Talent is a ticket. Some people use it to nail auditions, others to get into a top school. Jia Pengfang used his to see the world, and his particular talent was the erhu.
Born in 1958 in China's northeast province of Heilongjiang, Jia picked up the traditional stringed instrument after turning 8 — in the same year the Cultural Revolution began. While many artists and writers were being sent to the rural reaches of Red China, Jia, the youngest of five children, began dreaming of life in the capital.
"I wanted to take strides into a bigger world," says Jia, who as a teen devoted himself to practicing the erhu. "My sister laughed at my dream."