This Performance Made Katy Perry Almost Cry Her Eyelashes Off

With all the synth beats, autotuning and explicit lyrics, there's little about pop music most would call "traditional."

Which makes this cover of Katy Perry's "Roar," performed by the China National Orchestra, even more extraordinary. The orchestra adapted the pop star's hit single for traditional Chinese instruments, then performed it last Sunday to welcome Perry on her first trip to the country.

Perry "almost cried [her] eyelashes off," reports the Shanghaiist, which quoted the star thus: "I've never heard my music being played like that. It's very spiritual to me."

China's CCTV reports the effort involved nearly 100 Chinese musicians, who gifted Perry a Chinese instrument known as a "Xun" afterward.

WATCH Katy Perry's "Roar" performed on traditional Chinese instruments, above. Skip to 1:36 in the video if you'd like to miss the intro, and watch on HD for less muddled audio.