Walking beneath the canopy of ancient banyan and flame trees along Nanmen Road in West Central District, Tainan, visitors encounter a long vermilion brick wall leading to the Eastern Dacheng Archway. Directly above the whitewashed portal crowned with swallowtail eaves hangs a gilded plaque inscribed with four bold characters reading Quan Tai Shou Xue (全臺首學, the First Academy of Taiwan), while at the base of the wall to the right stands a granite Dismounting Stele carved in both Manchu and Chinese scripts, instructing all civil and military officials, soldiers and commoners to dismount from their horses in reverence for the Teacher of Ten Thousand Generations.
Founded in the nineteenth year of the Southern Ming Yongli era (1665) under Prince Zheng Jing upon the memorial of Chief Advisor Chen Yonghua, Tainan Confucian Temple is both the earliest Confucian sanctuary and the cradle of official higher education in Taiwan. Across more than three and a half centuries spanning the Kingdom of Tungning, the Qing dynasty and the modern era, this fifteen-building sanctuary has preserved the classical Left Academy, Right Temple spatial order together with the most complete sequence of eight Qing imperial plaques anywhere in the Chinese-speaking world outside Qufu and Beijing.
IThe First Academy of Taiwan and the Confucian pantheon of sages
In the early 1660s, after Koxinga (Zheng Chenggong) passed away and his son Zheng Jing (鄭經) assumed governance of the Kingdom of Tungning in Taiwan, his chief strategist Chen Yonghua (陳永華, 1634 to 1680, revered as the Zhuge Liang of the Zheng court) submitted a far-sighted policy of ten years to grow, ten years to educate, and ten years to prosper. He urged the ruler to build a Sacred Temple and establish state schools to cultivate capable administrators. In the eighth lunar month of the nineteenth year of Yongli (1665), Zheng Jing approved the proposal and entrusted Chen Yonghua with constructing the Sacred Temple of the Foremost Teacher (先師聖廟) at Guizipu in Ningnan Ward, Chengtian Prefecture (modern West Central District, Tainan), completing the project in the first lunar month of 1666.
Immediately east of the sanctuary, Chen Yonghua built the Minglun Hall (Hall of Illuminating Human Relations) as the National Academy, serving personally as Chancellor alongside Academic Preceptor Ye Heng. Boys entered local community schools at age eight and, after passing county, prefectural and academy examinations, were admitted as stipendiary scholars at the Minglun Hall, where triennial state examinations selected graduates for the Six Ministries. In the twenty-fourth year of the Kangxi reign (1685), Circuit Intendant Zhou Chang and Prefect Jiang Yuying reorganized the complex into the Taiwan Prefectural School. Because it served throughout the early Qing period as the sole prefectural examination seat for young candidates across the entire island, the honorific title First Academy of Taiwan (Quan Tai Shou Xue) became permanently linked with Tainan Confucian Temple.
Unlike Buddhist monasteries or Taoist temples filled with anthropomorphic statues, Tainan Confucian Temple strictly follows the ritual orthodoxy of Confucianism codified in the ninth year of the Ming Jiajing reign (1530): no sculpted images are used, and only lacquered wooden spirit tablets (muzhu) inscribed in gold are venerated so that reverence focuses on moral teaching rather than physical form. At the center of the Dacheng Hall (大成殿, Hall of Great Achievement, a name drawn from Mencius's praise of Confucius as the great synthesizer of ancient virtue), the main niche enshrines the tablet of the Supreme Sage and Foremost Teacher Confucius (至聖先師孔子神位).
The hierarchy of spirit tablets inside the Dacheng Hall and its flanking corridors mirrors more than two millennia of Confucian intellectual lineage. Flanking Confucius on the east and west inside the hall are the Four Correlates (Sipei: Yan Hui, Zengzi, Zisi and Mencius), followed by the Twelve Philosophers (Shierzhe: Min Sun, Ran Yong, Duanmu Ci, Zhong You, Bu Shang, You Ruo, Ran Geng, Zai Yu, Ran Qiu, Yan Yan, Zhuansun Shi, and the Southern Song Neo-Confucian master Zhu Xi). In the long eastern and western corridors, the Eastern Cloister enshrines 41 Former Worthies and 39 Former Scholars, while the Western Cloister enshrines 40 Former Worthies and 38 Former Scholars. Directly behind the Dacheng Hall stands the Chongsheng Shrine (崇聖祠, Shrine of Venerating the Sages), dedicated to five generations of Confucius's ancestors as well as the fathers of the Four Correlates and Former Worthies.
