The exhibition has a section on Confucius' influence on other countries, especially Japan and South Korea. Books on Confucius printed in the 18th and 19th century in a variety of languages, including Japanese, German, English and Latin are on display, as well as one printed in French in London in 1783 and a trilingual series in Chinese, Manchu and Mongolian.

In front of the exhibition is a section where visitors can try writing on bamboo slips for themselves and then string them together to make a bamboo slip book.

They can also make rubbings and do woodblock and movable-type printing. "It looks easy to make a rubbing from a stone, but it's actually not. It takes strength, and you need to be patient and spread the ink evenly across the stone," Jiang, the primary student, said.

The exhibition attracted 40,000 visitors during the National Day holiday, a year-on-year increase of 45.5 percent, according to the museum.