A spiritual journey - Tai Shan and Qufu
Trip Start
Aug 21, 2007
1
21
27
Trip End
Dec 20, 2007
Tai'an,
China
Friday, November 23, 2007
Aaah, Chinese spirituality. Considering the atheist government, there's quite a bit of religion and spirituality about. We've met a number of Christians and come across quite a few churches, mainly in Macau. Muslims are prevalent in the west towards the borders with the "-stans" with large Muslim and also Jewish communities in the big cities, e.g. Xi'an. Then there's Buddhism, centering in Tibet. But these are all imported. There are two faiths originating in China that are both well over 2500 years old and still have plenty of followers: Taoism and Confucianism. Both are more philosphical directions rather than conventional religions, although there are heaps of deities involved. Confucianism was invoked by Kong Fu Tsi (Confucius, born 551 B.C.) and among other trains of thought stresses firmly the hierarchies in society
Yet another sign at Tai Shan
. Taosism is born from the worship of pagan animist Gods. In my understanding (and that's terribly dim) it's spawned other philosophical sages like Lao Tsi. These philosophers and their teachings still govern the values in this fast-changing modern China. I guess you could compare them with their Greek contemporaries Plato, Socrates, Aristoteles, etc. who laid the fundaments of our western thinking and values.Between Beijing and Shanghai we decided to visit sights important to these schools of thought to maybe understand a bit more.
First we climbed the most sacred (out of 5) Taoist mountains in China: Tai Shan. We were lucky to have a beautiful clear autumn day for our exploits. It's a steep 9990 steps up the hill, passing little temples on the way. The scenery is stunning. In fact, it's the first time we actually saw for real those seemingly artificially kitschy steep pine-topped rock outcrops copiously depicted on Chinese paintings. They actually do exist. The temples on top are nice. Lots of steles and wise painted onto the bare rock sayings, a welcome picture stop for the Chinese climbers but sadly lost on us. I'm not sure we gained a lot more insight, but it was a great day out!
Kong family cemetary, Qufu
Next stop was the home of Confucius, Qufu. Here Confucius thought and taught his disciples in the way of the ancient strict rites if he wasn't travelling about and meddling in contemporary politics. Here he died bitterly impoverishedand is buried.
His successors, the Kongs, fared considerably better than the sage. They enjoyed the benevolence of future emperors and were awarded with kick-ass duke-ship and high positions at court and were probably the most loaded family outside the forbidden palace over 76 generations. The last descendent fled the communists to Taiwan. Since then the family mansions have been opened to the public and give a good inisght into aristocratic life over the centuries with well-preserved furniture and a nice garden to boot. Next door is Confucius' ex-home, turned subsequently into the largest confucian temple in he world. It's wide-spread and airy, but also somewhat musky. On top of the world's largest collection of stone steles on the premises there are vast side-temples all housing little wooden plaques with his pearls of wisdom. And as the man's words are Confucianism's capital, the essence was lost on us again.
Still, it was well worth the trip, also because of the very scenic cemetary, allegedly the world's largest private graveyard, where generations of late Kongs are gathered around the great Sage's last resting place. Cycling through the cemetary we were practically on our own among the tombstones under the orange autumn foliage. Add in the late afternoon sunlight and it's really quite a magical place.
On the more awkward side, we ended up trying sea cucumber in Qufu (for which we were ridiculously overcharged). We both still have the taste on our tongues. Definitely not recommended. And getting the bikes organised for this and getting our grubby hands on
some train tickets were adventures in themselves that I don't want t
bore you with...
Onwards to Shanghai!
