It was 3:30 in the afternoon when I got out of the client’s office. Since there was nothing scheduled after that, I was not in a hurry, and decided to stroll through a park to get to the subway station. It was a detour, but that would give some times to relax after a whole day of meeting.
As I passed through the park, I heard some squeaking sound, which I recognized as from erhu, a Chinese two-string musical instrument. I turned around, saw an old man play erhu under a pavillion.
Since I had all my times for the rest of the afternoon, I decided to walk over to take a look.
He was so focused on his instrument. After a long while, he finally raised his head, and was surprised to see me standing there. He was a little embarrased, and sheepishly said: “It so bad, right?” I politely responded: “Not that bad, your music has character.”
We chit-chatted for a while, and from that, I learned that after he retired from a technician position at a textile mill a few years ago, his health deteriorated very quickly. His doctor prescribed him to pick up a hobby. He suddenly remembered that he always wanted to learn to play erhu when he was a boy, but his family could neither afford to buy him the instrument, nor pay for musical lessons.
Now, he was trying to learn the dream music instrument of his childhood. However, his wife and neighbors could not stand the chicken-throat-slitting sound that he made, he had to come practice in the park, when everyone else was working.
I left after some other small talks, but was happy to learn that his health has significantly improved since he started to play music.
Hopefully, some day, he would become a good erhu musician, and have a long life.