Its time again to update you on everything that has been happening this past week. This week held another trip for us, this time to the city of Qufu and then Mount Tai. There were also a couple of other things that warrant mentioning this week, but I'll start off with the trip, the biggest thing we ended up doing.
Our first stop, after a six hour bus ride, was at the city of Qufu. This city was the original hometown of Confucius, the man who started Confucianism. Specifically, we visited three famous sites tied to Confucius; his temple, mansion, and cemetery. These three sites are still widely visited by many people across China, even though Confucianism is no longer the main religion or thought pattern in China.
The temple entrance gates.
A group photo at the mansion.
Confucius' gravestone and burial mound.
After that we drove back an hour to get to a small city at the foot of Mount Tai. Mount Tai is where the ancient emperors of Chine would give sacrifices to "heaven" which is what they worshiped as a god. While I could have climbed the over 3000 stairs the the top of the mountain, I instead opted for the cable car that only took eight minutes and allowed me to sit down. :P
While the top of the mountain has been converted into a large tourist site, it still holds both Taoist and Buddhist temples, and is visited by many practitioners of these religions. Also, it has been fairly well maintained, has some hiking trails around the sides of the mountains. John, Alex, and I took one of these trails during our visit, and were out hiking for around two hours.
An eighty year old Buddhist at the top of the mountain. He was ecstatic to take pictures with a group of foreign students. :)
One of the views offered during our hike around the mountain.
After this, we headed back to the hotel, and came home the following day. While it was a very fun trip, it wasn't quite as interesting as the Beijing trip a couple weeks ago. This is partly because we didn't do as much, and partly because it was only the few of us from Kearney, while there was a larger group of foreign students on the Beijing trip.
The other two things that I would like to mention in this post concern other events I've signed up for here on campus. The first is, unfortunately, that I will be unable to do the calligraphy class I talked about earlier. They scheduled that class during our Literature class, so I will be unable to attend it. However, the second event is much happier. Instead of calligraphy, I will be taking a class called Chinese Martial Arts every Thursday at 4 PM. I am incredibly excited to have the chance to take that class, and I hope it goes well every week. I'll keep you updated if anything really fun happens there.
And that's about it for this week. I know a few short paragraphs and a few pictures aren't enough to actually get the experience of how massive this semester actually is, but I hope they at least help you know a little about what I'm doing. I can't wait to get back to the states and be able to share more pictures and stories in person, where I can answer questions and learn about what everyone else has been up to as well. :) Until, next week, thanks again for reading.
Adam
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