On the Seven Strings, Calmly Listening to the Chill of the Pines

The birds roost and the fish stir not, the moonlight shines on the deep night river.

Nothing outside the body matters; in the boat there is only the qin.

The seven strings are my good friends, my two ears are the discerning listeners.

When the heart is still the sound is plain; between them there is neither past nor present.

— Bai Juyi, Playing the Qin by Boat at Night

Today, reading a traditional-culture textbook, I came to the chapter on the guqin, which stirred my longing for it. It has been a long time since I have tinkered with my guqin; since the pandemic I have been perpetually busy. My WeChat chat records show that the last time I scheduled a lesson with my guqin teacher was in August 2019; afterward, because of exams and the pandemic, my path of learning the qin from a master was interrupted. And the last post in Teacher Kang's WeChat Moments—the teacher who taught me the guqin—also stays at 2019.

It seems that since the pandemic broke out, she has never appeared in WeChat Moments again. Teacher Kang not only plays the qin well but also plays the xiao flute well; I had originally planned to learn the xiao from her too. But after one pandemic, our life paths both changed considerably. Where she has gone now, I do not know.

I deeply miss my former life: tuning the strings, playing the qin, planting flowers, growing vegetables, reading books, writing, living a hidden-away life in the vast crowd of Beijing, contented and joyful. In a few more years, when I return to Beijing, if there is still a karmic connection, I want to go back to find Teacher Kang and, in my spare time, learn the qin and xiao from her. The guqin and xiao cannot be learned entirely on one's own.

The reason I love the guqin is that it is the instrument best suited for self-enjoyment. Bai Juyi's poetry captures this self-enjoying pleasure of the guqin perfectly. The guqin's tone is balanced and harmonious; its pieces are mostly quiet, clear, and elegant, not celebrating dramatic scales or emotional ups and downs. Whether playing or listening, the guqin gives one a calm, unhurried feeling, so it is an instrument especially suited to me personally.

I love Linghu Chong in Jin Yong's novels, that lively, free-spirited and fame-detested abandoned disciple of Huashan, who also loves the guqin. When he first heard the sound of a guqin piece from Qu Yang, an elder of the demonic cult, he could not help shouting in praise. Qu Yang asked Linghu Chong, "Do you know how to play the qin?" Linghu Chong replied, "No, but I love listening." My qin skill can probably be classified at the "do not know" level, yet I still love to play and to listen. This is not that Teacher Kang taught poorly; it is that I am quite dull, did not learn well, and have not studied long enough. As Linghu Chong said, one's love for the guqin need not be premised on knowing how to play.

The guqin is one of man's best companions. Although its seven strings cannot produce as rich a melody as Western instruments, it stands uniquely among all instruments, renowned for its antique simplicity and calm composure. After long days in the company of the guqin, the human heart can imperceptibly enter a state like an ancient well without ripples.

I also love the great range of mountains and pine forests of Beijing's Western Hills; I live in western Haidian, not far from the Western Hills. When I first learned the qin, I imagined that after mastering it I would carry my qin into the pine forests of the Western Hills, find an unoccupied corner, and play for my own enjoyment, the qin's sound answering the pine waves—surely a beautiful pleasure.

Only this wish has never come true. I have a qin, and I can fumble through a few pieces, though they inevitably go out of tune. But my time is not so abundant. Perhaps it is better to leave some regrets in life: if every wish came true, there would be far less to look forward to, and anticipation is itself a kind of pleasure.