Visiting Tainan, you cannot
miss the Confucius Temple which also known as “the First School in Taiwan.” The
Confucius Temple was built in when Zheng Chenggong’s son, Zheng Jing ruled
Taiwan. At first, it now built for educating people, and now it is the First
Class historical site in Tainan. Today, I’ll lead you to enjoy the beauty of
Confucius Temple. The Confucius Temple is a area with several buildings. To
enter the area, you have to pass a gate with a board saying “The First School
in Taiwan.”
In the area, you can see two pailous(牌樓)- Chinese architectural gateway- named “Ceremony Gate”(禮門) and “Justice Way”(義路) which means that
if people want to learn from Confucius, they have to follow the ceremony and
justice which are the traditional Chinese etiquette. Many people may think that
most of the traditional Chinese buildings look alike, but actually, they are
completely wrong. Taking a close look at the buildings, you could find something
interesting and meaningful. The pic bellow is “Ceremony Gate”. On the roof, you
can see to creatures. They are called Chiwen(鴟吻). Legend has it
that dragon has nine sons, and Chiwen is one of them with dragon head and fish body.
Chiwen is used as a decoration on the buildings for preventing them from
catching fire.
Da Cheng Dian(大成殿) is the center of the area. There are also some meaningful decorations on the building. Some birds can be seen on both sides of the roof. The bird is Chi Xiao(鴟鴞) . They are known as bad birds. Then why there are bad birds on the temple. It means that no matter what kinds of students, Confucius can teach them. Through his teaching, even bad creatures can become good.
Although I have been to the Confucius Temple for countless of time since the residents of Tainan can enter without any fees, I have never noticed these decorations you mentioned above, especially the bad birds on the roof! The origins and the purposes are so interesting and meaningful! I will definitely remember these stories and tell my friends next time when they visit Confucius Temple!
回覆刪除By the way, did you shop in the souvenir store in the Confucius Temple? There are many traditional and interesting stuffs! For example, the printing on the back of the postcards it sold are all closely related to the Chinese culture, and so do the stamps! I used to send these postcards to foreigners, and they all like these postcards very much.
Oh and did you pay a visit to Fuchung Street? There are many worth seeing stuffs!
I remember there are vendors both teaching and selling the easy-making traditional Taiwanese snack called 椪糖. Have you try it before?
Thanks again for telling such interesting and meaningful origins! I am looking forward to your next article:)
Temples are always built with deep meaning! I'm glad that you're enjoying it. I think I missed the souvenir store and the snack you mention above. Thanks for your recommendation and I think I'll go there again!
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