Guqin Tai, a Story of Friendship

Guqin Tai (古琴台) locates on the west of Gui Shan (龟山), and the south of Yue Hu (月湖). It's only a small place, but it never failed to attract visitors from all over the country. For most people, going there is mainly for a story of thousands of years ago.

Guqin is a kind of Chinese music instrument, and Guqin Tai is often translated as "Heptachord Terrace". The story was originally recorded in the book of Lie zi.

"Bo Ya was good at playing the qin. Zhong Ziqi was good at to listening to the qin. When Bo Ya's will was towards high mountains in his playing, Zhong Ziqi would say, 'How towering like Mount Tai!' When Bo Ya's will was towards flowing water in his playing, Zhong Ziqi would say, 'How vast are the rivers and oceans!' Whatever Bo Ya thought of Ziqi would never fail to understand. Bo Ya said, 'Amazing! Your heart and mines are the same!' When Ziqi died, Bo Ya broke the strings [of his qin] and vowed never to play [the qin] again. Thus, there was the melody of High Mountains Flowing Water."

(The translation is from Wikipedia. View more of the story in Wikipedia.)

Guqin Tai was first built in the Northern Song Dynasty, and then experienced destruction and reconstruction for many times. What we can see now was built after 1949.

This story shows China's traditional attitude towards friendship that friends should know each other by heart and there's a tacit mutual understanding between each other. But that kind of friendship is always a rare thing.