Heirs

I read in a local newspaper last week about the death in Taipei of the 77th lineal descent of Confucius, Kung Teh-Cheng. It can be highly doubtful that anybody has been able to control the truth about the descendants during a little bit less than 2500 years, but at least the average time per generation is not impossible. At the same time, this is probably one of the very few places in the world where the power structure has been stable enough to do it. Specially if we take into account how revered is the figure of Confucius.

One of the problems for the government now is to appoint the successor, because one of the main jobs is to act as Sacrifice Official to Confucius on the birthday of Confucius, September 28 —the celebration this year was postponed a week because of a typhoon. The deceased had been doing it since 1935, quite a while ago.