Spotlight

(This the final part of a series of articles about Taylor's recent trip to south China's Yunnan Province. More photos appear at http://www.btay200.blogspot.com/.)

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Standing amid a sea of yellow wheat, the tall golden grains waving ever so gently in the wind, I was just about as out of place as you could get. Wearing jeans and a fake black North Face jacket, I stood out from the Chinese workers in their iconic saucer-shaped field hats and torn pants.

Two Carbon County artists, who had never previously met and are a generation apart in age, have one thing in common.

They are both connected to the town that didn't exist.

The story of Daniel Parry, founder of Parryville, Pennsylvania, is told in a newly published book, The Parrys of Philadelphia and New Hope: A Quaker Family's Lasting Impact on Two Historic Towns by Roy Ziegler.

This 140 page history tells the story of one of eastern Pennsylvania's most storied families who helped transform early nineteenth-century Philadelphia from a population able to support 40,000 to one that housed 2 million, created industries, and were fathers of the towns of New Hope and Parryville.

It was like many other temples I'd visited in the last 16 months. Red pillars held up a multi-tiered roof of orange tiles. Incense burned in giant vats in front of the main worship hall filling the air with that distinct temple fragrance. A few worshippers were dressed in traditional garb like the monks I'd seen in Beijing. But this place was special, a former teaching ground for one of China's most well-known scholars and historic figures – this was Confucius' hometown, Qufu in Shandong Province.