A distinctive civic feature of Tainan Confucian Temple is the quartet of commemorative shrines flanking the Dacheng Gate: the Shrine of Eminent Officials and Local Worthies on the east, and the Shrine of Chaste and Filial Paragons on the west. In the Shrine of Eminent Officials and Local Worthies, the citizens of Tainan honor ten historical administrators who advanced island education, irrigation and governance, including Chief Advisor Chen Yonghua, Taiwan-Xiamen Circuit Intendant Chen Bin (陳璸, the incorruptible official who issued the Ten Admonitions and funded the 1712 restoration from his own salary), Prefects Jiang Yuying and Jiang Yuanshu, and local scholars Wang Fenglai and Chen Zhenyao. The western shrine honors the filial son Hou Ruizhen alongside more than two hundred virtuous women of old Tainan.
Passing through the triple portals of the Dacheng Gate, visitors often notice that the heavy red timber doors bear no painted Door Gods (such as Qin Shubao and Yuchi Gong), but instead are studded with rows of hemispherical gilded bosses called door studs (mending). According to Confucian ritual custom, Confucius himself refrained from speaking of prodigies, violence, disorder and spirits (Analects 7:21), and no martial deity would presume to stand guard before the Supreme Sage. Instead, each pair of double doors on the Dacheng Gate is fitted with exactly 108 door studs (nine horizontal rows of six studs on each leaf, totaling 54 per leaf and 108 per portal), representing the supreme imperial number ($9 \times 12 = 108$) reserved in dynastic architecture for imperial palaces and the highest temples of Confucius.
IIOver three hundred and fifty years of scholarly heritage across dynasties
From the modest tile-roofed Sacred Temple erected in 1665 during the Kingdom of Tungning, Tainan Confucian Temple has undergone more than thirty expansions and restorations across the Qing era, the Japanese colonial period and the postwar decades to preserve its status as a National Monument.
- 1665 - 1666Founding of the Sacred Temple and Minglun Hall under Zheng JingIn the 8th lunar month of Yongli 19 (1665), Zheng Jing approved Chief Advisor Chen Yonghua's memorial to build the Sacred Temple of the Foremost Teacher and the Minglun Hall National Academy in Ningnan Ward, completing construction in the 1st lunar month of 1666.
- 1685Reorganized as the Taiwan Prefectural School under KangxiIn the 24th year of Kangxi (1685), Circuit Intendant Zhou Chang and Prefect Jiang Yuying expanded the complex into the Taiwan Prefectural School, adding the East and West Cloisters, Qisheng Shrine, Lingxing Gate, and installing the Kangxi Emperor's 1684 plaque Teacher of Ten Thousand Generations.
- 1712 - 1719Master layout by Intendant Chen Bin and double-eaved Dacheng HallIn Kangxi 51 (1712), Circuit Intendant Chen Bin constructed the semicircular perimeter wall, Wenchang Pavilion, Gate of Ritual, Path of Righteousness, Dacheng Archway and Pan Pond. In 1719, Intendant Liang Wenxuan upgraded the Dacheng Hall to a double-eaved hip-and-gable roof.
- 1749 - 1777Apex of expansion during the Qianlong reignFrom Qianlong 14 to 16 (1749 to 1751), Inspecting Censor Yang Kaiding doubled the scale of the Dacheng Hall and erected the stone Pangong Archway. In 1777, Prefect Jiang Yuanshu completed the western Prefectural School offices and engraved the Complete Map of the Taiwan Prefectural School stele.
- 1835 and 1891Revival of the Music Bureau and founding of the Yicheng AcademyIn Daoguang 15 (1835), Education Commissioner Liu Hongxiang replenished the ritual instruments and invited mainland musicians to teach ceremonial music. In Guangxu 17 (1891), gentry leader Chen Hongqiang formally established the Yicheng Academy under scholar Xu Nanying to preserve the Eight-Tone Confucian music.
- 1917 - 1918Comprehensive dismantling and restoration of the 15-building layoutAfter the Tainan First Public School relocated out of the temple grounds, Tainan Prefect Eda Tokuji and local gentry Xu Tingguang and Yang Pengtuan carried out a complete structural restoration from July 1917 to March 1918, establishing the 15-building layout seen today.
