Moonlight Over the Brothel

In the humid summer of 1950, a musicological delegation from the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing arrived in Wuxi to document the folk traditions of eastern China.

During their survey, the researchers were directed to a local instrument repairman named Abing. In his dusty workshop, they found an aging man, his hair gathered in a Daoist topknot, blind and visibly ill. When they asked to hear him play, he offered a humble refusal, explaining he hadn't touched an instrument in three years. “One evening, while I was soaked through from a sudden storm, a passing rickshaw knocked me to the ground,” he told them. “My lute broke and the snakeskin on my erhu was pierced. That same night, a mouse ate the horsehair on my bow. These were ominous signs. I haven't dared to perform since.”

After much persuasion and a promise to lend him instruments, Abing finally agreed to play, provided he was given three days to practice.

When the three days were up, the researchers recorded him performing three pieces for the erhu and three for the pipa, a Chinese lute. The sessions ended abruptly only because the recording reels ran out.

The researchers were so moved by Abing’s mastery that they immediately offered him a teaching position at the Central Conservatory. Sadly, he never recovered his health and passed away on December 4, 1950.

Those few recordings from 1950 eventually entered the national canon, transforming Abing into one of the most beloved Chinese composers of the 20th century. His personal story—and the way his legacy was cemented in the People's Republic—is deeply intertwined with China's tumultuous history and its ideological shifts.

The only known photograph of Abing was taken during the Japanese occupation of Wuxi.

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“Great Waves Washing the Sand” (Dàlàngtáoshā), an original recording of Abing playing the pipa:

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Many details of Abing's early life remain subject to dispute. These controversies stem not just from a lack of historical records, but from the ideological agendas of those who have written about him.

Born Hua Yanjun in 1893 in a village near Wuxi, Abing was the illegitimate son of a Daoist priest. He was initially raised by relatives, unaware of his parentage, but eventually returned to the temple where his father served. There, he trained on the bamboo flute (dizi), the pipa, and the erhu. As he grew to look more like the priest, rumors of his illegitimacy spread. The community’s taunts wounded him, leaving him withdrawn and isolated; his instruments became his only solace.

From a young age, Abing absorbed a vast musical vocabulary, ranging from Daoist liturgy and folk opera to the Western military marches that arrived during the final years of the Qing Dynasty. These disparate styles eventually merged into his unique voice.

After the death of his father, to whom he was very close, Abing began frequenting local brothels and opium dens. The temple’s meager income couldn't sustain these habits, so he began selling off ritual objects and his father’s estate. Eventually, he contracted syphilis, which caused his vision to steadily deteriorate.

His blindness made it impossible to perform complex temple rituals or maintain a steady livelihood. By age 35, he was completely blind and had descended to the bottom of the social ladder as a street musician.

Wandering the streets of Wuxi, he improvised melodies interspersed with folk tales, news, and social commentary, tailoring his performance to captivate whatever audience might offer a few coins.

The chaos of the 1920s, 30s, and 40s provided Abing with endless material. China was torn apart by warring warlords, the struggle between the Nationalists and the growing Communist Party, and the subsequent horrors of the Japanese invasion. Abing’s music bore witness to it all.

“Listening to the Pines” (Tīngsōng), by Abing:

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While few physical traces of his work remain from those years, oral accounts suggest he knew some six hundred melodies. He used them to accompany songs about the injustices of the era—a servant girl raped by her masters, the Nationalist Party turning his temple into a stable, and the atrocities of the war.

It is worth noting that Abing’s biographies were largely written after the Communist victory. In the spirit of the new era, the background of any cultural figure was scrutinized; only those deemed ideologically worthy were permitted into the national repertoire.

Given the scarcity of his recordings and his sudden posthumous fame, Abing’s image had to be carefully managed. The state preferred the narrative of a folk musician singing against pre-revolutionary injustice over the reality of a hard-drinking Daoist with an opium habit and a fondness for brothels. This makes it difficult to separate the man from the myth.

The original recording of “The Moon Reflected in the Second Spring”:

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Abing's most famous work, “The Moon Reflected in the Second Spring” (Èrquán Yìng Yuè), is named after a landmark in Wuxi. Abing himself claimed it was merely a variation on a Daoist tune, though many insist it was an original composition for which he simply declined to take credit.

Regardless of its origin, the piece has been interpreted through many lenses: as a cry for the common man’s suffering, or as a romantic nationalist tribute to the motherland. One critic poetically noted that it is impossible to tell which part of the music represents the spring water and which the moonlight.

The Communist Party’s discomfort with Abing’s past was further complicated when a musicologist noted a melodic link between “Erquan” and a folk song used to entice customers into brothels.

The idea of a brothel hit being performed for the proletariat surely caused a very specific kind of anxiety for party officials.

Nevertheless, “Erquan” secured its place in the canon. It migrated from dusty street corners to the nation’s grandest concert halls, evolving from the opium-hazed improvisations of a sick, blind man into a foundational text for China’s elite performers.

Orchestral performance of “The Moon Reflected in the Second Spring”:

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*The Erhu (èrhú, or “two-stringed barbarian instrument”) belongs to the spike fiddle family, related to the Middle Eastern rebab and Central Asian kamancheh. It has been used in China for over a millennium. It consists of a wooden soundbox, usually covered in python skin, and a wooden neck with two metal strings. The bow, made of bamboo and horsehair, is permanently fixed between the strings.

The importance of this instrument family to Chinese music is immense, spanning teahouses, noble courts, opera, and cinema. However, until the professionalization of Chinese music in the 1930s, most players were from the lower classes and learned entirely by ear.

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**Daoism:

An umbrella term for a diverse range of Chinese beliefs and philosophical practices. While it traces back to the teachings of Laozi, it also encompasses cosmology, alchemy, and medicine. Abing was trained within a Daoist community and remained a practitioner until his death.

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Additional erhu pieces:

“Horse Race” (Sàimǎ) by Huang Haihuai:

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The Hsu Nami, an American prog ensemble that incorporates the erhu.

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