The city’s history is incarnated in its architecture. The Flatiron Building, the Chrysler Building, and the Empire State Building have become memorials to past eras. Developers vie to build higher structures, their tinted panes turning the city into a hall of mirrors. New York looks back on itself from a thousand angles.
I can see why people vie to put their names on buildings, to be admired by glittering crowds, to be a star at the Met Gala, to strive until they are acclaimed as the richest, most powerful, most popular, most beautiful, most talented, most famous, and most influential. Most, most, most. Big, big, big. See your name in lights. See your face on a Times Square electronic billboard. If you can make it here, you can make it anywhere. So if you want to be an artist, do you only matter if you attain skyscraper heights?
This is where a porcelain plate that I saw in TheMet, which was made in the 17th century and was fourteen inches in diameter, reminded me of more important values.
Yu Boya was a legendary qin zither musician active in the 6th BCE. He was wealthy, powerful, and a diplomat from another state. On his travels, he stopped for the night and played his qin (a seven-stringed zither). This drew a humble woodcutter, Zhong Ziqi, to sit and listen. Zhong commented that the music was like lofty mountains and flowing rivers. The two became good friends. Each time Yu returned, he spent a delightful time with Zhong.
One year, Zhong did not appear. Yu learned that Zhong had starved to death in a famine. This news upset Yu: He could have saved his friend. But Zhong had not wanted to exploit their relationship and had sent no message. In sorrow, Yu smashed his qin: no one was left to understand his music.
After I returned from that 1980 trip to New York, I met my master just weeks later that autumn. That started my formal exploration into Daoism.
Fame is tricky to discuss. In Chinese, the word for “name” and “fame” are identical: ming, 名. It shows a mouth and a crescent moon: a name is how we call someone in the night. We need names. By extension, it’s normal for someone to “make a name for themselves.” It makes sense for people to identify who you are with what you do, as you might call someone “The Baker” instead of their name because they’re so well known for their job. But when fame becomes more important than the person or their work, or when fame is used to grossly manipulate people, then the Daoists find that problematic.
The most extreme error occurs when everything is inverted: we confuse our fame for our own name. In other words, we don’t know who we are apart from our fame.
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Plate with Yu Boya and Zhong Ziqi Enjoying Zither Music. Qing dynasty (1644–1911), Shunzhi period (1644–61). China. Porcelain painted with cobalt blue under and colored enamels over a transparent glaze (Jingdezhen ware). H. 3 1/8 in. (7.9 cm); Diam. 14 in. (35.6 cm). TheMet.
https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/706314
Guqin (古琴). Prince Lu (Chinese, 1628–1644). Ming Dynasty. 1634. Hangzhou, China. Chinese. Wood (wutong and zi), silk, jade, lacquer, mother-of-pearl. 47 × 8 × 3 3/4 in. (119.4 × 20.3 × 9.5 cm). TheMet.