Musician's dedication helps revive tradition

SHANGHAI — As a child, Liu Wenwen detested the suona, a "loud, high-pitched" traditional Chinese musical instrument, also an ancestral heritage of her family that was to become her career.

Her peers at primary school laughed at her, saying her whole family was engaged only in "weddings and funerals". Indeed, these are the two major occasions in which the horn-like wind instrument is played in China's rural areas, including Liu's home city Jining, Shandong province.

Liu says she felt ashamed. In the 1990s, China's reform and opening-up drive was in full swing, and people admired things that were modern and international. "The suona, in comparison, was considered an art of the hillbilly."