Renewal of Confucian instrument qin offers hope for better Chinese values
- By Wang Yong
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E-mail Shanghai Daily, September 26, 2014
In 1919, when many Chinese intellectuals abandoned Confucian values to embrace modern Western thoughts for a "better life," about 30 aficionados of the seven-stringed qin — the Confucian musical instrument with a history of 3,000 years — held a performance party at Yi Garden in Suzhou City to profess their unabashed passion for things and styles Chinese.
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Confucius considered qin more than just a musical instrument. |
Among them were Ye Zhangbo, a renowned qin player; Gu Heyi, owner of Yi Garden and a versatile artist; Li Zizhao, possibly the best qin player at that time; and Wu Changshuo, a guru painter, calligrapher, seal cutter and poet.
My hats off to them for their largely unsung effort to preserve the Chinese way of life at a time when Western thoughts made a foray into China, along with Western gun power, putting Chinese values on defense.
Confucius considered qin more than just a musical instrument. He favored it because of its sound that never goes to extremes, and its songs that forever talk to nature.
"Every part of qin music presents an image of nature — orchid, plum blossoms, mountains, water, cranes and wild geese," senior Swedish sinologist Cecilia Lindqvist says in her book "Qin." She also says that playing qin helps one discover one's unruffled self, as meditation in Zen would.
"Returning to one's unruffled self is about the essence of Chinese spirit," she observes. "Like Plato, Confucius believes that music has a significant impact on the behavior and morality of a nation and an individual. ... Many latter-day Confucian scholars believe that peaceful music helps shield listeners from discord and violence."
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