Erhu and Jia Ren Gu

Hey all!

I have quite the list of things to tell you about. Hopefully it will make up for my lack of an update..... Pfft. Who am I kidding? Of course it will. ;)

I'm going to start with this afternoon because, well, it was pretty freaking awesome.

This is how far we biked.

 Lea and I went exploring today. We got out of school early and rode our bikes around Yilan. We found a variety of things. A Domino's Pizza, several tea shops, a book store and a park...

As cool as those things are, they weren't our main accomplishments for this afternoon.

We managed to have two conversations in Chinese. Not one, but TWO!!! How amazing is that?? We were pretty stoked. The first took place at a store that sells uniforms and went something like this:

Lea: do you have Lan Yang bei se mao yi? (Lan Yang's white sweater)
Shopkeeper: wo you (I have)
~Lea tries it on~
Me: duo shao qian (how much?)
SK: si bai ba ($480)

We learned colors and the names of clothing about a week ago but never really had a use for it until now. :)

The second occurred at the park. We were sitting at a table chatting when a woman in a bright red shirt stopped her bike beside us and started talking to us. I can't quote that conversation word for word like the last one but we managed to convey that we are exchange students (not that our hair/skin color didn't do that for us); that we're going to be here for one year (yi nian); that we don't have class right now (sheng ku? meiyou); that Lea is from Canada while I'm from the US (wo mei guo/ wo lai zi janada).

Granted, we still didn't get 70% of what the woman said but if you compare it to how much we would've understood last month (which is none of it) I'd say we did pretty good. :)

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I fell in love last week.

We were in Chinese class when we heard this obnoxious squawking noise. Our teacher, Kim, told us that the Chinese orchestra practicing in the building next to us and that the sound was from the an instrument similar to a trumpet.

Our curiosity was temporarily quenched only to be rekindled when we went to relocate to the library. Our gazes Kim asked us if we wanted to go look at the orchestra.

How could I possibly say no?

We walked down a short hallway and up a set of stairs, all the while listening to the most interesting sound. We turned a corner and what is that??

This, my friends, is an Erhu also known as the Chinese Violin. It was love at first sight, no joke. There were about 7 girls sitting around practicing and one of them was nice enough to let me and Lea try them. She taught me how to play Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.

Oh my god. Life made right there. I can die now.


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Okay, maybe not. But when I can make music like these people THEN I can die a happy woman

Erhu Solo
Coldplay's Clocks  <


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I am a kung fu fan master ninja. Beware. :)

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My other fixation is this song.

「佳人歌」李延年

北方有佳人
絕世而獨立
一顧傾人城
再顧傾人國
寧不知傾城與傾國
佳人難再得

Jia Ren Gu - Li Yan Nian

Bei fang you jia ren,
jue shi er du li
Yi gu qing ren cheng
Zai gu qing ren guo
Ning bu zhi qing cheng yu cheng guo
Jia ren nan zai de

A rare beauty from the north, she's the finest lady on Earth
A glance from her, the whole city goes down
A second glance leaves the nation in ruins
There exists no city or nation, that has been more cherished
That a beauty like this.

 Jia Ren Gu is commonly studied in Chinese/Taiwanese schools as a poem but it was originally a song. The composer, Li Yan Nian, was a government official/court musician. He wrote this song to advertise his sister to the emperor. The emperor was intrigued by the mysterious beauty from the North and ordered that she come to court. He married her and she eventually was promoted to the status of wife/queen. (I don't know the exact details but this is the best summary I can give without Wiki-ing anything)

Beauty Song (Jia Ren Gu)


The clip is from the movie House of Flying Daggers. (That movie is EPIC). I first heard this song in that movie. I'd pretty much forgotten about it until I went to go find videos of people playing the Erhu and I stumbled upon this video. I remembered how much I loved it so I told my Chinese teacher that I wanted to learn that song... I almost have it memorized. I can hum the tune and sing the first line.. :)

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I have more to write but I'm out of creative juices for tonight.. No promises about updates because I've been pretty bad about following through.. Enjoy the videos :)

K