Qufu-Confucius' Hometown

 

About 2 hours south of Jinan is the community of Qufu.  It is the birthplace of one of the most important philosopher "types" in Chinese history; Confucius.  He lived around 551-479 BC so his life predates the Savior by quite a period.  Confucius was born to a very poor family and he never enjoyed an easy life.  He was a teacher, but his ideas were different.  He had some faithful students who later taught his ideas and gained favor with the leaders of the Dynasties.  His family became quite prosperous and even today they have substantial holdings in Qufu.  In fact, our guide, was a descendent of the Kong family line.

The trip to Qufu was sponsored by Shandong University and is one of two they offered foreign teachers this school year.  There were only 10 of us on this trip, 6 of whom were from BYU.   It was a nice outing and we did not have to fight the crowds.  There was no holiday this weekend so the number of tourists was quite reasonable.  We didn't feel that we would be trampled if we stopped to look at something of interest.   We liked that.  See the pictures below.

 Entrance to the Temple of Confucius.  The town of Qufu, with about 60,000 residents, "survives" on tourism.

 

 Entering the gate for the first university in China!!
 

 Once Confucius was respected as a teacher, many emperors came to Qufu to honor him.  Each would erect a "temple" and there are many stone tablets indicating the teachings of Confucius, edicts granting him special titles and notes about renovations.  Many of these tablets were severely damaged during the Cultural Revolution.
 

 This was a group of Confucius "scholars" from Korea who wore clothing from the Ming Dynasty to honor him
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This temple was built in 1018.  The foundation is stone, but the rest of the building is wood.

 

  The rock was a sign of good fortune for the home.  It has wrinkles, as do we, for a human quality, holes for the water to run through and it is tall and slim to be noticed.

This is a pomegranate tree in bloom the garden of the Kong Family Mansion.  Confucius only had a cottage nearby, but his wealthy descendants had a 400 room complex.

 

This lady performed a selection from an opera, accompanied by Chinese instrumentalists.  We are still not used to the "shrill" of the music.

 

In the Confucius family cemetery there are about 100,000 tombs of his descendants.  About 20,000 have actual tombstones.  Many are just mounds of dirt.  Our guide said the snakes and crows do not disturb the area because of the "smell" of the trees in the area.  The area is like a forest and very peaceful.

 

There are two guards at the entrance to the tomb of Confucius.  This one is a civil officer.  The one on the opposite side is a military officer since he has a sword.

 

The tomb of Confucius.  The back is towards a small hill (mountain) and the front faces a river...several meters away.  This is supposed to be excellent feng shui.  His son is buried nearby as well as a grandson.  It is said that Confucius is seeking his son and hugging his grandson. 

Wayne and Libby Clarke enjoying the shade of the "cart" and the forest setting.  It was a one of the first days of "summer" in our area. 

 

On the bus ride back to Jinan we had a TIC (This is China) experience.  We were on the freeway traveling the speed limit and the cars ahead of us started slamming on their brakes, as did our driver.  There was a larger truck directly in front of us so it was difficult to see what was happening.  As the traffic slowly started to flow, we saw there was a stopped passenger car perpendicular to the freeway in the far left lane.  This driver was making her way across three lanes of freeway traffic to make the freeway exit that she almost missed!!!  It was truly a miracle that no one rear ended each another and that she did not get hurt!!  None of us had our cameras ready, but it truly was a Kodak moment!!

 

Monday night we were invited to a special Foreign Culture Finale Performance on Central Campus.  A number of both Nancy's and Stan's students were involved.  It was OK, but some of the singing numbers should have been cut.

 



 These are the mc's for the evening.  At every cultural event there are mc's dressed to the hilt!

This is Kelly, one of Stan's students.  She is considered to be one of the top 10 most talented students at the university.

 

Friday evening we attended a senior trombone recital at the Shandong Arts University.  The trombonist wasn't very good, but a "featured" brass ensemble and the orchestra were great.  It was free.  There was one American in the ensemble.  His name is Greg and we assume that he is a teacher at the university.  We greeted him but did not get any details about his life in China.

 

 

The other major event for the week is that we now have water pressure in our apartment!!!  Last week our water was off and we assumed it was a street repair issue as has happened in the past.  After almost 24 hours without water, we started asking questions about the availability of water to several students, foreign teachers in our building  and an international office employee who lives in our complex.  All had water! After some phone calls, we discovered a valve for the water supply to only our apartment had failed.  Once it was replaced we had Niagara Falls! A load of laundry had started to take 4++ hours and now it is done in 40 minutes! Now that Stan can truly take a shower he said he might even consider staying an additional year teaching in China!

 

 

 

 

This video was produced by a student in Stan's Friday writing class in about 60 seconds on her phone.  He is not wearing his shirt and tie for the first time this year.  It was a very warm day.