Quotes on friendship as trust and understanding
Between Chuang Tzu and Hui Shi (translated by Burton Watson):
Chuang Tzu was accompanying a funeral when he passed by the grave of Hui Tzu. Turning to his attendants, he said, “There was once a plasterer who, if he got a speck of mud on the tip of his nose no thicker than a fly's wing, would get his friend Carpenter Shih to slice it off for him.
“Carpenter Shih, whirling his hatchet with a noise like the wind, would accept the assignment and proceed to slice, removing every bit of mud without injury to the nose, while the plasterer just stood there completely unperturbed. Lord Yuan of Sung, hearing of this feat, summoned Carpenter Shih and said, ‘Could you try performing it for me?’ But Carpenter Shih replied, ‘It’s true that I was once able to slice like that but the material I worked on has been dead these many years.’ Since you died, Master Hui, I have had no material to work on. There's no one I can talk to any more.”
Between Jackie Chan and his stunt team (Jackie Chan, ed. John R. Little and Curtis F. Wong, Contemporary Books, 1999, pp. 130-132):
My stuntmen fight with me because if you were to fight with me–no matter how good you are–we’re unfamiliar with each other. So, when you kick or punch toward me, I’ll be pulling away too soon, or maybe I’ll be worrying about getting hit and, believe me, I’ve been hit too much already. I’ve been hurt so many times from people who were not my stuntmen; my nose has been broken three times because I trust people; my tooth is gone because the person I was fighting with did not have proper control of his technique, at least not as well as he needed it to be.
I’m not saying that I still don’t make mistakes. My own stuntmen have hurt me, too, but that’s okay–I trust them–and that’s an accident. If you hurt me or fight with me, then I’m scared [that an accident could happen]. But with my stuntmen, the chances of my getting injured are greatly reduced. We can go full out–[throws punches and kicks] bam! bam! bam! bam! bam!–we know each other’s rhythm and timing!
If today, you find in America a very talented Caucasian stuntman, like you or, like anyone, to fight with me, it will be the worst-looking Jackie Chan fight scene of all time. Why? Because when you go to kick me, I’ll be already flinching and turning away from you. If the scene calls for you to hit me across the back with a stick, I’m already covering up and trying to get away from you because I’m really scared that you are going to hit me.
But my stuntmen can hit me right across the back with a club–boom!–and you can actually see it touch my shirt, and I’ll stay there and take it because I know that he’ll pull it just enough to prevent me from getting hurt. That’s what we want in fight choreography. So that is why I always bring my stuntmen with me wherever I go. We have that timing together.
In Rumble in the Bronx, when they were throwing bottles at me–boom! boom! boom!–I was able to trust them and tell them, “Come on, now, hit me right here on the arm with it,” and they will. But if you throw the bottle, I’d rather be ten miles away because if I stand there, I might move because we’re not used to each other–or you might not throw it where I’m expecting it–and I’ll get hurt.
So this is quite different from some of the other action stars who might use one set of stuntmen for one film, and then a second set of stuntmen for another film–how can you create realistic looking scenes this way? You must fully trust the people you are working with, and you have to know each other, anticipate each other and know each other’s rhythm and timing. This is essential.
You could put two good fighters together in a fight scene, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it will be entertaining to watch in a movie. In the movies, it’s different fighting than what you would see, say, in a martial arts tournament or a boxing match. There, it’s bam! bam! bam! And that’s a good fight to watch, too, they’re really fighting and it’s exciting. But in a movie, it’s all rhythm, and that requires a different type of fighting.
Between Bo Ya and Zhongzi Qi (Lieh-tzu, 57, trans. Eva Wong, Shambala, 2001):
Po-ya and Chung Tzu-Ch’i were good friends. Po-ya was a good lute player and his friend was an intuitive listener.
When Po-ya had his mind on the high mountains while he played, Chung Tzu-ch’i said, “I can feel the grandeur of the Great Mountains!”
When Po-ya thought about flowing waters while he played, his friend said, “How deep and wide are the Yellow River and the Yang-tze!”
It seemed no matter what was on Po-ya’s mind which he expressed in his music, his friend shared the feelings right away.
One time the two friends were wandering around in the north slopes of the Great Mountains when a rainstorm hit. They found shelter in a cave, and, waiting for the rains to subside, Po-ya took up his lute and played. Seeing the mist and rain hiding the mountains, Po-ya had a feeling of sadness and composed a piece about the unending rain and rising mist. Then he changed his mood and improvised a song that painted the splendor of an avalanche crashing down the mountains.
In every piece he played, Chung Tzu-ch’i could grasp Po-ya’s feel of the music without fail. His mood and state of mind were identical to those of the player.
Po-ya put down his lute and sighed, “This is more than my wildest expectations. You can read my mind by listening to my music. From now on, how can I hide anything from you?”
Po-ya and Chung Tzu-ch’i were not only good friends but kindred spirits. They could reach into each other’s minds not just because one of them was a good player and the other an intuitive listener. It was because they had dissolved the barriers that separated them from each other and the music was simply a bridge that allowed them to communicate their hearts and minds.
From Wikipedia:
Bo Ya was good at playing the qin. Zhong Ziqi was good at listening to the qin. When Bo Ya's will was towards high mountains in his playing, Zhong Ziqi would say, ‘How towering like Mount Tai!’ When Bo Ya's will was towards flowing water in his playing, Zhong Ziqi would say, ‘How vast are the rivers and oceans!’ Whatever Bo Ya thought of Ziqi would never fail to understand. Bo Ya said, ‘Amazing! Your heart and mine are the same!’ When Ziqi died, Bo Ya broke the strings [of his qin] and vowed never to play [the qin] again.
Between Guan Zhong and Bao Shuya (Lieh-tzu, 64, trans. Eva Wong, Shambala, 2001):
Kuan-chung did not let his success affect his friendship with Pao Shu-ya. Often he would say, “If not for Pao Shu-ya, I would not be where I am today. When we were children, I always took a larger share of everything we found. He didn’t argue with me and never considered me greedy because he knew I came from a poor family that never had enough of anything.
“When we made plans together for our little enterprises, Pao Shu-ya accepted my advice, but when things did not turn out, he never blamed me for stupidity, for he knew that success and failure often depend more on luck than effort. As a young man I served in the civil service three times and each time was fired from my job. Pao Shuya did not think I was worthless because he knew the opportunities were just not right for me.
“Three times I went into battle, and three times I escaped rather than face capture. Pao Shu-ya did not think that I was a coward because he knew I needed to look after my aging mother. In the final battle when the princes fought for the throne, when my fellow advisor chose to die with his lord and I surrendered, Pao Shu-ya did not consider my actions shameful, because he knew that heroics are sometimes folly. Therefore, although my parents gave me life and nourished me, it is Pao Shu-ya who really understands me.”
Two of these are mentioned in the Huainanzi, 19.7 (trans. and ed. John S. Major, Sarah A. Queen, Andrew Seth Meyer, and Harold D. Roth, Columbia University Press, 2010):
When Zhongzi Qi died, Bo Ya broke the strings and destroyed his qin, knowing that in his times no one could appreciate his playing.
When Hui Shi died, Zhuangzi ceased to talk, perceiving that there was no one else with whom he could converse.
