Shanghai Visit

During the second and third weeks of February 2024, Yin Xiao decided to travel to China both to get a feeling for the country and the nation from the perspective of a guqin player. 

The initial stop was to be the workshop and home of Master Builder Xu Yachong in Lankao, Henan. To get there, Yin Xiao flew from Ho Chi Minh City’s international air terminal to the airport at Shenzhen where, after a three hour stop over, he continued on to the airport at Zhongzhou. At the airport, he was greeted by Xu Yachong and his wife, Wei. 

After a remarkable and warm welcome and four day exploratory visit to Lankao, along with firework celebrations for the Lunar New Year, and most particularly, a visit to the banks of the Yellow River, Yin Xiao continued on by high speed rail to Shanghai. 

At Shanghai, after some initial tourist site visits, conducted by a personal chauffeur, laid on by a good friend in Shanghai, Yin Xiao was greeted in the middle of the night by instrument builder 石东生 Shi DongSheng at the hotel lobby. Shi DongSheng, in addition to three other guqin lovers, was staying at Yin Xiao’s hotel with the express intention of spending time with Yin Xiao. 

However, and most remarkably, Shi DongSheng had with him a stunning looking cinnabar red Lua Xia Shi style guqin made from China Fir from a 400 year old temple. The wood is likely from between 200 and 400 years of age, depending on whether or not any restorations were carried out in the temple in its first 200 years of existence. This instrument had been brought for Yin Xiao to try, to play and listen, and had been set up with nice silk strings. 

Instantly, it was apparent that the instrument was something quite out of the ordinary. The construction and finish of the instrument quite excellent and pure. The cinnabar lacquer was applied with such beauty and due to the darker undercoat it has a deep and exquisite lustre. The woodworking of the Philosopher’s Cap and the Mountain are delicately tooled and fit harmoniously into the whole as a work of visual art. The Duck’s Feet, remarkably, allowed for the showing of the natural wood on their lowest surface, beautifully clear and smooth, which gives a delightful feeling of spying into the grain of the wood itself. The Phoenix Pond and Dragon Pool edges also were worked with such clear precision as to give a feeling of pure tranquility. The Mountain gives a surprisingly realistic feeling of calm and of clear air. The instrument has carefully carved purple sandalwood Goose Legs and tuning rods, which set the instrument off as an item of great integrity and visual clarity and peace. The Lua Xia styled shape, which I had previously been dubious about, as being something which would cause visual noise, was the contrary. The gentle yet crisp curves and edges give a feeling of tranquil waters and mist, a gentle country haze of an early dawning day. 

But upon touching the strings, the instrument jumped to life. Across all the strings and Hui harmonic positions, the tone and response is even and well distributed. The bass notes of the first string are warm and luxurious but not overbearing. The quality of response runs evenly throughout the registers and with each and every string. Even in the very treble of the seventh string, there is a bell-like clarity and yet a round and well-formed vowel. Every note speaks clearly and directly right to the very highest. Hui 1 on string 7. The dynamic range also was striking in that even in the very highest registers it was possible to play from ppp to fff without any tonal or mechanical compromise. 

I remain astounded and intoxicated by the instrument named 鸣泉 (MingQuan, “Babbling Spring”) by the young and talented Shi DongSheng from Yangzhou. 

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And best of all: I managed to return to Vietnam with MingQuan in the overhead bins of my Vietjet flight home. Yes! I get to keep this remarkble artwork.

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