A Musical Day in Hangzhou

(Caitlin)

Monday started out like most days in Hangzhou do, with an early wake-up and a delicious home cooked breakfast courtesy of my host mother. We were running a tad late that morning, so Willow (my host sister) joined me and the boys in room 209 during the morning meeting, and we all chatted for a while before we had our classes. Around 9:30 we were wondering where our translator was, because usually Crowtis or Cindy or Dee-Dee comes to meet us in 209, but we headed out to go to our first music class anyways. When we got there we were greeted by Kay, the third student who had come to DS last year. We were all really psyched to see Kay, because we’d only seen her on the first day in Hangzhou, but apparently her schedule changed, and she told us that she would be out translator for the next few weeks.

After a few minutes of fooling around on the keyboards in the music room, the teacher arrived carrying a cardboard box and a few music books. We all introduced ourselves, and after a few minutes of talking we were handed a thoroughly bubble-wrapped instrument case, which contained an instrument that resembled a gourd on top of a recorder, with three pipes instead of one, called a Hulusi. We all fooled around for a few deafening minutes before the teacher cut us off and handed out the little green booklets with music inside. He went though how to play eight different notes, and how to blow into the Hulusi so that it doesn’t sound like a dying animal. When played right, the Hulusi has a hauntingly beautiful quality to it, though some of us gave up on learning the songs after a while (Max was not a happy camper). We get to keep our Hulusi’s, which is pretty awesome!

We went to lunch, and after that had a much less awkward than usual English corner, which we had outside on this little stone circle in the sun, since it was such a beautiful day. Honestly, I think that being outside in the sun and breeze helped with the awkwardness, and it was very relaxed. We then went back to 209 to meet with our host siblings, who had picked elective classes last week and would be starting them at 1:30. We could go to them if we wanted, but Timmy and I had heard that there was a guitar class being held in the music building, and we had been invited by two students to go and check it out.

The guitar class had about twenty students in it, and the teacher went around correcting students’ hand positions and demonstrating how to play certain chords or riffs, and had a sort of self-motivated feel to it. Two girls were kind enough to lend their guitars to Timmy and I, and we started to play some. Neither of us consider ourselves to be any good (I’m not that good at all, and Timmy’s a lot better than he thinks he is, for the record), but we both love playing. I hadn’t realized how much I missed playing, but dang it was good to be playing again. After a too-short forty-five minutes, the class was over, but the two girls who had lent their guitars to us told us we could keep them in 209 for the rest of the day and play, if we wanted, and that we did! It was a good three-hour jam session, with both of us in our own little worlds for a few hours.

That evening I went out to dinner with Willow and her mother at a restaurant near the apartment, and had these odd but good purple cakes with what I think was red bean paste inside. Honestly, it was my favorite day in Hangzhou so far. It was one of those days where everything just goes right, you know? Sunny, warm, relaxing, cheerful, and spent doing something I love to do.