Tie Non: Happy Birthday Big C!/孔子、お誕生日おめでとう！/孔子生日快樂！

Supposedly, this is a blog about living in Tainan. However, I sure have been posting a lot about Japan recently. Let's take a break from Japan and wish Confucius a happy birthday!

There are Confucius Temples all over the world. Anywhere Han people have settled it seems, they've got and set up a Confucius Temple. Since Tainan is the first part of Taiwan that Han people settled in, the Confucius Temple in Tainan is the oldest in Taiwan. Every year on the philosopher's birthday, they have a ceremony. It starts at 5 or so in the morning. Ugh. Figures that all work and no play, stiff-collar Confucius would have a ceremony that requires getting up before the sun rises. If it were a Chuang Tzu ceremony, everyone would probably wander in at whatever time they wanted and loll about on the ground, and actually, there probably wouldn't be a ceremony. Or a temple either. Chuang Tzu would probably make fun of people who held ceremonies in his honor. This is why he's secretly the best Chinese philosopher.

At any rate, Confucius:

このブログは台南の生活についてと書かれているくせに、最近日本の旅ばかり書いている。今日は孔子の誕生日だったので、この機会を使って、台南の事を書いてみよう。

だいたいどの華僑が住み着いた地域にも、孔子廟が有る。（日本にも有る。）台湾もその例外ではない。あちらこちらに有るけど、一番最初に漢人が住み着いた台南には一番古い孔子廟が有る。毎年、孔子の誕生日に式典が有る。朝５時頃に始まるので、頑張って早起きして見に行った。

雖然根本這是臺南的部落格、可是我最近都寫的是日本的旅行。我趁著今天是孔子的生日寫一寫臺南的事情。

今天在臺灣最古的孔子廟有一個典禮。我努力在四點起床去看。太累了！

Some guy's cellphone in my photo.
携帯。邪魔。どけ。
我不認識的一個人的手機。

でかい太鼓が有った。

It gets lighter and lighter as the ceremony continues.
因為早上、越來越亮了。

だんだん明るく成る。

Kids with feathers.

参加した子供達。

孔子、生日快樂！（其實我比較喜歡莊子的哲學。）

Scouts helping out with crowd control.

I think I may have posted a photo of this instrument once before, whenever the last time I visited this temple was. But here it was outside and lit up by the sun, so this is a much better photo. They must have used it in the ceremony. You stroke the tiger's back to produce some sort of sound with the bits that stick up.

這是一個樂器。擦老虎的背後、就發音了。

これは式典で使用された楽器の一つだ。虎の背中を撫でたら、出ているやつらは響いて音を出す。

And these are pitched, uh, I don't know what to call them. They're like gongs, but made of stone.

這些也是樂器。是打的。

これも楽器だ。銅鑼みたいな感じだけど、石で出来ている。

Now, on a totally unrelated note, when my friends and I were leaving the temple, we happened across an entirely different celebration at a totally unrelated temple. Tainan has a bajillion temples, and each one celebrates the birthday of the god housed within on a certain day of the year. This one just happened to be today. This is a good chance to see what a typical Taiwanese temple celebration is like. To get the full effect, blow some fire works up around you while you look at the photos so that you can suffer hearing damage and breath in smoke.

では、以上の孔子廟と全く関係無い話に移す。帰っている途中、別の廟が騒いでいて、行ってみたらこちらも何かの式典をやっていた。多分この廟の神様の誕生日会だと思う。聞いた話では、どの廟にも年に一回有る。偶々ここはこの日で、俺達が通っていた。

我跟朋友離開了孔子廟、就遇到另外一座廟的典禮。跟孔子都沒關係。我猜應該是這座廟的神的生日。對臺灣人、尤其是臺南人、這件事太普通、看這些照片應該都沒有意思。我為了給臺灣以外的人看臺灣廟的樣子、把這些貼到了。臺灣人可以隨便看一看、可是應該是你們有看過的樣子。