There was another museum, or more like an exhibition hall here as well! So don't miss that if you made it this far! I'm so glad I eventually decided to visit this place. It was so much more informative and larger than the Confucius temple I've visited in the past.
This is a photo of the roof tops of the building in the area. I thought it looked distinctively Chinese. Again, the colours draws me to it, bright red, green trees, and grey looking buildings. Simple yet elegant.
Some of the grounds near the exit area. Same colour scheme :)
I guess I got distracted by the buildings outside, but here onwards let's focus on the inside. It was similar in nature to the two halls we saw at the main temple area. Scenes of ancient time scholars going about their daily life.
I like this scene. It looked like that scene from Mulan when she stands at the Forbidden City looking out during the festival. I guess this is what the scholars at the palace might have looked at when they were there too?
There were cool desk setup inside the exhibit as well, wooden of course. And calligraphy and traditional Chinese ink painting hangs on the wall as deco.
Some information and flags related to Confucius.
Some of the ink painting that I found amusing or interesting.
A painting of the God of Literature. Hahaha, I guess students come here to pray to it. It seems pretty common for Chinese kids to go pray at the temple for good grades before an exam. I didn't know that was a thing before. My family didn't seems too religious in that sense.
An exhibit explaining about classroom order in the imperial academy. Isn't it cool that they have imperial school? What does that mean? That you study for the emperor? That when you pass your exam, you work as an imperial officer helping with imperial business? Kinda like civil service I guess. It was such a big deal in the olden days cause not everyone was educated or had the chance to study.
Above is a sample of an example paper. I wonder how the format of the exam was like in the olden days. Surely it wasn't like our modern day exams of math and science? Perhaps it was more of essays? Classic memorisation? From someone who grew up in an English educated family but being throw to study in a Chinese school, I basically got through my exams by memorising a lot of text!
Above, distinction roll! We always hear this term when we were studying, to have your name on the golden pole. It means you did so well in the exam that your name appeared here. I've actually have my name mentioned in official sources before, once for my PMR examination result my name appeared in the Chinese News Paper! I scored almost a perfect score for all subjects except Chinese! Hahahaha. The second time was during my post graduate school, I was in position top 11 in my cohort in my 2nd year. After that I deferred my course for one semester for travel, and to wait for my friend to catch up so that we could graduate together :) I couldn't have imagined my life in postgrad without him.
A few altar sites. Was that paper money being offered?
More altar site. I like this one because of the red and blue colour.
Wooden signs. I think these are used in the annual prayers.
It wasn't a big museum, so after an hour or so we were out again and I spotted this blue-ish dragon outside and decided to take a photo of it. It seems people touch the head for luck? Or for passing exams more likely. To the Chinese, everything seems to be auspicious in a temple!
Before leaving the place, I took more photos of the three door gate.
A different angle. Love the green surrounding the place.
Zoom in on the wordings at the top of the gate. Something about knowledge and dragons? Knowledge of a quiet dragon? Lol. Frankly I can't tell if it's read from left to right, or right to left. I can just understand the characters individually and get the gist of it.
Souvenir shot of us with Confucius. He has been my source of nightmare when I was studying. But as I grew older, I was a fan of the English translated text of his. And now, older and wiser, sometimes I can read the Chinese text and actually make sense of it! It's a love and hate relationship I have with this language! But I am so happy that China finally opened up the Visa for my passport to be able to visit it. Cause I find that I am learning so much more about it now. Even in just this one single trip, I learned so much about Beijing, China, and Chinese culture and history!
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