Erhu

Listening to her erhu teacher playing the instrument, as my wife told me, always makes her look stupid as a novice.

And her teacher said, "What does it take to be an erhu player? It takes audacity, devotedness and endless hours of playing erhu." The sentence went off in my head like a Roman candle.

The teacher went on to tell my wife his story when he was young: "When I was riding the bus to and from school, I clinched the passenger pole, running my fingers on that pole as if it was the string of an erhu. You need to tell yourself playing erhu twenty-four hours a day is feeling good." Then he added: "Even if it isn't." That sentence hit me hard.

It is hard not to be intimidated by his long hours devoted to playing musical instrument.

This leads me to the question how many working hours are enough — or too much — for doctors to learn. Many hospitals, including mine, have called for and mandated a reduction in doctors' working hours. Nobody really dares to answer for sure if medical doctors in training nowadays still have to work all night to learn how to heal? Often overlooked is that limited working hours can mean a step backward. Skills are lost, dependency fostered and patient care fragmented. And one thing seems certain: shorter and shorter working hours make us look small before an erhu guru.