the string to create a very quiet sound. In popular culture As a symbol of high culture, the qin continually appears in many forms of Chinese popular culture to varying degrees of accuracy. References are made to the qin in a variety of media including TV episodes and films. Actors often possess limited knowledge on how to play the instrument and instead they mime it to a pre-recorded piece by a qin player. Sometimes the music is erroneously mimed to guzheng music, rather than qin music. A more faithful representation of the qin is in the Zhang Yimou film Hero, in which Xu Kuanghua plays an ancient version of the qin in the courtyard scene while Nameless and Long Sky fight at a weiqi parlor. In fact, it is mimed to the music played by Liu Li, formerly a professor at the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing. It is suggested that Xu made the qin himself. The qin was also featured in the 2008 Summer Olympics Opening Ceremony in Beijing, played by Chen Leiji (陳雷激). The qin is also used in many classical Chinese novels, such as Cao Xueqin's Dream of the Red Chamber and various others. The qin is also used in many contemporary Chinese novels, notably the 2016 novel Mo Dao Zu Shi, as well as the 2019 live action series adaptation, The Untamed, in which the qin is used as a spiritual tool of protagonist Lan Wangji. Behind the scenes footage of production of the series revealed that several actors were given qin lessons prior to filming to prepare them for their roles as characters that played the instrument. Electric guqin The electric guqin was first developed in the late 20th century by adding electric guitar–style magnetic pickups to a regular acoustic guqin, allowing the instrument to be amplified through an instrument amplifier or PA system. Related instruments The Japanese ichigenkin, a monochord zither, is believed to be derived from the qin. The qin handbook Lixing Yuanya (1618) includes some melodies for a one-string qin, and the Wuzhi Zhai Qinpu contains a picture and description of such an instrument. The modern ichigenkin apparently first appeared in Japan just after that time. However, the honkyoku (standard repertoire) of the ichigenkin today most closely resembles that of the shamisen. The Korean geomungo may also be related, albeit distantly. Korean literati wanted to play an instrument the way their