The Pipa Girl of the Tang Dynasty

"Her brother went off to war, her aunt died, and as time went by, her beauty faded.

Her door grew quiet, with few carriages arriving; in her old age, she married a merchant."

The night after Ning Jia, a Chinese teacher, finished teaching "Song of the Pipa," she died suddenly from overwork. When she opened her eyes, she had become Nian Nu, a musician in the Tang Dynasty's Directorate of Music.

As luck would have it, she faced circumstances much like those of the pipa player in the poem:

A top musician at the Directorate of Music, once the most popular of them all, she had fallen out of favor after her former patron was implicated in a major treason case.

She had a few relatives, but they had been exiled to lands beyond the frontier, and she had no idea whether they were alive or dead.

The Directorate of Music assigned its performers to jobs, but hers was to become a salt merchant's concubine.

Ning Jia, a woman from the 21st century, did not despair.

At the very least, she still had her hands, long and nimble hands capable of playing music and sewing, of wielding both silver needles and surgical scalpels, and of holding golden goblets and jade tablets.

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Theme: Though poor, remain steadfast, and never abandon your lofty aspirations.