Qufu...finally

Sorry to those who look forward to our little blog here, we've been busy and/or lazy the last couple of weeks, but we are still here. If I can remember correctly, I believe we left you with a nice big bowl of hotpot. That must mean you need to read about Qufu next. Here goes...

First off, let's work on our pronunciation! This is how you say Qufu: choo-foo. Leave those Q's for Latin-based languages.

Every city or village in China is famous for something. Usually it is some type of flower, delicious vegetable, or export (Ex. Qingdao - Tsingtao Beer), and Qufu is certainly no different. Qufu is the (disputed) home of the great Chinese thinker Confucius, or Kong(fu)zi to the Chinese. In fact, a lot of people in and around Qufu still have the surname Kong, and they are quick to claim Confucius in their ancestry. Here is a quick, and likely flawed, history of Confucius. Raised in Qufu (around 500 BCE), Confucius was well-educated and sought to be employed by emperors or local rulers, but never quite told them what they wanted to hear. He decided that he would instead concentrate on educating Chinese adolescents so that, one day, they would use his philosophy. Like many, Confucius' fame came after his death. There are claims of specific students, government jobs, and miracles, but as with most historical figures, it is hard to tell legend from fact. We do know that later empires saw the benefits of Confucian philosophy (such as knowing and staying within one's role and fitting into a harmonious society), and began implementing it. Jesuit missionaries brought Confucius back to the West where he is seen as a leading philosopher, and this popularity reinvigorated his status back in China. A guy named Mao came along and didn't care for him, but he died, and now it appears the Chinese are willing to celebrate his importance, though some are reluctant to celebrate his philosophy.

So Qufu takes advantage of this mystique and the beautiful village certainly has a lot to offer. It is a walled city, with very narrow (and crowded) roads. Street-vendors and shops are everywhere, but the city still manages to have a quaint appeal. Unfortunately, our stay in Qufu was all too short. We only got to visit the main Confucius Temple. The real treasures are supposedly hidden in the Confucius Forest, so we might just have to go back if time permits. We do have a few pictures to share, so enjoy!

As you can see above, the temple area is very lush with many different types of trees. I can't say the temple was anything greater than previous temples. Although, the insides of the buildings were usually more bare than a Buddhist temple. The tour guide would show us different buildings and relay a legend about who or what Confucius taught there. However, these building were built much, much later than Confucius, so basically, they act as monuments.

Another "must-have" for every Chinese temple is the Good Luck Tree that has been worn smooth from eager hands. However, these trees are much more important than all the others because Confucius planted these himself...uh-huh ;) There's the man of the blog himself, Confucius! This is the only idol or altar in the Confucius temple. Confucius isn't a Christ-like figure in case you were wondering. I think of this kind of like the Lincoln Memorial in DC. It is just a place Chinese can come and remember a great man. Of course, they do this differently then Americans would Abraham Lincoln, so one might see them bowing, burning incense, etc. Inscriptions of some sort and variety cover the stone wall. A classic gathering of knowledge and beauty. The Temple has these fantastic columns carved to look like dragons. The guide told us that these columns were much better than anything the emperor had in his palace at that time, so any time the emperor visited Qufu the columns were covered up and hidden from the emperor so that he would not lose face. I'm pretty happy that the emperor never destroyed them, because those columns are really beautiful, perhaps the highlight of the Confucian Temple. After we left the temple, we had a few minutes to kill so we walked down a street of vendors selling various Confucian trinkets. Every other vendor stand was selling "chops." Chops are Chinese stamps made out of jade or marble, and they have some kind of ornamentation on the top. The best thing about the stamps is that they can carve your name and Chinese name into the stamp. All the vendors had signs promising that "The Job is done in 5 minutes." We gave in, and 30 to 45 minutes later, we both had chops! Unfortunately, they are a little tough to photograph, but once we figure something out, we'll get it to you.

Well, that's our trip. We'll be telling you about our students, classes, and some funny moments in the next few blogs. Perhaps we'll even take you of a tour of our little suburb, Huangdao. I have to get back into shape, because this blog wore me out!

