Silk Road Music’s second album, Village Tales, grew out of an idea at a workshop conference for Mandarin Teachers. The idea was to produce a good recording of folk songs for students to learn about Chinese Music. A few years later, the tireless dedication of Qiu Xia He, marshaled the work of 14 musicians and singers of various cultural backgrounds to record 12 songs from all over China, put together a printed 40 page booklet including Lyrics in English and Chinese, music notations, guitar charts, a map of China, an illustrated description of Chinese instruments and a table of Chinese pronunciations. Chinese music is haunting, but I find it an acquired taste. It was enjoyable in the background as I worked, but I don’t know when I’ll put it on again, except to remind me of the wonderful experience of having seen Silk Road Music perform live, which is a whole other matter.