Abstract
28 August 2013. I travelled from Beijing to the Temple of Confucius (Kongmiao) in the historic town of Qufu, Shandong Province. Celebrated for being the hometown of Confucius, the town exudes a quiet charm, which contrasts sharply with the cacophonous hustle and bustle of Beijing. Seeking inspiration for my research on Confucian political thought, I quickly made my way to the Confucius Temple, which is known as China’s largest and oldest. The vast temple complex, together with the Cemetery of Confucius and the Kong Family Mansion, has been listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1994. Walking through the well-kept courtyards, I could not help but wonder if this was the same path trodden by those who had sought to desecrate the memory of Confucius here in 1966.1
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Notes
I refer here to the ‘Annihilate the Kong Family Business Rally’ in Qufu, which took place during the Cultural Revolution. See Sang Ye and Geremie R. Barmé, ‘Commemorating Confucius in 1966–67: The Fate of the Confucius Temple, the Kong Mansion and Kong Cemetery’, China Heritage Quarterly 20 (December 2009), available at http://www.chinaheritagequarterly.org/scholarship.php?searchterm=020_confucius.inc&issue=020 (accessed 30 October 2014).
In full, the ‘Protection of the Rights and Interests of Elderly People’ law. Edward Wong, ‘A Chinese Virtue Is Now the Law’, New York Times (2 July 2013), available at http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/03/world/asia/filial-piety-once-a-virtue-in-china-is-now-the-law.html?_r=0 (accessed 20 November 2014).
See Raymond Dawson, The Chinese Experience (London: Phoenix Press, 2005), p. 75.
Feng Lan, Ezra Pound and Confucianism: Remaking Humanism in the Face of Modernity (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2005), p. 191.
See, for instance, Will Hutton, ‘Beyond the scandal lies a crisis at the heart of China’s legitimacy’, Guardian (15 April 2012), available at http://www. theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/apr/15/will-hutton-chinese-spring-inevitable (accessed 18 November 2014).
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Yeophantong, P. (2016). Conversations with Confucius (551–479 BCE). In: Lebow, R.N., Schouten, P., Suganami, H. (eds) The Return of the Theorists. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137516459_3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137516459_3
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