Confucius' Birthday / National Teacher's Day

The birthday of the great sage and scholar Confucius is venerated throughout China as 'National Teacher's Day', in honour of his didactic contributions and work.

His birthday falls on two dates every year, one according to the Gregorian calendar (on the 28 September) and the other one according to the Chinese lunar calendar. Luckily for Western timekeepers and tourists, the Taiwanese celebrate on the 28 September every year.

The celebrations are at their most spectacular in the Taipei Confucian Temple, which is dedicated not only to Confucius but to all scholars and teachers through the ages. The celebrations consist of beautiful and elaborate ritual dances performed by students outside the temple, as well as a memorial service held for the great scholar.

During the memorial service it is traditional to sacrifice an ox, the hairs of which are said to be posthumously imbued with wisdom. You can imagine the crowds of stressed-out students, parents, scholars and even lecturers crowding to get a piece of the action and provide either themselves or their loved ones with that vital 'hair's breadth' of academic luck and prowess...

You will notice that the temple itself is relatively austere and unadorned, without images or inscriptions on the walls. The lack of pictures and images is due to the pedantic rage of one Emperor Tai Tsu, of the 14th-century Ming dynasty, who got so upset by the different likenesses of the sage that adorned his temples throughout the land that he banned images, declaring that henceforth Confucian temples would only have memorial tablets in them.