We were visiting Chaozhou, my gramps hometown….
When we stumbled across this memorial that was erected for Han Yu.
If you know who Han Yu is then get the hell out of here, you are too smart for me.
But if you don’t know, then please stay so I can educate you through my crazy good, quick googling skills.
# 1 – About Han Yu
Han Yu was a Chinese poet and government official during the Tang Dynasty. He was a central authority in political and cultural matters.
He sounds very smart.
# 2 – He is considered as one of the finest poets in China.
His literature has been compared to those of Shakesphere, and is considered one of the Eight Great Prose Masters of Tang / Song dynasty.
What the fuck is Prose?
Per wikipedia, it is a form of language that exhibits a natural flow of speech and grammatical structure rather than traditional poetry.
I have no idea what I just wrote.
# 3 – Han Yu was very opposed to Buddhism.
He thought Buddhism as a relgion was from Barbaric origins, thus was not suitable for the Chinese.
Interesting. Not going to get into a religious debate here.
# 4 – He is a leader of Confucianism
In a peirod where Confucian was in decline, he came to the defense of this ideology.
Han Yu would also later become one of the important influences on Neo-Confucianism.
This was good, I learned a bit today.
That’s what this blog is all about, being a vehicle for my leanings (hah!).
Side note – we got into the memorial for free we met this old man on the streets who volunteered to take us around Chaozhou.
Apparently if you have an elder with you, you get in for free?
Thank you old man!
Written from Hong Kong, Home on April 4, 2018
EAT SOME CHOI 