outside of school, I was blessed with San Diego’s easy access to groceries and cuisines from back home whenever I craved them. My family was also just one video call away, and we caught up almost every weekend.

For the first time in my life, I felt truly independent and empowered. Life was great in San Diego.

I did not really feel homesick, until two things happened.

At the end of my freshman year, everyone living on campus had to vacate their dorm by the Sunday following finals week. I had sublet a place for the summer, and my only task was to move my belongings from my dorm room to the new apartment, a short ten-minute drive away. While I was licensed to drive, I did not own a car at the time, and being underage meant that I could only use whatever Zipcar offered on campus. I reserved a Toyota Prius for the day.

Inside the Prius I rented. I am surpised that I actually took a picture back then.

On move-out day, the residential area felt more crowded than when school was in session. Family members of local students showed up in force: parents, grandparents, and siblings arrived in minivans or pickup trucks, equipped with flatbed wagons and sturdy Home Depot boxes, ready to get the job done quickly. I had a lovely interaction with my roommates’ family, and before I knew it, their move-out was complete.

My vacated dorm room, snapped on Snapchat (ah the Snapchat years…)

Meanwhile, I had just bought a folding hand truck dolly cart. Together with the Prius, it meant making multiple trips between my dorm and the new apartment. While driving off campus, I spotted another international-student friend who was about to move their luggage by taking a local bus. I offered a ride.

By sundown, I had paused my own move and given ride after ride to friends who needed help. My Prius was used to its fullest capacity. Looking back now, I am fairly certain that the nineteen-year-old version of me could have packed and managed time more efficiently. My hauling was not finished until well past midnight. I had not eaten dinner, so I drove to a Subway and took my first bite of the night. It was at that moment, with a foot-long sub in hand at 1 a.m., that I felt the “curse” of independence: I did not have my parents in a minivan. I was on my own.

The other moment of missing home also came toward the end of my freshman year. I suffered a severe bout of food poisoning and was eventually taken by ambulance to the emergency room. After spending the night in the hospital by myself, I grabbed an Uber and went straight to my first lecture of the morning.

Inside UC San Diego Health ER, my first taste of American healthcare.

Sidebar: I recently listened to Jensen Huang’s story, in which he described communicating with his parents through a tape cassette. The story is deeply touching, and it reminded me not to take the support I have for granted.

I learned that vulnerable moments make us cherish the love we had previously taken for granted. Although I was initially proud of how easily I had adapted to life abroad, that sense of triumph faded as soon as the first real setback hit.

After my freshman year, whenever I flew home to reunite with my family, I began searching for something random yet tangible that could remind me of home.

Trans-Pacific Commutes

Between my hometown of Shenzhen and my college town of San Diego, flights operated by Cathay Pacific between Hong Kong and Los Angeles became my go-to route for holidays and returns to school. After those early homesick moments, I started associating a Cathay Pacific flight with going back home (regardless of the direction of a flight).

On board a home-bound flight in my sophomore year, smooth jazz piano flowed through the in-flight entertainment system into my headset Curious, I tapped through the IFE screen in front of me. The artist was Beegie Adair.

Elegant, melodic, sophisticated, yet approachable. That was Beegie’s musical style.

The album playing was “Beegie Adair & Friends: Cocktail Party Jazz 2”. Some might label it “lounge music” (and it certainly can be), but that first immersion carried me through a quietly sentimental journey ¹.

Actual photo I took of the IFE screen with the exact album. I cannot believe I actually took this photo on that flight. (Well, I sure took it so that I could search for the album after landing.)

By the time the wheels touched down, the same album was still rolling on my IFE.

Random but tangible: from that point on, hearing Beegie Adair’s music became associated, in my mind, with being on board a Cathay flight, and being on board a Cathay flight became associated with going home. It is difficult to explain how my mind formed this two-stage connection, though I likely reinforced it by deliberately replaying the same album on subsequent Cathay flights, regardless of the direction of travel. The impression from that first listen was simply too strong.

Into Jazz

Jazz, in its broadest sense, was part of my childhood soundscape. My dad often played Kenny G in the car, which nudged me toward learning a woodwind instrument (clarinet, not Kenny’s sax, somehow), and I was trained classically. I never actively sought out more jazz, but I welcomed it whenever I encountered it.

That changed after the inexplicable establishment of my Beegie’s jazz == homesickness cure logic. Through her recordings, I began to explore jazz standards and the Great American Songbook. I had entered a new musical world.

After college, I was fortunate to join a company full of musicians who loved jazz. We jammed in the office music room every Tuesday and Thursday after work. It remains my best work memory.

One quiet wish stayed with me: to hear Beegie perform live one day. I knew she played regularly at Nashville Jazz Workshop, where she was also a founding board member. When my post-graduate life finally allowed for more travel after a year of work, the COVID-19 pandemic arrived, pushing my Nashville plans indefinitely into the future.

Through the thick of lockdowns and my own medical concerns, I eventually reached a point where I felt ready to look up Beegie’s next performance. Instead, I found a solemn line on https://www.beegieadair.com:

January 23, 2022: It is with deep and profound sadness we share the sad news that Beegie died today surrounded by those she loved and who loved her most dearly…

A Tribute

My first visit to Nashville finally came in January 2023. That trip had more nuance that I may touch on in a future reflection, but amid it, I was in Nashville with a sense of regret that I could never close my “jazz-homesick loop” by hearing Beegie play live anymore.

On my Uber ride to the airport, I added Nashville Jazz Workshop as a stop. I stood outside the building for a few seconds, took a selfie, and then returned to my airport-bound ride. I put on my headphones and pressed play on Cocktail Party Jazz 2.

Selfie taken outside Nashville Jazz Workshop

Today, we each consume information on the order of gigabytes per day. Countless random details pass through our lives. Yet somehow, just somehow, I formed an unexplainable set of connections among a few seemingly unrelated random things: a musician, an airline, and a feeling of homesickness. Over time, that linkage quietly amplified its own significance in my mind.

I appreciate you reading this far because you probably bore the desire to shout: how on earth did I come to make these connections… Well, I would ask that question of myself too. But here I am: I’ve invented and kept within me a unique embodiment of some very layered emotions and memories, beyond the economy cabin of a trans-Pacific flight carrying an anxious international student away from home.