"Hello, how ErHu?"

While I rode my bike across campus this evening, I saw a student orchestra rehearsing. Pangs of nostalgia hit me- there are few experiences comparable to being part of a surging, pulsating musical group. In response to my initial desire to join the group, my responses were (in this order):

1) I don't have my violin in China. (well maybe I could borrow one)

2) I can't devote an evening to rehearsal, let alone all the at-home practicing involved. (that is always a drawback)

3) I wouldn't be able to follow directions from the loudspeaker-yielding conductor. (but music is an international language!)

4) I can already play the violin. Shouldn't I take the opportunity to learn new things?

hmm.. this last one hit a chord (*wink). As part of my eternal quest to be proficient at all things, I did have a few hunches recently to learn how to play the Erhu ("are who"), or Chinese violin. 

"Yeah, but how can I do that? Sure I'm in China, but I'll have to find the Chinese Craigslist or something."

Just a few minutes later, I was walking through my dorm hallway when I saw this sign (heh.):

Do I wanna learn some Chinese violin?? Do I ever!

So I sent an email off to the poster to inquire about lesson(s)! We'll see what arrangements can be made. She did say that if I can teach her something cool then we could trade lessons. She might already know violin, and realistically she prolly wouldn't consider biomedical engineering research "cool" (or useful for her), so I may end up shelling out some dough.

Of course, I don't want to get too far ahead of myself. I am here to do BME research, so I'll have to consider if I can reasonably balance research with a weekly lesson. But I'm thinking I could...