28. 祭礼 (jì lǐ)
孔子 (kǒng zǐ) - Confucius Statue in Liuzhou
During Mao’s Cultural Revolution (1966-1976 approx), 儒学 (rú xué) -Confucianism was derided as a backward superstition and followers of the philosophy were imprisoned or even killed. Yet its influence remained everywhere. Around 2010, the powers that be in the Chinese Communist Party decided that Confucianism’s paternalism and filial piety was exactly what they needed some of, so they co-opted the philosophy for their own ends, remembering that
QuotePositing a parallel between the nature of reciprocal responsibilities of individuals in different roles in two domains of social organization, in the Analects Confucius linked filial piety in the family to loyalty in the political realm:
"It is rare for a person who is filially pious to his parents and older siblings to be inclined to rebel against his superiors… Filial piety to parents and elder siblings may be considered the root of a person. Analects (1.2)
Csikszentmihalyi, Mark, "Confucius", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2020 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = <https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2020/entries/confucius/>. “
So they duly started being Confucian, opening Confucian temples all over China, including this one in Liuzhou. They claimed it was built on the site of a former temple, destroyed in the 1960s, but no one believes that and certainly no one remembers it.
They held a grand opening ceremony in September 2010 The Confucian disciples were students from the nearby university dressing up for the day, but we did get the surreal sight of the Liuzhou Party Chief sacrificing his dignity by bowing to the superstition that would have had him killed 40 years earlier.
The ritual of dedicating the temple also involved non-voluntary sacrifice, known in Chinese as 祭礼 (jì lǐ) – ritual sacrifice. A pig is slaughtered and its head put up for Confucius to presumably dine on from beyond the grave. In case the pig gets lonely, a cow is given the same treatment.
Pig’s heads (猪头 - zhū tóu) are not uncommon. Millions of pigs are slaughtered every day in China and they all have heads. Usually parts of the head, cheeks, brain, ears, snout, lips etc. are sold separately (some members may remember Cameron’s face), but at festivals such as New Year etc, a whole head may be braised and served for a feast. I’ve never seen the cow’s head served up in a similar fashion.
The head is shaved, blow-torched, washed and blanched, then a slow braise with copious spices and aromatics: ginger, chilli pepper, bay leaf, cassia bark, star anise, Sichuan peppercorns, 13-spice powder, rice wine, sugar, salt, light soy sauce and dark soy sauce. After about an hour, it is ready to eat, but the meat is often removed and fried with other ingredients.
An earless* 3 kg / 6 lb head costs around $10 USD.
Ears are sold separately.