30 Hour Trip Part 2: Qufu

After arriving at the base of Taishan, we took a 45 minute taxi cab ride to Qufu, Confucius' hometown. I was especially excited to make this trip because my Chinese last name is Kong, Confucius' last name (in Chinese). Everyone in China with the last name of Kong is somehow descended from Confucius. Even though I realize I'm not really a descendant of Confucius (really?), I was still excited. It was also appropriate because last Thursday's lesson was all about Confucius. We saw where Kongzi (Confucius' Chinese title) and many of his family members as well as his most famous student, Mengzi, was buried (see picture: green mound on left is Confucius' burial place, stone is commemorating Mengzi). Mengzi took over Confucianism after Kongzi died and further developed his ideology. I thought it was a strange atmosphere because it was kind of like an overgrown park with tall stone tablets seemingly randomly placed in overgrown grassy areas.

After visiting the cemetery, we took a bicycle powered carriage (see picture) to Kongzi's palace (see a picture of a doorway to the gardens). This is where government people took care of business and also where Kongzi and his descendants lived. Kongzi had 3 sons, the middle one deciding to continue to live in his house. It was Kongzi's 77th generation of descendants that decided they weren't going to live there anymore. Talk about a long history! We didn't have time to go to Confucius' temple, but it was still great to see what we could.

We didn't have return tickets to Beijing yet, so we took a bus back to Tai'an to try to find tickets. We tried to buy return tickets when we first arrived in Tai'an the night before, but all train tickets (except for standing room only) were all sold out until Monday. Since we hadn't officially sat down for a meal yet, and were physically and mentally exhausted, standing for 6 hours into the wee hours of the night was not an option. The Olympics has basically turned Beijing into somewhat of a one way out city. We finally found a bus that left at 2:30 pm and arrived in Beijing at about 9:30 pm.

On the bus on the way back, a Chinese college student came back to talk to me. He said that a lot of Chinese people want to talk to foreigners, but are too shy and are afraid they will say no (which made me glad I didn't say I was too tired to talk!) He went home for the weekend and was heading back to Beijing because he has an internship in the Olympic village catering and serving food. One interesting part of our conversation was about Beijing life. I asked him if he wanted to stay in Beijing after graduation to work and he said that he doesn't know. His older cousin works in Beijing and has already gotten stress-related illnesses. He said he thinks that Beijing life is just too fast for him. I thought this was interesting because while Beijing is by far bigger than any American city (and obviously faster than country life), it is also much slower than cities like Chicago or New York. A lot of factors obviously play into the speed of your individual life, but on the whole, Beijing life is definitely slower than an American city.