And Anywhere

This morning I volunteered in Calla's classroom for the morning, something I'm planning to do for the rest of the school year on Mondays.

At 9:30, the class was invited down to the gymnasium to watch a musical performance. The play was called "The Chinese Violin". It featured a man named John who spoke Mandarin and played the two-stringed traditional instrument called the erhu. His dignified presence, along with the ease and grace with which he played, transfixed the two hundred elementary school students in the gym.

The story was about a child who learns to play the erhu from her father and who finds that it can bring her comfort throughout her life, even after she's moved thousands of miles from home.

At one point in the story, the father plays for coins in the street...and I suddenly realized something.

At the end the performance, another cast member introduced him and confirmed what I suspected.

Min Jun (John) Gao, father of internationally-known erhu master George Gao, plays frequently on the Toronto subway system.