Fengqing Confucian Temple: Veneration of Confucius

Before the annual university entrance examination in China, southwest Yunnan’s Fengqing Confucian Temple is packed with people who come to wish for good grades. This is a tradition which has lasted for several hundred years.

Yang Mingzhu, over 50 years old, is a local in Fengqing County. His daughter came to worship Confucius before the university entrance examination. As he recalled, local government used to hold Confucius-worship ceremony when he was young. 

The construction of Fengqing Confucian Temple started in 1606. Covering an area of nearly 10,000 square meters, it went through numerous restoration in the history and is now a provincial cultural relics protection site.

In the Ming(1368-1644) and Qing(1644-1912) Dynasties, a large number of Han people migrated to Fengqing. For the then government, building Confucian temples and disseminating Confucianism was regarded as a way of effectively centralizing the thoughts of local ethnic groups. 

By Liu Jiatong of Daguan Weekly, Edited by Zhang Rui, Photographs by Meng Zhigang