benlehman

So, yesterday I came into the city of Qufu (in Shandong province, two hours by bus south from the capital of Ji'nan), which is distinguished from other faceless Chinese industrial cities by the fact that, 2500 years ago, when it was it's own city state, it was called Lu, and in Lu there was a minor noble who's pro-ritual, pro-education, humanistic views caused him to self-exile from his home state for many years and wander around failing to get a government job. He eventually gave up, returned home, married, taught a free school, had some kids, and died mostly forgotten except by his grandson and a few very committed disciples. After his death, he was called by the name Kongzi, which in pseudo-latin translation became Confucious.

You may have heard of him.

If you have, it's mostly due to the efforts of his grandson to popularize his teachings, and because a particular Han emporer found the message of "treat people properly" more appealing than constant ritual blood sacrifices or facism, which were the two alternative methods of govt offered at the time.

The story goes that Confucious chose the particular place he was buried because it had good Feng Shui. His disciples questioned him, pointing out that there was no river running by it. He said "In time, a river will run through it."

During the Qin dynasty, all books were outlawed, and the government fought a brutal police war to supress other philosophies, most particularly the Confucian school. As part of this, Qinshi Huangdi had the river diverted into Confucious's gravesite, in order to desecrate it, but the river flowed around his grave, thus sanctifying the site.

I sincerely doubt this story is true. By all accounts (such as the key book of his school!) he was not particularly interested in supernatural things or prophecies. It would have been surprisingly out of character, but it does make a good story.

Well, today I woke up and the air is so full of mist I think I'm in the redwoods (but colder) and there's no hot water in the shower 'cause it's solar and it doesn't matter I feel great! Hydrated for the first time in... a long time! I went up north out of town a ways and paid a ridiculous sum (30 yuan) to enter the Confucian Forest, the site of said tomb. I walk through this Man, that Qin emporer couldn't direct trench-building for shit It's, like, at least 200 meters from Confucious's (clearly marked) grave.

There were a ton of loud tourists around the gravesites of Confucious, his son (epitath: He died before his father without significant accomplishment), and grandson. It was really hard to concentrate or spend any time with the sites, but it wasn't all bad. I met a really cute little girl and spoke Chinese with her, much to the amusement of her parents (she called me "little uncle," which was the cutest. That's the traditional thing for Chinese children to call adult men, but I usually just get "foreigner" instead.)

Then I went wandering. The grave is in a carefully preserved forest (damnit, I wish I was Emily and knew the tree names), and the air was full of mist, so full you couldn't see 100 meters ahead. The site has been used for tombs by the clan since at least to Song dynasty, when a clever emporer bestowed a dukedom on the Kong family, and probably beforehand as well. Everywhere there are tombs and tablets, some of the tombs even open (I didn't dare crawl in) and in various stages of preservation and decay. I went deep into the woods, far away from the crowds, until I couldn't hear anything except the birds finding each other and the squirrels rustling through dry leaves. Surrounded by twisting fog, I sat on a half-broken down stone goat (proper Qing era tombs have 4 types of stone figures, three of which are animals) and watched the mist play through the trees, and the caretakers of tricycle mopeds carting off dry brush and undergrowth. It was gorgeous, and smelled like life and growing things. Literally, this forest is the most beautiful of all the sites I'd been to in China.

I wrote a poem which I won't bother you with, and thought about all sorts of things in my head, which more later maybe, wandered more, tried to make out the classical inscriptions on the sites, got lost off the path, turned around, and found myself back at Confucious's tomb. There were miraculously only a few people there, and I got to go up to the altar and look.

There is recorded in the Analects a conversation between the master and his students, as the master goes to live amongst the barbarians. "Master," says the student, "you are a great proponent of civilization. How can you go live with the barbarians?"

"If I am living with them," says Kongzi, "how can they fail to be civilized?"

I thought about that, and about my life, when I saw the tomb. The book of his school, and thus his thought, has had really significant effect on my life -- it has helped me through dark times and helped me be a better person. And I thought about me, this foreigner ghost-devil, the barbarian, and this man from Lu, 2500 years ago, and how he touched my life through all the time and across all that space.

It worked for this barbarian.