September 28th is a special day in Taiwan: It is the birtdahy of the great teacher Confucius.
To honor the master there are ceremonies all over the island in various temples which are used to carry forth the tradition of Confucius and his teachings.
Being a good student requires you to get up early, that is why the ceremony starts at 6 AM. Therefore I got up at 4.30 AM that day...a lot of fun, he!?!
I was not the only one having some problems with this early time of the day, but I got up and was there on time.
Early morning in the taxiTo be able to participate we had to sign up and pay $100. We arrived around 5.30 AM, but, speaking about good students, there were a lot more enthousiastic ones around. This means that the temple was already pretty much filled. But we were lucky to find a good spot to observe the ceremony. Some disturbing ordors shall be ignored here.
The ceremony is as, to be expected, very tightly organised and consists of 30 something small parts.
In the centre of the scene are about 40 young boys, dressed in yellow silk robes, holding very long feathers in their hands. On both sides of them stands the orchestra, also only consisting of young people. I believe that there were some girls participating, but the long red silk robe made them all pretty much look a like. The orchestra was only palying wistle instruments, some special kind of flute. Looking at the main building of the temple, there is the main drum located, played by a juveline as well. The drum is the heartbeat of the ceremony, and sets the pace during the orchestral parts, as well when participants of the ceremony have to move.
Participants are welcomed and allowed to enter the scene according to their status. That means that the master of ceremony enters as the very last. This master of ceremony made the biggest impression of me. He was only supervising the ceremony, without any visual emotion or movement. He was litterally not moving during the about 2 hours lasting ceremony, except for entering and leaving.
The master of ceremony is moving towards his placeParts of the ceremony were for example burying the blood and hair of a sacred bull and sheep, which were slaughterd before the ceremony.
It was a great scene to observe the sincerety of the participants and their strong discipline, very much in the sense of a Confucian sholar.
The public on the other hand, was a typical touristic one. Everyone taking pictures, chatting, making noises and so forth. Nor concentrating, nor participating on the ceremony. Only the symbolic bow to honor Confucius caught everyones attention. You have to bow three times in a row to show your respect.
After the ceremony, teachers were asked to enter the stage and gifts between the mayor of Taipei Mr. Ma Yingjiu (馬英九) and them were exchanged. Meanwhile people were lining up to receive the "wisdom cake" handed in in the mainbuilding of the temple, located directly behind the stage.
Enough wisdom cake for everyone
Besides teachers, good students were also thanked for their effort towards education. The supposingly best students of the best school in Taipei were handed over gifts by the mayer, students of the universities were also praised.
Oooops, putting back the gift for Mr. Ma Yingjiu (馬英九)The medial coverage was very wide, a lot of photographers, camera teams, TV reporters and radio reporters were spreading the word of the ceremony to their audiences.
As we were standing in line to wait for our "wisdom cake", we were just standing at the bottom of the stairs to the stage, when Mr. Ma Yingjiu (馬英九) wanted to leave the same. Seeing us, he stopped for a second and asked Boukje, were she was from. I then decided quickly to ask him for a picture. Mr. Ma Yingjiu (馬英九) is supposed to be the next president of Taiwan, after the new election round has been held, as of signals can be interpreted by now.
Here we are: Mr. Ma Yingjiu (馬英九), Florian and Mod
The picture was a nice end of a great ceremony and a morning worth getting up at a time, when I am usually in the middle of my REM fase (RapidEyeMovement)...