Happy Thanksgiving Break,

DB & KM

Stairway to Hea-eh-ven

The next day in Tai'an we went to the mountain, Tai Shan (hey that rhymes!). Tai Shan is by no means a huge mountain, but I can honestly say it wasn't a pleasant journey up. The Chinese don't believe in tranquil mountain paths. Instead, they build steep staircases that wind up to the summit. As I was walking up the path I couldn't help thinking about which job would I want less: creating this staircase, or building the Great Wall? Staircase, of course. I was trying to remain positive, but around the 5, 458th step I was sure the Great Wall sounded like a better idea. Supposedly, Tai Shan has 6,666 steps from the base to the summit, but I lost count somewhere around number twenty. It was a great day for hiking, however, and that kept perspiration to a minimum. Despite being a large, stone staircase, the path really has some beautiful scenery. Though, it is mixed with the multitudes of restaurants and shops that dot the mountain. Which leads to another incredible thought: How would you like to own/run a shop at 1345 meters above sea level (that's only two-thirds the way up) where all your goods have to be brought up an insane amount of steps, hand delivered? There are roads, but most of the stores are far away from any, preferring the foot traffic of the mountain visitors. Thankfully, the shopkeeps are very passive and don't really care to annoy the trekkers. Although, about half way up the mountain there was a crazy, bearded man that was giving all the Westerners big, smelly hugs.

You might be thinking, "Why do people climb Tai Shan?" Good question. If you look in the guide books, they'll tell you that people climb it because its the most holy mountain in Daoism. But, if you ask the Chinese, they'll tell you that many important people have climbed it, and indeed they have. If I may return to many Americans' favorite revolutionary, Mao Zedong once said from atop Tai Shan, "The East is Red." It sure was. . .is, I mean! Just with "Chinese (capitalist) characteristics." But my favorite quote from atop Tai Shan comes from Confucius (Kongzi to the Chinese) who said, "The world is small." Someone should make a song about that. A handful of Chinese emperors also climbed Tai Shan. The mountain does indeed have a few temples, the most famous being the Azure Cloud Temple. In the good ol' days, sacrifices could be made to Heaven on top of the mountain. It was also believe that it is the first place the sun rose, so many people would come and worship at daybreak, and in fact, many people still do. There are hotels, restaurants, and shops on top of the mountain, but the greatest things are of course, the views. At the very peak of the mountain, another temple stands where Chinese couples go with padlocks and lock them onto a large altar. The padlocks represent their eternal love. . .awww. However, the temple is very small, so be prepared to throw some elbows while crowding inside (getting eternal love is never easy, after all). Mercifully, we didn't have to walk down the mountain. Tai Shan has nice, scenic cable-car rides up and down, so we hopped on one and enjoyed the view. I think enough has been said about the mountain, so here's some pictures:

Oh man, still a long way to go. If you look closely between the two ridges you'll see the staircase and a little bit of the main gate. All those dots are people.

Shoo! Just a little bit closer. The gate is the most crowded (and dangerous) part of the trail. A lot of jerks ride the cable car up the mountain, walk over to the gate, and take a picture looking like they just climbed the mountain. That's the main reason there's so many bodies there.

Finally! And what a beautiful time of day. If you look closely to the left of the pic, you'll see a large Chinese bell temple, and once again, some dots that are people. In the top right corner of the picture, a possible UFO (maybe this mountain really is holy after all).

Nothing says loving like an engraved padlock. Although, I doubt this would go over too well on Valentine's Day.

After a little rest and napping, Mr. Li took us out to one of the best restaurants in Tai'an. We got to try a very popular Chinese dish for the first time, hotpot. Hotpot is basically like fondue without the trendy setup. The table has hotplates built into it, and each person sits in front of one. The restaurant places a large pot in front of you, spicy or mild. Darbie wanted mild, but through a mix-up ended up going spicy with me. It was delicious. Just like fondue, you dump food,veggies, tofu, into the pot, let it cook, and dig it out with chopsticks and enjoy. It can get pretty steamy in the room, and there are a lot of runny noses, but I highly recommend the experience.

Your nose should be running already. I'm proud to say that I held this. I held it.

A super-steamy hotpot room. Those nice pink rolls are beef and lamb. Chinese love lamb. That nice couple you see to the left are our friends and neighbors, Fatima (from Mexico) and Joachim (from Norway). Next to them are the nice, and very British, Colliers. They crack us up with their vocabulary: smashing, quite lovely, cheerio, etc.

This is me and Mr. Li. How can you not love that face? Not his, mine! I hope our next hotpot meal isn't too far away.

Lastly, I want to include a video of some intense manual labor. I'm narrating during the video, so no explanation is needed. Note my "out-of-breathness."

Incredible.

Hope all is well wherever you may be,

KM

DB is currently in the States with her family after her Grandmother's passing. I want to send along my thoughts to the Bryant/Duncan/Simmons clan. You can too if you want, at darbieb@hotmail.com

Foreign Affairs

Mr. Li, our waiban (literally: foreign [affairs] office) administrator is a nice guy. He fields all our requests and usually responds very quickly. We get our monthly pay (all in cash) from him, and if we have any problems, we call him. Simply put, Mr. Li gets things done. So we were thrilled when Mr. Li let us know that the University was sending all the "foreign language experts" off to Tai'an and Qufu for the weekend. Supposedly, these retreats take place once a semester to various places of the Shandong Province. We were glad that the trip was to Tai'an and Qufu, because both of these cities were on our "to-see" list, and now we were able to see them for free! Friday morning, all the foreign teachers crammed into the rental bus, and we set off on the five hour journey to Tai'an.