- 1945 - 1948Wartime evacuation of imperial plaques and 1948 reconstructionBefore the Allied air raid of 1 March 1945 severely damaged the Dacheng Hall, temple custodian Fang Yaokun and his brother evacuated the spirit tablet of Confucius, all 8 Qing imperial plaques and the antique bronze bells and stone chimes to Yujing, returning them safely after the 1948 restoration.
- 1983, 1985 - 1989 and 1997National Monument designation and Fuzhou fir restorationListed among Taiwan's first batch of First-Class Historic Sites on 28 December 1983 (redesignated a National Monument in May 1997), the complex underwent a comprehensive four-year restoration from 1985 to 1989 using traditional Fuzhou fir and Taiwanese cypress.
The rescue of Tainan Confucian Temple's sacred treasures in the spring of 1945 remains one of the most moving episodes in the city's cultural history. As Allied bombing raids intensified over central Tainan near the Tainan Prefectural Hall during the final months of World War II, temple custodian Fang Yaokun (方燿堃) feared that nearly three centuries of irreplaceable heritage would perish in flames. Together with his brother, he carefully unmounted the spirit tablet of Confucius, all eight massive imperial plaques written by the Qing emperors, and the historical bronze bells and jade chimes, loading them onto oxcarts bound for the mountain villages of Yujing and Heshunliao. Along the road, fighter planes strafed the convoy, yet the two brothers shielded the crates with their own bodies. When bombs struck the Dacheng Hall and Chongsheng Shrine on 1 March 1945, the timber roofs collapsed, but because of the Fang brothers' foresight, every single Qing imperial plaque and core ritual vessel survived intact to be rehung in the restored hall in 1948.
IIILeft Academy, Right Temple architecture, Dacheng Hall and the eight Qing imperial plaques
Tainan Confucian Temple occupies a site of 9,007 square meters with a total building floor area of 2,169.9 square meters, comprising fifteen traditional timber structures arranged according to the classical formula of Left Academy, Right Temple, and Front Hall, Rear Pavilion. On the eastern side (the ceremonial left) stand the state academy buildings of the Minglun Lecture Hall in front and the three-story Wenchang Pavilion behind, while on the western side (the ceremonial right) unfolds the three-courtyard ritual sanctuary of the Dacheng Gate, the Dacheng Hall and the Chongsheng Shrine. Enclosing the compound is a long Minnan vermilion brick wall known as the Ten-Thousand-Fathom Palace Wall (Wanren Gongqiang), an allusion to Zigong's metaphor in the Analects comparing the depth of Confucius's learning to a lofty palace wall whose inner beauty can only be seen by those who find the gate and enter.
In contrast to folk temples covered with flamboyant polychrome carvings, the architecture of Tainan Confucian Temple embodies restraint, solemnity and ritual proportion: timber columns and beams are finished in deep vermilion or chestnut lacquer without ostentatious ornament, and not a single poetic couplet is carved onto the pillars of the Dacheng Hall, reflecting the ancient maxim that no one dares display literary vanity before the gate of the Supreme Sage.
The primary entrance built in Kangxi 54 (1715), crowned by the Quan Tai Shou Xue plaque and flanked by the 1687 bilingual Manchu-Chinese Dismounting Stele. Across Nanmen Road stands the four-pillar, three-bay granite Pangong Archway erected in Qianlong 14 (1749) and guarded by eight carved stone lions.
Along the southern edge of the courtyard lies the crescent-shaped Pan Pond (modeled on the Panshui academy pool of the ancient State of Lu) with the 1777 Sile Panshui stele inset into its northern wall. Visitors enter the sanctuary forecourt by passing through the eastern Gate of Ritual (Limen) and western Path of Righteousness (Yilu), signifying that a scholar must walk the path of Ritual and Righteousness before approaching the Sage.
The three-bay ceremonial gate leading into the main courtyard, fitted with 108 gilded door studs per double door in imperial style. Its front stone columns are carved in relief with blooming peonies and pheasants rather than dragons, and its high wooden thresholds are reinforced with upright timber posts called tieyin.
