Folks use avatars to attend the Cloud Confucius Memorial Ceremony on Wednesday. Picture: Courtesy of the Confucius Cultural Competition
Folks participate within the Confucius Memorial Ceremony in Jiaozhou, Shandong Province, on September 28. Picture: VCG
On Wednesday, grand memorial ceremonies had been held round China to pay tribute to Confucius, the good Chinese language thinker, politician and educator who lived throughout the Sixth-Fifth centuries BC.
Often attending certainly one of these ceremonies includes taking day out to get all dressed up and making one’s method to a temple or different venue the place a standard ceremony is being held.
However for some folks, attending the Confucius Memorial Ceremony was only a matter of some button clicks this time.
With only one click on attendees discovered themselves fully dressed and able to go. A second later, they had been beamed as much as an enormous corridor, the place they picked one of the best seats in the home to expertise the Confucius Memorial Ceremony.
Whereas this will likely sound like magic, it was really digital actuality (VR) expertise that introduced the worldwide occasion that was Confucius’ 2,573rd birthday to the metaverse on Wednesday.
The expertise permits China’s historical and profound Confucian tradition to fully break via the boundaries of time and house in order that numerous folks might immerse themselves in a fusion of custom and modernity within the metaverse occasion often called the Cloud Confucius Memorial Ceremony.
The event of the Confucius Memorial Ceremony demonstrates not solely the continual development of science and expertise, but in addition China’s means to take care of its glorious conventional tradition via artistic and revolutionary means.
Conserving tempo with occasions
To take part within the VR ceremony, individuals merely wanted to decide on their avatars via their cell phone or a pc after which use these avatars to discover the primary venue within the metaverse: a 600-seat auditorium – with 20 VIP seats – with a large curved display that displayed numerous movies to convey individuals a “actual” expertise.
With a view to make the occasion extra unique and ceremonial, the venue additionally sported a Confucius-inspired cover and shows of 28 themed posters associated to Confucian tradition in order that guests might really feel a powerful cultural environment as quickly as they entered the auditorium.
The “metaverse” is a extremely popular idea presently. Subsequently, because the age of metaverse is approaching, how Confucian tradition can illustrate its worth and present new power is a matter cultural departments all through China have been enthusiastic about.
“In previous years, joint Confucius memorial ceremonies have been held on-line. The core content material is to conduct numerous actions to worship and pay tribute to Confucius and different philosophers and students of Confucianism,” Zhang Bo – director of certainly one of organizers of the occasion, the Cultural Heritage Improvement Heart in Jining, Shandong Province – advised the World Instances. The county-level metropolis of Qufu, the birthplace of Confucius, is positioned in Jining.
“New strategies to exhibit the ceremony can entice extra folks to participate within the inheritance and improvement of the tradition,” Zhang famous.
The countless progress of Confucian tradition is exactly because of the idea of “preserving tempo with the occasions,” and the inheritance and improvement of tradition within the new period requires a bunch of inheritors who’ve the braveness to face on the forefront of the occasions to carry out their duties and obligations, analysts mentioned.
In a press convention held final week, a number of Confucius temples and establishments concerned within the Cloud Confucius Memorial Ceremony known as on Chinese language folks at residence and overseas to cross on Chinese language civilization, carry ahead Chinese language tradition and spotlight the knowledge of Confucian tradition.
The Cloud Confucius Memorial Ceremony up to now allowed conventional Chinese language rituals and music be displayed in an environment friendly method and carried ahead the Confucian idea of “benevolence” so it could possibly be unfold around the globe, Wang Chengshan, editor-in-chief of the web site Chinakongzi beneath the China Confucius Basis, identified.
Cherishing Confucius’ knowledge
On Wednesday morning, Confucius memorial ceremonies had been held round China.
Within the nice thinker’s hometown Qufu, tons of of attendees took half in a ceremony within the morning on the Temple of Confucius, together with native senior officers, international envoys, students and Confucius’ descendants.
Constructed to commemorate and supply sacrifices to Confucius in 478 BC, the Temple of Confucius has been rebuilt a number of occasions over the centuries. The temple is the prototype and mannequin for all of the Confucius temples all through East and Southeast Asia, significantly by way of format and magnificence. Since 1994, the Temple of Confucius has been a part of the UNESCO World Heritage Website “The Temple and Cemetery of Confucius and the Kong Household Mansion in Qufu.”
Parallel memorial ceremonies additionally came about in Confucius temples in cities corresponding to Harbin in Northeast China’s Heilongjiang Province, Fuzhou in East China’s Fujian Province and Hangzhou in East China’s Zhejiang Province.
Along with the Confucius Memorial Ceremony, the Worldwide Confucius Cultural Competition was launched with the worldwide Nishan Discussion board, an area to debate tradition and civilization, in addition to a Confucius Tradition Week for Chinese language and international college students.
Based in 1989, the Worldwide Confucius Cultural Competition is without doubt one of the largest nationally and internationally supported tourism festivals integrating tradition, tourism, and scholarly and scientific analysis with the purpose of selling historical Chinese language tradition.
By the tip of 2019, there have been 550 Confucius Institutes and 1,172 Confucius School rooms in 162 international locations and areas around the globe. Their purpose is to deepen worldwide understanding of Chinese language language and tradition and promote inter-personal exchanges between China and different international locations.
