Guqin in Popular Culture
As a symbol of high culture, the qin has been used as a prop in much of Chinese popular culture to varying degrees of accuracy. References are made to the qin in a variety of media including TV episodes and films. Actors often possess limited knowledge on how to play the instrument and instead they mime it to a pre-recorded piece by a qin player. Sometimes the music is erroneously mimed to guzheng music, rather than qin music. A more faithful representation of the qin is in the Zhang Yimou film Hero, in which Xu Kuanghua plays an ancient version of the qin in the courtyard scene while Nameless and Long Sky fight at a weiqi parlor. In fact it is mimed to the music played by Liu Li, formerly a professor at the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing. It is suggested that Xu made the qin himself.
The qin was also featured in the 2008 Summer Olympics opening ceremony in Beijing, played by Chen Leiji (陳雷激).
The qin is also used in many classical Chinese novels, such as Cao Xueqin's Dream of the Red Chamber and various others.
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