Qufu #2: Confucius Cemetery

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I'd had a good night's sleep, but didn't want to get out of the nice warm bed. Eventually, I got myself sorted and made my way down to the hostel's bar/restaurant for some breakfast. That took a bit of doing as the aiyi spoke no English and I speak no Chinese and everything I wanted on the menu seemed to be unavailable. Eventually, I settled for some black tea and a ham and egg French toast. The aiyi was lovely a brought me a big flask of water so that I could keep topping up my tea. I read while waiting for my breakfast and read and read. I think it took an hour for my food to come. I don't know why it took so long, in hindsight I probably should have ordered Chinese food as that may have been quicker, but I was craving eggs, so the idea of something with eggs was stuck in my head. Since I was starving, the food was worth the wait. I had two sandwiches and some apple and it filled me up a treat. After checking out, I was ready to head off to explore some more of Qufu.

I headed to the Confucius Cemetery, this was about a one kilometre walk from the back of the Old Town Wall. The walk up was nice and there was a nice walkway in between the two roads to walk along. I headed to the ticket office and bought the entry ticket, which cost 30 RMB, a lot cheaper than the temple. After entering, I walked down another long path, and Eventually made it to the start of the cemetery proper. I walked through the Supreme Sage Cemetery Archway, which was originally built during the Yuan Dynasty and then rebuilt in 1494. It is constructed on the old city walls. Once through the gate, I headed to the large map of the cemetery to get my bearing. The cemetery was huge, a lot larger than I had imagined it would be. There appeared to be a group of things to see quite close to the entrance, and then other stuff was spread out around the cemetery with a path looping around the sights. The cemetery is the graveyard for not only Confucius, but also his descendants. It has over 100,000 trees in it.

I made my way to the first group of sights, which was only about 5-10 minutes walk away. There were also little shuttle buses available to take you around if you're not inclined to walk. I crossed over the Zhu River Bridge, which was probably built some time during the Lu State. I came to the Tomb Gate and passed through to the passageway that led to Confucius' tomb. It is lined with two lines of prosperous trees and four stone ushers. I really liked the stone ushers guarding over the path and I could see the bright red Sacrificial Hall ahead. This used to hold the altars of incense and announce the oration delivered to Confucius. It was also used in the 1950s, as Generalissimo Zhu De held an important meeting there. Today, it has gone the way of the buildings that I saw at the Confucius Temple yesterday and is now a gift shop. I took the path behind the Sacrificial Hall and came to a tree stump encased in a brick structure. The tree was planted by Zi Gong, a diplomat, wealthy businessman, and a loyal and important disciple of Confucius. The tree was destroyed by lightening during the Qing Dynasty and only the roots remain. Just past the tree, there were a few different pavilions. These pavilions were built to commemorate different emperors coming to the cemetry to pay their respects to Confucius.

I soon came to my first burial mound and beneath it the grave of Kong Ji also known as Zi Si, who was the grandson of Confucius. He was a famous philosopher during th Warring States period. He was also regarded as one of the inheritors of Confucianism and revered as the third generation ancestor by Kong clansmen. He founded his own school of thought. Just before the next burial mound, there were several stone statues lining the path and keeping a protective watch over the deceased. This tomb belonged to Kong Li, or Boyu, and he was Confucius' son. Little is known about him and he passed away before Confucius did. As I rounded the corner, I came to Confucius' tomb. This was a lot busier than the other two, as people had come to pay their respects. The table in front of the tomb was covered with offerings. I was in awe at the colour of the bananas on the table, they were very brown, but the colour was even all over them, not mottled like normal bananas. Anyway, back to Confucius, he was a great educator, scholar and the founder of Confucianism. He passed away at the age of 73, which I think is a pretty long life for someone born in 551 BC. Just next to the tomb, thee were people selling flowers if you wanted to buy some for the 'Great Sage' and there was also a smallish building that had been Zi Gong's Tomb Keeping Place. After Confucius' death, his disciples stayed in mourning for three years, before leaving. Zi Gong, however, stayed alone for another three years, setting a good example for respecting teachers and education. The memorial hall and stele were built and erected to commemorate his deeds.

