Burn The Zither and Boil The Crane
Posted 13 Sep, 2005 at 12:42 by blue in /MovingPictures | Permanent link
Now some of you may have expected that phrase to go something more like 'Burn the land and boil the sea', but that would only because you now have a rather catchy tune from the beginning of Firefly going through your head.
So where did the song's creator come up with that from? It's possible it came from any number of sources, but given the 'Sino-American' future portrayed in the series... I would strongly suspect that it came from fen qin zhu he (or...
...for the purists in the audience).
Burn the zither and boil the crane?? What the heck does that mean, you say (or at least in my head you do).
Well, it was an expression used to describe the disregard/destruction of, fine culture and good taste.
In traditional China, the zither came to be viewed as a symbol for the ideal that music was one of the essential subjects a cultivated gentleman should master. Much as in ancient Rome, a true nobleman was a farmer (among other things... oration and other things mattered as well).
The crane's significance is as freedom from worldly concerns.
Thus, to burn the zither to boil the crane are therefore acts of cultural annihilation committed in ignorance for some modest and questionable material gains.
Now the question I have for you, the reader... were they referring to the Alliance... the Brown Coats... to the Reavers... or to the crew themselves?
Then again... i could have it all wrong... it could be that the song lyrics are instead from another culture entirely. For those who have seen Koyaanisqatsi, the song sung throughout the film is called "The Hopi Prophecies" and is written in the Hopi dialect. The translation is: "If we dig precious things from the land, we will invite disaster. Near the Day of Purification, there will be cobwebs spun back and forth in the sky. A container of ashes might one day be thrown from the sky, which could burn the land and boil the seas."