Tai'an and Qufu

With free time between leaving Qingdao University dorms on July 20 and our plane home on July 26, Madison and I had one last opportunity to travel. While I initially contemplated a stay in Beijing, Madison proposed a quick journey to Tai’an and neighboring Qufu. A few of her friends from Missouri State were working at an English school in Tai’an for the summer; only 6 hours away by train, we were practically next-door neighbors in expansive China!

We decided to make the trip, securing our train tickets and, surprisingly, return tickets—saving us from having to buy return tickets once we arrived in Tai’an, a risky venture that rarely involves procuring the train tickets you actually want! Leaving our luggage with Hunter in Qingdao, we set off. After arriving in Tai’an at night, our taxi driver dropped us off in a place where there was no hostel in sight, swearing it was right around the corner and he couldn’t drive there! We were leery, but he refused to take us any further, so we exited the vehicle and asked some security guards for directions; they ended up escorting us to the hostel located on a pedestrian street that was, indeed, right around the corner.

On our first full day in Tai’an, we spent most of the day…sleeping! After having trouble sleeping in our mold-filled dorm room, it was so nice to be able to breath (as well as have air-conditioning) that we made up for lost time! Upon waking, we wandered around the small city, finding that it held everything that large cities have, except on a smaller scale. No offense to Tai’an, but I really wasn’t impressed with the city. The dirtiness and subtle stink, combined with few sidewalks (which meant walking on the edge of the streets) made wandering around unpleasant. The streets themselves were filled with potholes and, as we discovered later, easily flooded.

Tai’an mostly exists because it sits at the base of Tai Shan, considered one of the five sacred mountains in China and a place where emperors traditionally traveled to worship heaven and earth. In addition, local legend claims that a person who climbs Tai Shan will live to see 100 years! Despite the impressive history, Madison and I passed on the mountain, largely because we didn’t think the view would show anything except pollution. Also, after having climbed Huang Shan’s 1873 m, Tai Shan’s 1533 m didn’t seem as spectacular!

Instead of climbing, we met up with Madison’s friends Weston and Courtney, as well as a couple of other Missouri State students teaching at Camp China. They introduced us to “California Beef Noodle King,” a fast-food type restaurant that provided excellent (guess what?) beef noodles! Madison and I liked the place so much that we returned for dinner the next evening. :)

Thursday morning found us on a comfy air-conditioned bus to Qufu, an hour and a half trip for the low-low price of 20 RMB (about 3 US dollars). Qufu, the birthplace of Confucius, is smaller than Tai’an, but just as hot and dirty. Prior to visiting, I had learned that many people in Qufu will try to cheat tourists, so we were on our guard. The first example came immediately upon arrival to the city, where our first order of business was to buy return tickets; the teller tried to tell us tickets for 44 RMB, but we balked and headed for the next teller, who gave us an accurate price of 21! With the blog post proven, we continued to be careful, avoiding taxis and opting for the bus instead. Of course, we then ran into trouble with badly-labeled English signs, but at least we weren’t cheated!

Eventually, Madison and I found our way into the Confucius temple, which held a multitude of stone tablets mounted on the backs of gigantic turtle statues, as well as the Da Cheng Palace, where people offered sacrifices to Confucius. I most enjoyed the family temple (originally intended for the eldest male direct generational ancestors to worship in private) and the stone tablets inscribed with the family tree.

Confucius’s Cemetery, also called Confucius Forest, was also enjoyable. Entering, I couldn’t help thinking it looked like a scene out of a Tolkien book; Madison agreed, remarking, “Look out for Orcs!” Towering trees shaded us from the sun and cast shadows on the mounded earth covered with grass and undergrowth. It was only a little creepy to realize that each mound was a tomb, and the pleasant forest around us was the largest family graveyard in the world. While many of the graves are unmarked, some of the more important descendants (or richer!) have markers of varying sizes. Confucius’s tomb is particularly large, with a large stone marker indicating the huge grassy mound. His son and grandson are nearby, along with a particularly dedicated disciple.

Leaving the tourist groups at Confucius’s tomb, Madison and I went walking along the main path circling the forest. While dodging tourist vans speeding along, we enjoyed seeing parts of the forests that everyone else bypassed. The Ming tombs were especially interesting, guarded by pairs of stone lions, rams, horses and soldiers. During our stroll, we only saw 2 other people that had opted to walk around the forest, and one was white! The Chinese either rode buses around, or just saw Confucius’s tomb before leaving. What a shame.

Returning to Tai’an, we found that attempting to rip off “those white tourists” was not confined to Qufu. Attempting to return to California Beef Noodle King (doesn’t that name just make you smile?), I got into a spectacular fight with a taxi driver. Though the driver claimed he was driving by the meter, I could see from the passenger seat that the price started too high and climbed too high to be accurate. In Chinese, I pointed out the problem and asked for an explanation, which he could not provide. He eventually stopped the car to try to explain his “accurate” meter to me, but I pointed out that the meter had jumped while we were sitting still and Madison and I opened our doors to leave the vehicle. At that point, he offered me a flat fee of 10 RMB to get to our destination. Considering the meter was already at 9.5, I considered it an indication of guilt, but decided to go along, as 10 was very reasonable for the distance and it’s really hard to find taxis in Tai’an! Considering we hit traffic jams and had to take a lengthy detour, Madison and I definitely got the better end of the deal! The driver had turned off the meter when it hit 10, but I would have been curious to know how much it racked up by the time we finally got to the restaurant!

After eating and returning to the hostel, I went out to the pedestrian street to see if a movie was being projected on a screen, as it had on previous nights. As the first night I watched part of a Tom Cruise action movie, while the next night there was a Chinese drama playing as I walked by, I guessed it was a nightly tradition. Little more than a homemade screen in the middle of the street, the evening movie gathers a crowd, with people sitting on benches, stools, and between the parked mopeds. Old men smoke, children skateboard in the back, and mothers sit with sleeping babies. Workers in the restaurants that line the street even pull tables and chairs outside so patrons can eat or drink while they watch.

That evening, the movie was a Chinese martial arts film. Equipped with plenty of water to counter the sweltering heat, I settled onto the ground to watch extraordinary fight scenes and a story-line simple enough for me to follow once I differentiated between the “good guy” and the “bad guy.” At the end of the film, the good guy had lost his girl and turned into a drunk, somehow winding up drunkenly fighting in a boxing ring: Chinese vs. Westerners. To my amusement, the owner of the Western team was American, meaning that I could understand his English while the lack of subtitles meant my fellow viewers couldn’t, leaving them in the same boat I was in during the Chinese sections! A girl of about 6 who had steadily inched closer to me throughout the film, shyly asked what the man said. It was quite fun to translate threatening one liners like “If you lose, don’t come back” （如果你不赢的话，就不回来）and “A Chinese man can’t win.” （一个中国的人不能赢）. I didn’t quite manage “Finish him,” but I don’t think my friend really cared.

Participating in the movie event was my favourite part of Tai’an (and ranks among my best memories in China), though Tai’an is also memorable because of the Daoist Temple we visited on our finally day. After seeing many Buddhist Temple and a Confucius Temple, we were excited to finally see a Daoist Temple. Of course, it looked like most of the other temples, except with more nature! A drizzly day meant a lack of tour groups, so we wandered under trees and through gardens at our leisure. When rain poured down, we took shelter under umbrellas, archways and pagodas as we slowly made our way back to the entrance. Damp, we made our way through flooded streets to the train station. Even though I enjoyed parts of the Tai’an trip, I can’t say I wasn’t happy to go back to beautiful Qingdao!