The supreme sanctuary sits atop a raised stone podium fronted by the square Ritual Dance Terrace (Lutai) and a dragon-carved royal ramp, with horned dragon-head drainage spouts (Chishou) projecting from the four corners. Above the double-eaved hip-and-gable roof rise a nine-story miniature pagoda at the center of the main ridge and two upright cylindrical Sutra Tubes (Cangjingtong) at the ends, commemorating the scholars who hid Confucian classics from the Qin burning of the books.
Approached through the five-bay Gate of Entering Virtue (inscribed Domain of Sages on the east and Pass of Worthies on the west), the Minglun Hall features an open front porch (baoxuan) and a three-bay lecture hall housing a monumental wooden screen inscribed with the Great Learning attributed to Zhao Mengfu alongside the 1777 stone stele engraved with the Complete Map of the Taiwan Prefectural School.
Standing at the northeastern corner behind the Minglun Hall and originally built in 1712, this three-tiered tower embodies Book of Changes cosmology: a square first floor representing Earth, a circular second floor representing Heaven (enshrining Wenchang Dijun), and an octagonal third floor representing the Eight Trigrams (enshrining Kuixing standing on a cosmic ao sea-turtle fish).
| Year bestowed | Qing Emperor | Four-character plaque (Chinese & meaning) | Classical source and significance |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1684 (Kangxi 23) | Kangxi Emperor | Wan Shi Shi Biao (萬世師表, Model Teacher for Ten Thousand Generations) | From Records of the Three Kingdoms (Book of Wei): Honoring Confucius as the eternal exemplar of educators. |
| 1725 (Yongzheng 3) | Yongzheng Emperor | Sheng Min Wei You (生民未有, Unparalleled Since Humanity Began) | From Mencius (Gongsun Chou I): Since humanity began, there has never been another like the Master. |
| 1737 (Qianlong 2) | Qianlong Emperor | Yu Tian Di Can (與天地參, Coequal with Heaven and Earth) | From the Doctrine of the Mean: Assisting the transforming and nourishing powers of Heaven and Earth, the sage forms a triad with them. |
| 1799 (Jiaqing 4) | Jiaqing Emperor | Sheng Ji Da Cheng (聖集大成, Sage Who Synthesizes All Greatness) | From Mencius (Wan Zhang II): Confucius gathered all ancient wisdom into a complete symphony like a bronze bell and jade chime. |
| 1821 (Daoguang 1) | Daoguang Emperor | Sheng Xie Shi Zhong (聖協時中, Sage Harmonizing with the Timely Mean) | From the Doctrine of the Mean: The sage acts in faultless harmony with the Mean at every moment (backed by the inscription Tian Heng Bao Zhu). |
| 1851 (Xianfeng 1) | Xianfeng Emperor | De Qi Dao Zai (德齊幬載, Virtue Equal to Heaven's Canopy and Earth's Support) | From the Doctrine of the Mean: Comparing Confucius's moral virtue to the all-covering sky and all-sustaining earth. |
| 1862 (Tongzhi 1) | Tongzhi Emperor | Sheng Shen Tian Zong (聖神天縱, Sagehood Endowed by Heaven) | From the Analects (Zihan): Zigong's tribute declaring that Heaven itself endowed the Master with boundless sagehood. |
| 1875 (Guangxu 1) | Guangxu Emperor | Si Wen Zai Zi (斯文在茲, This Culture Rests Here) | From the Analects (Zihan): Confucius's declaration at Kuang that the sacred culture of King Wen of Zhou lives on right here. |
Alongside the eight Qing imperial plaques, the rafters of the Dacheng Hall also display eight modern presidential plaques presented from 1950 to 2024, beginning with Education Without Discrimination (You Jiao Wu Lei, 1950) through Virtue Flowing and Transforming (Chuan Liu Dun Hua, 2024). Readers interested in comparing major East Asian Confucian academies and state temples may also consult our entry on the Temple of Literature (Văn Miếu - Quốc Tử Giám) in Hanoi.
IVThe lie of the land and the facing
Confucian classical ritual orientates ancestral temples and state academies according to the Rites of Zhou and the Book of Changes maxim: The Sage faces south to listen to all under heaven, looking toward brightness to govern. At the same time, when Chief Advisor Chen Yonghua sited the temple in 1665 and when early Qing officials excavated the semicircular Pan Pond and raised the three-story Wenchang Pavilion in 1712, traditional Chinese landform principles were carefully applied to nurture the literary fortune of Taiwan's prefectural capital. The section below examines this topography through the library's traditional feng shui lens.
