Fuzi Miao (Confucian Temple)

Frommer's Review

Kitschy it may be, but this is where you'll get a good idea of the modern interests of Nanjing's youth. Once a place of intense study and quiet contemplation, Fuzi Miao is now the site for everything from tattoo parlors to pirated music stores selling the latest Mandarin hits. To the right (east) was once the Jiangnan Gongyuan, an academy first built in 1169, which later became the largest imperial civil examination halls during the Ming and Qing dynasties, with over 20,000 cells for examinees. Today, a handful of rooms have been restored into a museum, the Jiangnan Gongyuan Lishi Chenlieguan. Tourists can reenact part of the examination process by donning period robes and Ming dynasty hats and sequestering themselves in the cells, which have white walls, bare concrete floors, and two boards stretched across the cells as a seat and a table.

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