Buddha and Confucius

Last weekend before my friend Aubree arrived from the US, I had a Saturday free and decided to do some sightseeing in Beijing before the weather got too cold.  First though, I took a class on how to make Chinese dumplings, called 'jiaozi' with Adam, Alison, and her visiting family.  We took the class at the same place as I took Tai Ji, a beautiful old Chinese house in a hutong remodeled as a cultural center.  We spent 3 hours learning how to make and roll dough, combine ingredients for the stuffing, and assemble dumplings.  It was a lot more work than I expected, but would be fun to do with a group for a party in the future!

 After dumplings, I rolled (practically!) to the Yonghegong Lama Temple, which is an active Buddhist temple complex with multiple perhaps 10-15 different temples and an active monastery.  Yet again I was struck at how many devout Buddhists there seem to be in China; there were throngs in the entire complex burning incense and bowing and praying to different Buddha images.  I really need to do some more research about religion in China, as I really thought all religion was frowned on at least and banned at most by the government, but the multiple Buddhist temples and monasteries in the Beijing area seem to say otherwise.

 After the temple, I wandered down a nearby street to the Temple of Confucious, which housed several buildings where Confucius once taught, in addition to the old Imperial University and massive tablets with the engraved names of Chinese scholars who passed the ancient imperial exams.  There were several buildings where various emperors once taught as well.  I mentioned this in my 'strange picture' entry, but it seems to me that the Chinese people have a weird mix of disregard and reverence for cultural relics; they post numerous signs exhorting care and respect for old things, but then do not maintain them in environments conducive to lasting through the ages, or blatantly paint on them, for the sake of an official catalogue.

 The museum of Confucius was also very interesting as it walked through the life of the ancient sage and described his evolution to influence in China.  There was also an entire wing of the museum devoted to describing and exalting the influence his ideas, and therefore China, has had on the rest of the world, with pictures of world leaders 'worshipping' Confucius at various ceremonies.  It seems like Chinese people are very proud of the contributions of their country, but sometimes at least the English goes a little over the top in their descriptions!