William Xu is a guqin practitioner — not just a player, but a traveler. Beyond his devotion to the instrument, he has a passion for long-distance overland journeys: loading the guqin into the car and driving thousands of kilometers across China's most remote landscapes, much like driving America's Route 66.
Along the way, he watches the mountains unfold, reads the land, and stops wherever the moment calls — to play a piece, alone, in the wilderness. It is an ancient impulse: the Chinese literati who carried their qin into the mountains, to commune with rivers and peaks, to find in music what words could not hold.
This is the Fifth Qin Journey, filmed in 2023 — William's third time crossing the Tibetan Plateau, and his fifth long-distance road trip with the guqin. Each journey has its own name; this one is called Season Five. He shares it here for friends in the English-speaking world.
It was April 5, 2023 — Qingming, the day the Chinese visit their ancestors. William spent the morning at the graves, bowing to those who came before. By afternoon, he was at the airport. By nightfall, he was in Dali, watching a full moon rise.
The fifteenth day of the second lunar month. The fullest moon of early spring.
Some departures need a proper send-off.
That night, still driving, the moon rose ahead — low, enormous, caught between the neon towers of Dali. He filmed it through the windshield without stopping. Some things you don't pull over for. You just let them happen.
Eight thousand li of road, cloud and music — this is Day One.
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