BY: ANONYMOUS
This story occurred a few years ago when I first learned to play the “Qeej” Lusheng.
My father was a Qeej teacher, and I was one of his many students. Since he was a teacher, his students would often attend his classes at our house.
On this particular day, after the class was over and all the students had left, I decided to stay outside in the front yard to practice some more.
After practicing for a couple of minutes, my throat became dry, so I decided to take a break to grab some water and leaned my Qeej on the side of the house by our front door.
As I was walking into the kitchen, I heard someone playing a Qeej by our front door for about 10 seconds. I didn’t think much of it since it was such a common sound at our house. My dad plays it often, so I thought it was just him playing my Qeej.
I got to the kitchen, grabbed a bottle of water, and then walked back to the front of the house. When I got to the living room, I saw my dad rushing towards me down the hallway from his bedroom. He asked me, “When did you learn to play that sound?” Confused, I just smiled at him and laughed a little. He then asked, “Was it you who was just now playing the Qeej?” I looked at him and jokingly told him that it wasn’t me. He then asked me if I heard someone playing the Qeej. I saw the worry on his face, which scared me a bit, so I decided to lie and told him no.
After hearing my answer, he eased up and returned to his room. I walked back outside to where I was earlier and noticed that my Qeej was lying flat on the ground as if someone had touched it.
Long story short, later on, I found out the reason why my dad was so startled by the sound of the Qeej. It was because the sound we both heard was part of a funeral song that he hadn’t taught us yet.
After this incident, there were times when I was alone at home and suddenly would hear the sound of Qeej being played briefly. I eventually stopped playing the Qeej, and weirdly enough, I also stopped hearing the random sounds of Qeej.
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