The whole of March seemed to be devoted to sacrifices. Not only was it Mazu's birthday, but there was also a solar term called the Qingming Festival. During this time, Chinese people paid respects to their ancestors, and some went out into the countryside for spring outings.
While in Macau, Nick encountered a funeral procession. They held umbrellas called Soul-Sheltering Umbrellas, apparently to protect the dead person's soul from being harmed by The Sun. Beneath one stood a "filial son," clutching his parents' spirit tablets and weeping bitterly.
There were also many people making offerings at the cemetery. However, unlike the offerings made to Mazu, those offered to relatives would not be eaten. They were left there after the tomb-sweeping, only to be devoured soon afterward by hungry vagrants.
The children, meanwhile, played with toys called paper kites. They did not imitate the mourners at the graves and cry, as they did in the story of Mencius's mother moving house three times.
Mencius was not as famous as Confucius. He appeared on the historical stage more than seventy years after Confucius's death, and he had always revered Confucius as his teacher. Like Confucius, he had come from humble origins, but under his mother's meticulous care, he received a fine education.
His works, Upper Mencius and Lower Mencius, collected records of his conversations with the rulers of various feudal states, outlining his moral principles and political views. His words were sharp, and he dared to speak plainly. He did not deliberately put forward a program for governing a state; rather, he was the origin of government by public opinion.
Doctrine of the Mean was a moral system. Morality meant using it as a standard, maintaining an impartial balance between two extremes. According to Confucius, "the Mean" and "Harmony" were the sources