In terms of macro-topography and the dragon vein (long mạch), Tainan Confucian Temple stands at the verified coordinates of 22.99052° N, 120.20427° E atop the elevated ridge of old Ningnan Ward (part of the Phoenix Hill formation of historic Tainan). In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, old Tainan occupied a coastal terrace of seven undulating sandy hills (the Seven Hills) projecting toward the Taijiang Inner Sea, embraced on the south by Fu'an Creek and on the north by Deqing Creek in a classic configuration of two waterways girdling the prefectural seat. Siting the First Academy of Taiwan atop the dry, elevated crest of Ningnan Ward protected the wooden halls from seasonal flooding while anchoring the island's supreme seat of learning directly on the main dragon vein of the capital.
As for the facing and Four Emblems arrangement, all three courtyards of the temple (Dacheng Gate, Dacheng Hall and Chongsheng Shrine) together with the Minglun Lecture Hall sit in the north and face south (specifically sitting on Zi and facing Wu with a slight Gui-Ding inclination, approximately 182 degrees due south), receiving the full southern yang radiance associated with the Li trigram (Fire, governing literature, ritual civilization and luminous wisdom). Directly in front of the Dacheng Gate to the south (the Red Bird position) lies the crescent-shaped Pan Pond, functioning as the inner bright hall (minh đường) water pool that gathers qi and reflects the sky while calming the minds of scholars entering the grounds. Regarding the Azure Dragon on the left and White Tiger on the right, the Left Academy, Right Temple plan places the Minglun Hall and the towering three-story Wenchang Pavilion (Kuixing Tower) on the eastern and northeastern flank (the Azure Dragon side). In traditional landform feng shui, raising the Wenchang Pavilion at the northeastern Gen-Zhen sector creates an auspicious Wenchang Brush Peak on the Azure Dragon side, elevating scholarly achievement and examination success for the entire prefectural city.
VAutumn Shidian Confucian Ceremony, Six-Row Feather Dance and Eight-Tone ancient music
Tainan Confucian Temple is the only sanctuary in Taiwan that preserves the authentic late Ming and Qing Shidian Ceremony (釋奠典禮) in its entirety across 38 traditional ritual steps, held twice a year in spring and autumn. The Mayor of Tainan serves as Principal Offering Officer, while musicians of the historic Yicheng Academy (founded in 1891) perform ancient ceremonial music (yayue) on classical instruments of metal, stone, silk, bamboo, gourd, clay, leather and wood (the Eight Tones).
| Date (Calendar used) | Ceremony or scholarly rite | Key traditional rituals and practices |
|---|---|---|
| Dawn on 28 September (Gregorian calendar) | Autumn Shidian Ceremony (Confucius's Birthday and Teachers' Day) | Begins at 5:00 a.m. by torchlight with Welcoming the Spirit, offerings of whole sacrificial cattle, sheep and pigs (tailao), chanting of the ritual eulogy, Three Offerings of wine accompanied by Yicheng Academy's Eight-Tone music, and 36 elementary students performing the Six-Row Feather Dance (Liuyiwu) on the terrace. |
| Morning of 28 September after the ceremony (Gregorian) | Plucking Wisdom Hair (Bamao Qiu Zhihui) | Immediately after Sending Off the Spirit, parents and students line up to pluck tufts of hair from the sacrificial ox (known as Wisdom Hair), which are tucked into pen holders to bring clarity of mind and scholarly success. |
| March (Gregorian, auspicious spring date) | Spring Shidian Confucian Ceremony | The vernal counterpart of the ancient Spring and Autumn sacrifices, attended by Tainan educators, civic leaders and students. |
| May and September (Gregorian calendar) | Vermilion Dot Opening of Wisdom Rite for new first-graders | Children entering elementary school walk through the Gate of Ritual, Path of Righteousness and Gate of Entering Virtue into the Minglun Hall, where elders dot vermilion ink on their foreheads to awaken wisdom. |
| Before major school and civil service examinations (Year-round) | Examination prayers at the Wenchang Pavilion (Kuixing Tower) | Students climb the three-story Wenchang Pavilion carrying examination admission cards and symbolic vegetarian offerings (celery for diligence, scallions for intelligence, and white radish for good fortune) to pray before Wenchang Dijun and Kuixing. |
A hallmark of the Tainan Confucian ceremony is the performance of the Six-Row Feather Dance (六佾舞, Liuyiwu, performed by six rows of six dancers totaling 36 students from the adjacent Zhongyi Elementary School, holding a three-hole bamboo flute in the left hand and a pheasant-feather wand in the right) on the stone terrace before the Dacheng Hall, faithfully maintaining the Ming-Qing ritual rank rather than the eight-row dance used in Taipei. Conducted at 5:00 a.m. in the quiet predawn mist under flickering braziers without theatrical electric floodlights, the rite preserves the solemn atmosphere of three centuries ago.
