Musical Madness

While chatting with my coworker about guitar-playing yesterday (yes, shocking, I busted out my guitar, restrung it, and am in the process of getting it in tune...(I say process because nylon strings take time to stretch)...for the first time in...years), I remembered my Chinese guitar teacher. I haven't thought of him in...well..no that's not true. I did think of him during Christmas in Washington while talking to my friend Jesse about guitars (he inspired me to dig mine out of storage). But before that I hadn't thought of him in several years. Probably because I have a very solid mental block on him...even though the thought of him totally cracks me up.
My Chinese guitar teacher was the best guitar teacher in my area in China. He was incredibly talented and had successfully lived through his daughter (pictured) vicariously. She is now a professional classical guitarist and frequently does world tours. Here's a video of her and three other girls she tours with:

She's amazing. She gave me a lesson one day (I think because my teacher wanted to get out of it) and I felt SO dumb cuz she is so amazingly talented. Kinda wish I could have gotten to know her better.
So you get that side of things. The other side of my guitar teacher: absolutely awkwardly creepiness. A few reasons why he's just...a weirdo:
1. He teaches exclusively from his house...which gives him the excuse to teach in his pajamas. At all hours of the day. And by all hours of the day, I do mean ALL hours. My class was usually around 3pmish. Note: Thank goodness he actually WEARS pajamas.
2. He's missing a finger from his right hand. When asked what happened, he said he "got it stuck in a machine." Okkkkaaayyyy then. (This explains why he lives vicariously through his daughter and isn't a performer himself.)
3. He is a rabid smoker and would instruct with cigarette in mouth and a good inch of ash hanging off. In a closed room. While leaning over you creepily.
4. Speaking of leaning over creepily, this was practically a daily occurrence. He was an elite creeper. Which in turn made you want to learn whatever it was he was trying to pound into your head so that he wouldn't try to "help" you do it by posing you into position...by wrapping his arms around you...*SHUDDER*
5. He'd feed his students candy. By hand. Enough said. (TRULY, he was harmless. It's a cultural thing. But that doesn't make it any less awkward.)
6. His illustrations on technique or how to give the piece more feeling were so communist and flowery, it kills me just thinking about them (and yes communist and flowery often go together...read some Mao quotes and you'll see what I mean). For example "See these low notes are like the little leaves and stems of a little flower and the high notes are the BEAUTIFUL PETALS BLOSSOMING TOWARDS THE SUN!!" No joke. Or "No, no, no...you must make your fingers MARCH like a little marching man! You can't walk down the street using one foot! You must use both your feet! See? March, march, march!" And then he would demonstrate with his fingers and insist on "marching" using your hand as his hand-man's platform. In a word...Awkwardddddddd.
7. Last but by far not least, often we would arrive for a lesson and a woman would be already present at his house. He would introduce us saying "Oh this is my really great girlfriend!" The next week, a different woman would be there and he'd announce "Oh THIS is my really great girlfriend!" And so on and so forth. PLAYA!!
But I can't give him all crap. Truly, he was an amazing teacher and had a great ear and insane technique. Even if it was flowery, his technique worked. Even though I wasn't really into it at the time, I learned a lot and wish I had paid more attention. Maybe I wouldn't have been force fed so much candy and bribed with yogurt. True story. Seriously? Yogurt?
"If you do this exercise 100 more times, you'll get some yogurt!!" I just wanna go home. I don't need or want any yogurt!
I wonder what he's up to these days.