Today, we visited the hometown of Confucius, and we saw the family tomb, the Confucius temple and mansion. It was super cool to see the hundreds of tombs in the cemetery and the mansion where dozens of generations of his descendants lived. Confucius' grave was very humbling, because we were able to see the grave of a man who has influenced thousands of years of Chinese history and culture. Learning about the long history of Confucius' family's history and the ways that his teachings spread was an interesting insight into the way Chinese culture works and the philosophy of the ordinary citizen of China. One of the stories that our tour guide told us about Confucius and his life story was how once when Confucius was teaching a class when he was very old, he fell asleep while giving a lecture. Because he had told his students that he was never tired when he was teaching. One impertinent student thought it would be funny to point out the hypocrisy of his sleeping while giving a lesson. Because Confucius was a very clever man, he told his student that he wasn't sleeping, he was speaking with the dream God. The next day, Confucius noticed that the very student that had called him out on sleeping yesterday was sleeping in his class. Hoping to get him back for mocking him the day before, Confucius asked him if he too, had been speaking with the dream God. In reply to that, the student, who was also very clever replied,"yes, and he told me that you weren't taking with him yesterday". This is a story told by people to show the personality of Confucius and to teach a lesson about being respectful to teachers and superiors.
-Katie Schorr