More than 500 hundred local and foreign students took part in a ceremony honoring teachers and Confucianism at the Taipei Confucius Temple on Tuesday.

"We hold this ceremony while welcoming foreign students and teachers to join in the hope of promoting Confucianism globally," an official of the Taipei City Governments Department of Civil Affairs said.

The ceremony was held at the Ta Cheng Palace of the Taipei Confucius Temple. The revelers included 40 Taipei European School students, who represented countries as far-reaching as England, France, and Germany.

Many of the foreign students were clearly engaged in the ritual while others seemed clueless about what they were doing and why, according to local media reports.

"We try to do the same moves as the others, but actually, I dont really know what this means," a foreign student reportedly said.

However, some participants actually knew of Confucius, an ancient Chinese scholar honored as the "supreme sage and teacher" in Chinese history. A Brazilian student told local cable network TVBS that he had learned about the ancient sage from his mother.

The ceremony began with musicians beating gongs and drums, which is meant to encourage the students to give up egoistical thinking and prepare them for their studies.

Next, a dance called the 4-Fold-Formation Yi Dance, which originated in 1200 B.C. during the ancient Zhou Dynasty, was performed in order to show the highest form of respect to Confucius.

The students also prepared six gifts, including jerk, celery, lotus seed, red jujube, longan and red beans, which were then given to the teachers.

During the ceremony, all of the students knelt three times and kowtowed nine times as a sign of utmost respect to the teachers.

In acknowledgment of this important student-teacher ritual, the teachers accepted the gifts and gave the students "The Analects," a book that documents the important dictums of Confucius.

At the conclusion of the ceremony, all the attendees read aloud the first chapter of another important book of Confucianism, "Great Learning."

The ritual also marks the beginning of the 2007 Da Long Dong Cultural Festival, a three month event that promotes Confucianism and the local culture, according to officials.