Erhu...

I turned to cross the St John’s Gardens to get through to Deansgate. It’s a little oasis in the city centre created in the old churchyard of the demolished St John’s Church. Many of the city centres open spaces were created by demolishing churches that were surplus to requirements after the city centre became dominated by offices and warehouses and the population moved to the suburbs. Things grow well here apparently because of all the fertiliser put in the ground over the centuries in the form of former Mancunians. When I go I hope they do something like this with me so I can carry on being of use. Or be of use for the first time depending on your opinion.

An aside….I learned something this week that I didn’t know and I thought I knew it all! The centre of the city isn’t the Town Hall on Albert Square as I thought. It’s actually St Ann’s Church on its pretty square. To be precise it’s one corner of the clock tower. All distances to Manchester are calculated from that point in the city marked by an arrow carved in the wall.
Back to St John’s. As I went in I heard this unusual and beautiful music. I found this guy from Hong Kong in China. He looked very young and I took him to be a student at one of the city’s universities amusing himself during the long summer break. He’s actually got a job with a Chinese company in the city and he’s moved here.

It was a day off so he was sitting in the sun and playing this instrument. We got talking. He told me its a Erhu, a two stringed Chinese violin type instrument played with a bow. Most of the sound box is wood but one end is Python skin which vibrates a little as it’s played, rather like a drum.