China Part 2

So we eat lunch…can’t even begin to tell you what it was…they’re all blending in together…a tilt-a-whirl lazy Susan spin…head spinning. Are we tired of eating yet? I mean, there is a lot of food at each meal. When we’re active, it’s okay, but sitting in buses or in a class room…my belly growls. The lecture today was about Confucius. Pretty interesting history about this “teacher,” not philosopher.

After lunch, we go to his birthplace. He was born in a cave, ya know, and then brought back to Qufu by a tiger. So, we’ve seen photos of his birthplace and it looks serene, like where he should have been born. In the woods…secluded…special. We hop on a bus to drive 45 minutes out into the country, past people in the fields everywhere, through almost ghost towns; poor-looking villages with dirty, muddy streets and building supplies —bricks and such— all over. Goat-tenders and wheat dryers. Cyclists. Everyone stares at us, or maybe the huge bus we’re in. Each house we pass in these run-down villages has a beautiful tile mural inside the main entrance. But surrounding each house is stuff. Bricks, wood, corn drying on the roof, wheat schwag, bicycles. The road is randomly good, then bad, or non-existent. The corn in the fields we pass had been flattened by last night’s storm.

There’s only one way to get to the birthplace, and it’s obviously not visited by many. There didn’t seem to be much signage, but how would I know. We park the bus and scrambled down a road toward the birth site. There’s a hug crater with construction trailers on the edge. There’s a backhoe excavating a gigantic pit and Confucius’ cave sits, perched above the crater with the scar of the dig just a foot below the entrance. An artist’s rendition hangs near the crater. The Chinese government is revamping the site. I guess it is prone to flooding. Across the road from the crater is a ramshackle house. Chickens run around. Three ducks fight for the top of a melon. A little mangy dog gnaws on a dead bird. Up the hill is a canvas beekeeper’s tent.

Above the cave sits a temple at the top of a hill. Confucius taught his students iinside the walls...they love their walls and gates here. Unbelievably serene. The courtyards are filled with old cedars and stone walkways, covered in moss, lead us to tablets, more gates and houses. Bees buzz above and centipedes crawl below.