Confucian temple in Dujiangyan hosts lecture series

The Confucian temple in Dujiangyan - a southwestern city in Sichuan province known for its irrigation system - began a series of lectures on June 12, during the Chinese Dragon Boat Festival.

Zeng Zaozhuang, a professor at Sichuan Normal University, gave a lecture on the festival and Su Shi, an ancient Chinese poet who wrote about the festival a lot in his articles and poems.

The Dragon Boat Festival, which many people regard as a festival in memory of ancient patriotic poet Qu Yuan who lived in 2,000 years ago, was originally a festival for people to drive away plague, according to Zeng.

"It was because Qu died on the same day that people began to commemorate him at the festival by making Zongzi, or rice-dumplings, and rowing dragon boats," Zeng said.

The festival, along with other traditional Chinese festivals such as Spring Festival, Middle Autumn Festival and the Double Ninth Festival, is also celebrated by other Asian nations including Japan, Vietnam, PRK and ROK.

The Confucian Temple in Dujiangyan dates back to the ninth century, and was destroyed in the magnitude-8.0 Wenchuan earthquake in 2008. Dujiangyan local government rebuilt the temple and reopened it in May, trying to restore China's "six classical arts" –archery, ritual, music, horse-riding, calligraphy and mathematics –and to promote studies of ancient Chinese culture.

A series of lectures on studies of traditional Chinese culture will continue to be held every month from this lecture on.