Mr. Lopart and the violin lessons

Ruth waiting before the performance

Stage before performance -I wish you could see the thousands of fresh Roses and Gebera Daises they had in front of the stage

Ruth playing during performance.



William trying to melt bottle on light

Video during practice

It all started when the phone rang and the concierge informed me that they scheduled violin lessons for the following day at 6:00 p.m. Would I be able to make it? How did the people at Howard Johnson even know our girls played the violin? Well, the staff noticed when they unpacked our 1,000 bags out of the van the night we arrived. It just happened that the best violin school in Ningbo, our city of six million, was right across the street from the Howard Johnson. They pulled a few strings and the director agreed to listen to Ruth and Grace play their violins and see if they would take them on.

We met our two Chinese escorts in the lobby and crossed the street to a Soviet communist style building that was literally crumbling. We walked around what seemed in circles, out one door, into a courtyard, through another door, into a parking lot, and finally up a large set of stairs and into the small, hot and humid room. Sitting there, behind a large dusty desk was an older Chinese man with the most far reaching "comb over" I have ever seen. He looked and walked like Mr. Lopart from the cartoon Handy Many.

After a few pleasantries, he soon started barking orders in Chinese, translated by our hotel translators, and told my girls to play something. They were both nervous and very rusty (not playing for over three months) and fumbled through a few songs. He put up a book on a wobbly music stand and ordered the girls to play. I obviously didn't do a very good job explaining the "Suzuki" method of violin and how Ruth was just learning to read music and Gracie couldn't read a single note. Well, he figured it out pretty quickly and questioned all American music education. His Chinese students could read music at four and five. The earliest beginner was farther along than these two. He asked me how long and how often the girls played. I told them their lesson schedule; in China the students all have hour long lessons, no matter the age, and practice hours every day. Well, I told him that is not how it is in America. (He was very interested in where I bought Ruth's high quality violin strings. They came with the violin and I didn't realize they were anything but average.)

While the violin playing may not have impressed the Chinese teacher, William was thrilled with the music. While the girls played, he pulled up a small stool, got some paper and put it on an extra music stand rusting in the corner and proceeded to direct the music as if he were the guest conductor at the New York Philharmonic. With pencil in hand, he led the music with gusto. Our two translators had a hard time listening to Mr. Lopart, as I affectionately call him, because William's conducting was so enthralling.

At one point I literally started laughing out loud because the scene was one that even a Pulitzer Prize Novelist couldn't create – buckling laminate flooring, rusting metal, piles of dust, mosquito swarms feeding on our warm bodies, two year old leading his own orchestra, sweat dripping down my face, Mr. Lopart's comb over being misplaced by the blowing fan, two young Chinese translators trying to figure out how to nicely tell me that the expert violin teacher thinks my girls are not exactly on track to become the next Hilary Hahn, me winking and giving the girls thumbs up encouraging them on, all the while curious Chinese students and parents smashed their faces against the window in the door like we were animals in a zoo that they paid and entrance fee to observe.

After all of this excitement, Mr. Lopart told us to pack up our violins and go. He was going to show us how it was done. We walked back through the maze of corridors, staircases, courtyards and walked into an auditorium with an orchestra practicing some music. We sat down and he showed us how it was supposed to be done, Chinese style.

Oh, if you think the violin adventure ends there, you are mistaken. We made arrangements that one of Mr. Lopart's English speaking protégé's would teach Ruth and Grace violin. All was rolling along, until one week our teacher, Mr. Yu, informed us that Mr. Lopart wanted Ruth to play the violin in front of thousands of people at the premiere concert hall in Ningbo. They were holding an International Fashion show and they were asked to perform there. Oh, and by the way, she only had five days to learn the piece that the Chinese students had been working on for months. She was to dress like a "princess," while all the other students wore black pants and sequin vests. The teacher wanted to meet with her every day so she could memorize a simplified version of the piece being played. Ruth was hesitant at first and then agreed. He also told me more than once, I am not sure if he was trying to give me advice, that his other students' mothers hit their children if they miss a note and it helps them play the piece perfectly. Not exactly my style. The Chinese take playing the violin so seriously because it is one way for the children to get a head in life. For some, it is their only hope in life. Without it, there will be no career, no college, no money, no marriage. It is literally their ticket to survive. Luckily, we are fortunate enough to have options and don't have to live with that type of pressure. Anyway, Ruth worked very hard learning the difficult music, getting up at six in the morning, practicing after school, etc., however, hopefully for the learning experience, not because this is how she will survive in life.

The day of the performance was a culture shock for all of us. We walked in and we were surrounded my Chinese children ages 6-16. I mean literally surrounded. Mr. Lopart and Mr. Yu continually shooed the kids away, but like flies around a summer BBQ, they always came circling back. The whole afternoon and evening we were the only Caucasians in sight. Ruth was constantly bombarded with curious kids, looking at her stuff, watching her, and trying out their few English words, "Hello! How are you?" The few parents that were allowed through security into the event were, I shall say INTENSE, and the rest of the mothers waited outside screaming to be let in. (Even in China, boys will be boys; I saw a small group of boys trying to melt empty plastic water bottles under hot performance lights. Unfortunately, William saw this and also tried this experiment. ) The fashion show was Broadway like – with a Chinese twist. Ruth was the focus of the violin performance, specifically positioned so she could stay on track by watching the bowing of two other players.

While the whole thing was a good growth experience for Ruth, I have a little pit in my stomach knowing she was not there because of the way she played the violin, but because of the way she looked. Over two hundred students were selected to play for the show, but only one hundred could play in the end because they didn't have enough sequin vests. Apparently, the mother's of the other players almost rioted. Ruth was asked just a few days before, when the other Chinese students worked long and hard. It just doesn't seem fair.