(In the words of Kath and Kim) - 'That was eyebrow'!

We had no idea what the concert was going to be, or where it was, so we gave ourselves plenty of time, had a quick dinner at Neighbourhood's Favourites and then hopped in a taxi. The place wasn't too far away but we had to walk around a bit to find exactly where we had to go...we arrived at the theatre with 5 minutes to spare, showed our tickets at the door and walked through, expecting to be shown to a seat, but the ushers just looked at us in amazement and kind of pretended they didn't know we were there!! So we kept looking around, as if to say 'where do we sit' and eventually one of them showed us to a seat down the front - perfect seats in the middle that were roped off (we wondered if these were the foreigner seats!)

Out came the compere - a young guy who seemed pretty enthusiastic about the whole thing...then out came a very elegant looking Chinese lady with short hair, dressed in a beautiful full length navy blue velvet dress - she looked stunning. She was carrying a stringed instrument. On the stage there was a piano, and also a sofa. The compere and the lady sat down on the couch and he interviewed her...then after a while he left and she talked more about something, and then started to play - wow, it was fantastic. In between each piece she played she talked for quite a while - i guess about the piece.....in total she was on stage for over an hour!!

Then out came the Chinese man and the compere and they all went to the couch again for another little chat. There was also question time - so people in the audience could ask the performers questions.

By this stage we were starting to get the giggles - just because we were sitting there, without a clue about what was going on in the conversation, but we would clap when everyone else clapped etc....I started to think of the Seinfeld episode when Elaine had to run out of a concert because she couldn't stop laughing.

We were wondering if there was going to be an intermission...but no, it just kept going!!

Then the Chinese man started his part of the performance...he was playing a different kind of stringed instrument, and had piano accompaniment. He was great too. Both performers really got into their music - they were loving it and it showed.

Finally it was over - after about 2.5 hours!!!

I looked up on the net to see if I could find out what the instruments were - I found a website with info...the instruments were the Pipa and the Erhu.
http://www.philmultic.com/home/instruments/

Anyway, it was a great experience, and if we get to go again we will be prepared for a long evening!

written by  arterra on October 20, 2007 from Dongguan, China
from the travel blog: China Adventure
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