Fou (instrument)

The fou (缶 or 缻; pinyin: fǒu) is an ancient Chinese percussion instrument consisting of a pottery or bronzeware crock, jar, pot, or similar vessel, which was struck with a stick.

It made its modern appearance during the 2008 Summer Olympics Opening Ceremony in Beijing.

Towards the beginning of the ceremony, 2,008 dancer/percussionists staged a synchronized presentation, striking large square fou with glowing red sticks.photo Those instruments had a white square LED array surrounding each drum, allowing them all to produce both music and a dazzling display, which included Chinese characters and shapes created in tandem.

Since the Xia and Shang dynasties, some types of those containers were used as musical instruments known as "percussion fou" (击缶).

Since its publicity, there has been some scholarly disputes on whether the fou used during the Olympics were actually musical instruments, as they could simply have been containers.