18 Yu Boya & Zhong Ziqi

Two “Friends of Know-Music”

In China, people usually called two good friends as “mutually-know-friends”. If the friendship got closer, they would be called as “friends of know-music.”

The idiom “friends of know-music” derived from a story, and its two main roles were Yu Boya and Zhong Ziqi in the Spring & Autumn Period. Yu Boya was a high official, excelled in playing qin, a kind of traditional instruments. One evening, when he enjoyed himself in playing qin in the bamboo forest amidst tranquil atmosphere, he suddenly heard someone admiring: “How lofty and grand the mountains are!” He stopped and saw a poor-looking firewood collector standby. Yu didn’t believe that kind of backwoods man knowing music, because musicians were very rare in ancient times, so he played qin again with another melody. When the music ended, the stranger said: “How brisk and splendid the water flow!” Then Yu Boya truly realized this firewood collector was quite a man knowing music. This man’s name was Zhong Ziqi. After the two men had a talk, they immediately became two friends of “know-music”.

But years later, Zhong Ziqi died of an acute disease. Yu Boya couldn’t bear the woes, throwing and breaking his qin, and vowed he would never play qin again.