April 15 - Our visit to Confucious

We know.  You don't think we ever work.  We really do, we just compress our teaching into Monday - Wednesday, then work really hard during free time to prepare for our next lessons.  And then find a way each week to do some exploring.  This week we went to visit Mt. Tai and Qufu, historic areas only a 4 hour high-speed train ride from home.

Tai'an, a city of about 5.5 million people (not very big by Chinese standards), is a beautiful place at the base of some important mountains. The Five Great Mountains of China include Mt. Tai, which is just over 5000 feet high and has been associated with sunrise, birth, and renewal for 3000 years - a place of worship for emperors and now for common people. To get to the top of Mt. Tai there are 3 options: 1) 7,777 steps to the top;  2) take a shuttle bus part way up, skipping the first 4000 steps; and 3) take a cable car up skipping the next 3000 steps.  Our tour group took both options 2 and 3 so we would only have a few hundred steps to see the peak.

A bunch of BYU China teachers in front of Mt. Tai

The cable path

The hiking path

We could have spent the day climbing, but we chose to swing through the sky. Unfortunately, when we got to the top we found a huge line of people. Apparently we chose an especially auspicious time to visit Mt. Tai. And one of the cable car lines down was closed due to an accident. Our guide was worried about the time, so we didn't go any further or even look around much before we joined all those people in that line. We would have been in favor of hiking down rather than standing in line, but the group voted to stand. So we made more Chinese friends, including a man who was having a 40 year reunion with his buddies from the Chinese army.

A portion of the line to get down

Taking home a rock from Mt. Tai is supposed to bring good luck,
as well as support the local economy. We found a very small
shard from Mt. Tai (without writing) at the base of a tree. We feel
pretty lucky as it is. 

Finishing our visit to Mt. Tai at sunset

That night we stayed in Qufu, the hometown of Confucious, who lived about 500 BC. The three most famous cultural sites of the city are the Temple of Confucius, the Kong Family (Confucius' descendants) Mansion, and the Cemetery of Confucius.

The area is full of ancient Cypress trees labeled
with their ages:  over 1000 years old, between
500 and 1000 years old, and less than 500.
One was planted by Confucius. This one is called
the dragon tree.

Notice that the sign says to not touch the tree. But it's good luck!

This is the well from Confucius' home. His home is gone,
but the well is still there.

Ceremonial dress at the temple of Confucius.

We found ourselves next to of a line
of people participating in a ceremony. They're
dedicating themselves, in the best way they know,
to live good lives. It was moving.

We couldn't visit the temple because of the big ceremony, but we
heard the music and saw the banners and smoke from the incense.
The atmosphere was one of solemnity and virtue.

The Kong family used this washboard-like area to
punish people by making them kneel on it for several hours.
Our guide said his father had him do something similar
when he did not do well on his tests in school.

Even the garbage cans blend architecturally.

This man tried to carry on a conversation with Kathy, showing
her his passport which had a stamp for Malaysia.

Lots of kids on field trips visit the area.

And they haven't seen many white people. John was a celebrity.

 After we visited the temple and the mansion, we went on a horse-drawn carriage ride to the cemetery of Confucius' descendants (over 100,000 - the most recent from the 78th generation). It covers approximately 1 square mile, approximately 500 acres. We knew it would be huge, but it was very different than what we expected. There are some very important grave sites guarded by large stone figures, but for the most part our shuttle bus drove through an incredibly peaceful forest of Cypress trees (more than 10,000), seeing mounds covered with clouds of purple flowers. The mounds are burial places; people add dirt to show honor to the people buried there. After 20 years someone else is buried in the same mound. No new gravestones have been allowed since 1949.

It was a wonderful weekend outing to a beautiful part of China, both visually and culturally.