"A gentlemen is comparable to bamboo because of their similar virtues. What people may describe and paint are only the form, the color and the type of bamboo; what neither description nor painting can encompass are the virtues for which bamboo stands. Bamboo stems are hollow, empty hearted, standing for the virtue of humbleness... Bamboo's joints (jie), which are evenly spaced, and hence represent the mean, are clear-cut (zhen) like the virtue of chastity."