erhu stereotypes in china

[d̗̰̗͆͘ǎ͔̱͈̰̬̫ͨ̌ͮͥ͗ͭ̕vid]

I’m at school and bored so I’ll make this post. In places, namely Asia, people are losing interest in their own traditional music... I was in Tianjin for a week and a friend told me about stereotypes about erhu players on how they are usually affiliated with old rural beggars who play sad songs on their erhu, which most likely came from Abing. In more urban areas, erhu playing is also connected to middle or old aged people in the park playing old Chinese pop songs... really badly, due to self-learning. So when people consider the erhu, its perception is more “local and old,” while western instruments like the violin are given the impression of sounding “romantic or interesting”. When others consider playing “traditional” Chinese instruments, the younger generation would choose “cleaner” instruments like guzheng or pipa. Usually when kids play erhu, their parents told them to. Obviously these are all stereotypes and impressions made irrationally by people and doesn’t apply everywhere. I’m kinda offended tho lol. There also has been a rise on foreigners gaining interests in traditional music, who have even more interests on the culture than locals.