Wu Man

While waiting to catch a flight from Macau to Taipei yesterday, Wu Manpipa player: talked about how she became a

I play because I like to met people. I enjoyed music when I was little; through music I could travel to lots of places and make lots of new friends.

When I was 9 years old, my parents asked a friend who was a musician in my hometown of Hangzhou, China (near Shanghai) to teach me pipa. When I was 12, I went to the conservatory in Beijing, which is 1000 miles away from my home. It was like a boarding school. All the kids lived in a dorm, 12 girls to a room. We mainly studied music, but also Chinese, math and all the middle-school subjects. We practiced our instruments up to 8 hours a day.

I stayed in this conservatory through college. When I graduated at age 20, I was a professional musician and starting playing in concerts. I performed solo and with orchestras, and I also taught pipa.

What's my favorite instrument? Well, because I play pipa, of course I would say that's my favorite. It's a plucking instrument, so it has frets, like the guitar and banjo, and also like the oud - they all come from the same family. Here is what the pipa sounds like. But also, singing is one of my favorite "instruments."