NEW YORK - Chinese American community groups are preparing to hold their second annual International Confucius Cultural Festival on Sept. 8 in Flushing of Queens, New York City's easternmost borough.

The event serves not only as a pageant to commemorate the world-famous Chinese philosopher, but a chance to celebrate the splendid Chinese culture together with other local communities, said Wang Lizhi, president of America East Shandong Association (AESA), which groups immigrants from eastern China's Shandong Province, in Flushing, one of NYC's fastest-growing Chinatown.

Co-sponsored by AESA, America East Shandong Chamber of Commerce and Confucius Education Foundation Inc, the festival features recitation of Di Zi Gui, literally Standards for being a Good Pupil and Child, a book written based on Confusious teachings that emphasize the basic requisites for being a good person and guidelines for living in harmony with others, as well as Chinese traditional dances, Shandong folk music and photo exhibitions.

The groups hosted the first International Confucius Cultural Festival in Flushing on Sept. 28 last year to celebrate the 2,568th anniversary of the birth of Confucius (551 BC-479 BC).

Confucius was a great educator and philosopher, the founder of Confucianism. It was he who first set up private schools and received students from every walk of life without consideration of their social status.