Tai'an is a destination city only for the fact that it rests at the base of the most sacred of the five holy mountains in Taoism, Tai Shan. Tai'an (ty-an) just happens to be Mr. Li's hometown, and so we were treated to many of the best restaurants and cuisine. But our first stop in Tai'an was its mildly popular temple, the Dai Temple. We were treated to an English-speaking guide, which still makes me think about what the Japanese teachers in our group felt about this. Nonetheless, the temple was vast, and it took us a good while to get through it. The temple rests in the center of town, and was/is the place that pilgrims gather before climbing Tai Shan. There were a lot of interesting parts about the temple, despite its apperance, which is falling into disrepair. For example, there's a big fresco inside one of the halls that depicts an emperor climbing up Tai Shan with a huge army to become the God of the mountain. Technically, one isn't supposed to take pictures here (the fresco is already peeling), but I figured what can a no-flash shot hurt? I got a snapshot of one of the most intriguing parts of the mural showing one of the emperor's men releasing a rainbow out of a large pot. It could quite possibly be the oldest advertisement for Skittles.

Most of the temple-goers were elderly, but very active. Religion in China, of any type, generally seems to be limited to the elderly, and even this is usually just for superstitious or auspicious reasons (though who am I to say it's any different in the States in many cases?). Young and middle-aged Chinese adults believe in the Party, and/or making money. We'll have more on this when we can include conversations we've had with people and students about xinyang (faith). Going back to auspicious ritual, there's a popular ritual that involves walking around a sacred rock clockwise three times, then counter clockwise three times, all with one hand on the rock and your eyes closed. Then, with your eyes still closed, you walk from the rock to a special tree and try to touch the smooth part of the tree. Mr. Li pressured me to do it, and I gave in. I can't say I regretted my decision, but I will say it was a painfully long process (painful because the rock has some pointy edges, and walking around blind for that long with people crowding in is more than awkward). When I began it was just our group watching and enjoying the show. Evidently this changed quickly after I began, and when I finished and opened my eyes, I had drawn quite a crowd of elderly Chinese temple enthusiasts all having a good laugh at the waiguoren (foreign person). Glad to be of service. I should mention that if one succeeds in touching the special part of the tree (I did not, oops!), then a long, good life is assured. "Special" trees abound in Chinese temples. It is not uncommon for the bark to be smooth because so many hands have touched the tree. Below is a tree that holds rare and exquisite beauty:

See? These Chinese really know how to get the most from their ancient trees. Another staple of Chinese temples is a garden with "ancient" steles. Usually it's not hard to tell the older steles from the newer ones, because the old ones no longer have any legible inscriptions on them. That's because a lot of Chinese (and foreign) hands have come along and worn them off over time. So the newer ones are inset very deep into the stone to ensure that it never happens again. There are no shortage of the steles, and they usually are written in the many different forms of Chinese calligraphy. There are five different styles of calligraphy, but within each style there can be many different variations. To the Chinese, one's calligraphy says a lot about that person. The writing style reflects the inner and outer of one's being. So contrary to what you might think, the first character in the picture above is not scribble, but an intricately designed character (The top character is beyond my learning, but the next two are yi [one] and shan [mountain], but if any Chinese scholars are out there, please let me know.).

The temple also has some other notable sights like the mega-bixi (Darbie's favorite Chinese mythological animal). The bixi (bee-shee) is the turtle-like offspring of a dragon. The bixi has the head of a dragon, the feet of a hawk, the tail of a snake, and back of a turtle. In other words, it is ferociously cute. The bixi are created to hold and protect giant scripture stones (steles) on their backs. This was the biggest bixi we've seen to date, and accordingly, it is the luckiest. Touching the bixi all but assures you a rich, healthy, and long life. The last thing worth mentioning about the temple is yet another temple game designed in order to gain a good life. It involves throwing coins into slots or openings in a religious structure; yue duo yue hao (the more the better). This takes place in every Chinese temple I've been to, and fortunately for you, we've got a video for you to check out of me playing the coin game! The object of this game is to throw an "ancient" coin into the slot and make the bell ring.

Good things should be coming my way!

Whew, I wasn't expecting to write so much about the Dai Temple. We don't want to overwhelm you, so we'll milk this trip for all its worth in future posts. Tai Shan and Qufu are still to come!

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DB&KM