Now that I had seen the main sights, I headed off to explore more of the cemetery, but first I had a walk around Si Hall, which was located next to the tombs. It was very quiet as few people seemed to visit it. The hall was built during the Eastern Han Dynasty for the Kong Clansmen to fast and change clothes in for the three days before they offered sacrifices to Confucius. It was quite a pretty set of buildings. I headed back out across the moat, which looked very pretty. I wandered along the path. The cemetry is pretty big and graves are spread out allover the place. While walking along the paths, there were so many different routes to take, that weren't marked on the main map. I went a bit rogue and wandered off down some random paths. I had expected to come to the edge of the cemetery, but this place just kept going. The further away from the centre I got, the wilder the place became. The graves here looked more unattended and I also came across some stones with red crosses painted on them. I would have loved to have known what they were for, but they will forever remain as one of life's mysteries. I also came across, what looked like a worker's hut/house. It looked semi abandoned as the doors were broken and the windows were covered. However, there seemed to be stuff Outside that looked like it was used. I continued on and came to a smaller one room stone building that was definitely abandoned. The roof had collapsed in places. I went for a closer look and could see through the windows. There was an old bed covered with twigs and leaves. I wondered how long it had been abandoned for.

I decided to make my way back to the main path as I was worried about getting lost and there were some other things that I wanted to see on the other side of the cemetery. I followed the main path around until I came to the Tomb Group of the Ming Dynasty. During the Ming Dynasty, the cemetery had been smaller, and it wasn't common for tombs built at that time to have the remains above ground. The area has many tall stone tablets and ushers to guard the tombs. I really liked this area as the tombs were surrounded by stone animals and ornate gateways. It just looked so pretty. I loved the fierce looking warriors, who were guarding the tombs. It would be really spooky to come at dusk or at night and see these statues. I came to a beautiful red archway, that was built in memory of Lady Yu. She was the daughter of the Grand Secretary, Yu Mingzhong, and the wife of Kong Xianpei, the 72nd descendent of Confucius. Imagine being able to trace your family back 72 generations! I came to the Tomb of Kong Shangren next, who belonged to the 64th generation of the Confucius family. He was a famous playwright. Next was the Qing Dynasty's Tomb Group. This differed from the Ming Dynasty group as there were large stone gates and pots instead of warriors and animals. I passed some more tombs and a pavilion as I made my way back to the entrance.

After leaving the cemetery, I had rather a long walk to the bus stop. I could have taken another bus to connect with the one to the train station, but I had plenty of time on my hands so the walk provided Me with a bit more exercise. The journey to the station didn't take long and I was quite shocked at how small Qufu East Station was. There were no separate ticket gates for each train, but rather a communal one. Despite several trains departing all around the same time, it was rather orderly. All in all, I think Qufu is worth a visit if you're interested in Confucius. I enjoyed going around the temple and the cemetery was really enjoyable. I didn't expect to be so nice. I wish I'd got to the Kong Mansion and hindsight tells me that I should have bought the ticket for the temple and the mansion together, but I didn't realise until it was too late that they are next door to each other. Qufu definitely isn't a destination for foreigners and I only saw two or three other groups of foreigners so it is understandable why there isn't much English around.

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Comments

[Dancing Dave]

Qufu
Great to see a blog on Qufu that was full of so many great highlights for us...Homestyle Soup with worms & centipedes...Han Dynasty stone tablets...the old city wall...and the Confucius Cemetery on pushbikes with no brakes. Great to see the Cemetery from your pics has not been glammed up.

[Zephyr]

Qufu
Glad you had a great time in Qufu, it sounds like quite the adventure. :)