VILocation And How To Get There
- Address
- No. 2, Nanmen Road, West Central District, Tainan City 700, Taiwan (臺南市中西區孔廟里南門路2號)
- Getting there
- Located at No. 2, Nanmen Road, West Central District, Tainan City. From Tainan Railway Station, take Tainan City Bus No. 2 or Tourist Shuttle Bus No. 88 to the Confucius Temple Stop (about 10 minutes), or walk 15 minutes west along Zhongzheng Road past the National Museum of Taiwan Literature roundabouts and turn left onto Nanmen Road.
- Coordinates
- 22.99052, 120.20427
When visiting Tainan Confucian Temple, please maintain the quiet dignity of a historic academy, entering the grounds through the Eastern Dacheng Archway (beneath the Quan Tai Shou Xue plaque) and walking through the Gate of Ritual or Path of Righteousness toward the Dacheng Hall. Because a Confucian temple is a sanctuary of classical learning rather than a folk deity temple, there are no large cauldrons for burning bundles of incense or spirit money, and folk religious palanquins are strictly prohibited from entering the Dacheng Hall courtyard without authorization.
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?Quick Questions
Why is Tainan Confucian Temple called the First Academy of Taiwan (Quan Tai Shou Xue)?
Founded in the 19th year of the Yongli era (1665) by Zheng Jing upon the advice of Chief Advisor Chen Yonghua alongside the Minglun Hall National Academy, it was both the earliest Confucian temple and the first institution of higher learning in Taiwan. Because it served throughout the early Qing period as the sole prefectural school admitting examination candidates across the island, it earned the title Quan Tai Shou Xue.
Why does the Dacheng Hall enshrine wooden spirit tablets instead of statues of Confucius?
Tainan Confucian Temple strictly observes the ritual reform instituted in the 9th year of the Ming Jiajing reign (1530), which replaced sculpted clay statues in Confucian temples with lacquered wooden spirit tablets inscribed in gold for Confucius, the Four Correlates and the Twelve Philosophers, ensuring that reverence centers on moral teaching rather than physical likeness.
Which emperors wrote the eight imperial plaques hanging inside the Dacheng Hall?
The Dacheng Hall preserves an unbroken sequence of eight plaques bestowed by eight Qing emperors: Kangxi (Wan Shi Shi Biao, 1684), Yongzheng (Sheng Min Wei You, 1725), Qianlong (Yu Tian Di Can, 1737), Jiaqing (Sheng Ji Da Cheng, 1799), Daoguang (Sheng Xie Shi Zhong, 1821), Xianfeng (De Qi Dao Zai, 1851), Tongzhi (Sheng Shen Tian Zong, 1862) and Guangxu (Si Wen Zai Zi, 1875).
Why are the doors of the Dacheng Gate studded with 108 brass bosses instead of painted Door Gods?
In Confucian tradition, Confucius did not speak of spirits or martial prodigies, and no guardian general would presume to stand watch before the Supreme Sage. Instead, each double door of the Dacheng Gate is studded with 108 hemispherical gilded bosses (nine rows of six studs per leaf), symbolizing the supreme imperial number (9 times 12 equals 108) accorded to the Sage.
When does the grand Confucian ceremony take place in Tainan and what makes it unique?
The Autumn Shidian Ceremony begins at 5:00 a.m. on 28 September each year (Confucius's Birthday and Teachers' Day in Taiwan), complemented by a Spring Ceremony in March. Performed by torchlight across 38 traditional Ming-Qing ritual steps, it features Eight-Tone ancient music by the 1891 Yicheng Academy, the 36-student Six-Row Feather Dance, and the custom of plucking Wisdom Hair from the sacrificial ox.