Mr Toastmaster, fellow members and guests,
When I was in middle school, I was asked to write down my dreams during one of the Chinese class. I wrote: learn 10 lauguages, and 10 instruments. As of today, I speak two languages, exactly the same number as I was writing down those dreams. Fortunately I managed to pick up some instruments along the way.
I learnt my first instrument in primary school. I was in this specie program that you learn music as much as Math and Chinese, which are the two major subjects in a regular program. Everybody had to learn an instrument. There were three choices: electric piano, violin, and erhu(二胡)，which is a chinese triditional string instrument. My mon raised me alone and we did not have much money. I happened to have this uncle who had a violin that he was not playing anymore. OK, violin it was. So I started on this full-size adult violin at the age of 6. I had to really strech out my arm in order to reach the first fret. Thing got better later, when my arms started to get longer and I got taller. I played violin with 1/3 of my classmates (remember there were two other choices?) for 6 years. We had gigs here and there. It was a lot of fun.
I tried different things in middle school and high school, but never got too serious about any.
I went to college and joined a Traditional Folk Orchestra as a celloist. What happened was, most of Chinese traditional instruments are high-pitched. They are very nice for solo performances, but it is a bit tricky to put them together as an orchestra.