As the dear reader may know, I like both big statues and watching clips from CGTN to keep on top of what is "in" with the Chinese government at the moment, hence this recent clip of a Confucian centre at his birthplace caught my eye:
(And, seriously, once again I find myself wishing China had a more "normal" regime to which Westerners could feel safe visiting, because it's clear there are many, many awesome looking places to see. That library looks fantastic, although I doubt it caters to English readers.)
I thought that this video might have appeared because the statue, or accompanying centre, was new; but I see online that the statue (if not the whole centre) was opened 6 years ago. I must have missed that.
CGTN has lots of videos up endorsing the philosopher, including a stream of the recent, annual, "Grand Ceremony of Worship of Confucius" featuring lots of costume and dance and a precision that makes you worry for the wellbeing of anyone who might make a mistake.
Anyhow, this got me thinking that I was pretty sure Confucianism was on the outer for quite a while in China, but clearly the Party has revised its view of him. I could watch a CGTN produced forum discussion about this*, but instead, I went to extremely erudite Religion for Breakfast channel to watch his video the Confucian revival:
Well worth watching, as is virtually every single video he puts out. My only complaint is that sometimes I think his delivery is so rapid and dense, I can tell I won't remember much of it, as it is too fast to process.
* I haven't watched much of it, except I am amused to see it does say the worship ceremony has it origins from the 1980's!
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