Striking a new chord in culture with neighbors

Students from Guangxi Arts University use padded sticks and mallets to strike bronze percussion instruments laid out onstage, forming beautiful melodies that echo across a conference hall in Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region's Beihai city.

The students are performing gamelan, an ensemble form indigenous to Indonesia, which features xylophones, drums, gongs and other instruments.

"In 2015, our university started to hire teachers from Bandung to teach students how to play Indonesian music and opened gamelan electives for students. Later, we founded the first gamelan orchestra in China," says Chu Zhuo, the orchestra leader.