One of the things I did after we adopted Daughter was buy an erhu. I'm not sure exactly why - I had adopted a child, not any special skill as a musician - but I sort of fell in love with the old men and women sitting outside on Sunday mornings, playing their odd little two-string violins for anyone to hear. And, for someone who played a little guitar, it seemed an easy enough instrument to pick up.

When I finally, got one home, though, as well as having to contend with the string-pulling, bow-yanking fingers of a curious toddler, I had to decipher the instructional material that came with it. Learning an instrument is a little like learning a language - and I knew I couldn't read the Chinese instructions. But a lot of the notation was frankly baffling as well.

In case you're a musical parent, here, I just found this: a novice's guide to Chinese sheet music.

Along less creative lines, if you think that by adopting a girl from China you might be bringing an inborn resistance to breast cancer into your family line (not that you would, but if you were), you might want to think again.

Science Daily brings word of a study of Asian women conducted at Shanghai Cancer Institute, Fox Chase Cancer Center in Philadelphia, Harvard University and Vanderbilt University that found that those who ate like Americans eat - heavier on the starches, sweets and red meat - had pretty much the same level of cancer risk. For obese women after menopause, the risk of developing tumors was high, regardless of their ethnic origins.

This should come as no surprise to those of us who've been clued in to the fact that race is a biological fiction (although heritage isn't). But that seems not to be as widespread information as some of us might hope.

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And for those of you following the awesome career of Bao Xishun, herdsman, savior of river dolphins and world's tallest man, he's gotten married. It's a wedding with commercial sponsors, one of whom kicked in a camel-hair blanket big enough to cover his body. Much happiness, Mr. and Mrs. Bao!