From the Hayashi Department Store we make our way towards our next goal, the Tainan Confucius Temple. As Tainan was the capital for a period there are quite a few temples and interesting buildings and the area from Hayashi to the Confucius Temple is full of impressive buildings. They are still used now, some are museums, some are offices and some are schools, which is probably the more surprising use of an old building we think.
At least there is a map in the middle of this quarter and we do our best to orient ourselves to find the entrance to the temple. It is quite hot outside and we already walked for a long time along the exterior way but cannot locate the entrance.
The map helps and we find the exterior door through the walls that leads to the free garden and the interior gate that leads to the temple. Unfortunately this is one of the few temples that charge for entrance but there is no way after we suffered through the heat that we are not going to pay to enter.
There is surprisingly a tour group visiting but luckily it is just exiting so we have the interior courtyard to ourselves. With a few more people but at least not with a whole tour group. The centerpiece of the courtyard is the temple and that is where we are headed, wonder how it looks inside?
We gp inside and to our surprise it is much less impressive than the other temples we have visited previously. As this is a Confucian Temple it is focused more on sayings and phrases that are part of Confucian philosophy.
There are no deities here, in the usual alcoves are various principles and sayings or so we assume. There is little information on site and the small informational booklet given to us at the entrance does not explain them.
Otherwise there are only a few tools inside and a bit disappointed we exit the temple. At least now we have an idea how Confucian Temples look like. From outside though the details are quite nice and it looks comparable to the other temples we have seen in Taiwan.
There is a small museum explaining Confucianism and its relationship with music which it believes is a tool for social harmony. A such music is held in high regard and is part of the Confucian ceremonies with a nice collection of musical instruments being shown in the museum.
There are also other ceremonial objects with some good descriptions, and we enjoy exploring this religion which might otherwise seem quite alien to us.
There is also a smaller subtemple and this one is more vividly painted but there are still no gods shown, that is likely the major difference versus the other temples on the island which are full of God statues.
While there are no God representation there are many bird and animal representations including doves. I guess this is our religion then, it cares about birds and animals or so we think.
We also learn about the sword dance, there is an entire wall dedicated to the movement of this dance. This whole section is dedicated to objects used in the dance including a small tiger which is quite cute really.
And of course fake swords, there have to be swords for the sword dance. And lots of gongs and triangles or whatever those tools are, it would be fun to see one of those dances live to understand how everything fits together.
And then it is time to exit this interesting temple that gave us an inside view of a religion that is not common in Western countries. Now we are planning to slowly return to the hotel while taking a detour to take in more of the city and to visit the Magistrate Residence.
