BBC:Taiwan's museum of treasures - 博物館

Eden avatar
By Eden
at 2007-02-08T11:21

Table of Contents

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/6335469.stm


Taiwan's museum of treasures
By Caroline Gluck
BBC News, Taipei



Taiwan's National Palace Museum - which boasts some of the most important
treasures collected by China's ancient emperors - reopens on Thursday after a
three year, $21m renovation designed to make its buildings more relevant and
user-friendly.

There are more public areas, larger gallery spaces displaying items that are
now chronologically arranged, a dramatic light-filled lobby, several new
restaurants and a larger gift shop as well as digital displays.

The museum's collection has always been world class, but the renovations now
place the museum itself on a world class footing.

"The Chinese collections housed at the National Palace Museum are
unrivalled," according to director Lin Mun-lee, who said one of her top
priorities was to make a connection between the museum and people.

"But the museum not only has a legacy, it also has a boundless future. Its
future will definitely be closely tied to Taiwan and its people," she said.


● Sensitive relations


The museum's collection traces its roots to 1933, as Japan prepared to invade
China.

China's Nationalist leader Chiang Kai-shek decided to move thousands of
treasures originally kept inside Beijing's Forbidden City. They were
carefully packed up and secretly transported across China to protect them.

And it was on Chiang's orders that more than 3,000 crates of treasures were
eventually shipped to Taiwan, where the Nationalists fled to in the final
months of the Chinese civil war in 1948 and 1949.

That historical legacy means some of the museum's changes have also proved
controversial.

China's state-run media has criticised plans approved by Taiwan's cabinet to
remove references to the Chinese provenance of artefacts in the museum's
governing charter.


China says it is part of attempts by Taiwanese President Chen Shui-bian's
independence-leaning government to try to deny the island's historical roots
to the mainland.

Lin Mun-lee flatly denied that claim, saying the 20-year-old charter needed
an overhaul and historical references should play no part of its
organisational structure.

She also denied suggestions that the museum was planning to remove labels
explaining that many exhibits originally came from Beijing's Forbidden City,
later renamed the Palace Museum.

The controversies show just how sensitive relations between the two rivals
remain - even when it comes to art.

Even so, the museum in the Taiwanese capital, Taipei, is a powerful magnet
for Chinese tourists.

Those numbers are likely to surge later this year with an expected agreement
on relaxing restrictions on visits by mainland tourists.


●Rare view

The Taipei museum contains more than 650,000 objects - a collection so vast
that less than 1% can be viewed at any one time.

But it carefully guards its treasures.

Overseas loans are rare since the museum insists any host country must first
pass immunity from judicial seizure laws - to prevent China from taking legal
action to reclaim any of the works.

While visitors can only see a fraction of the treasures, the rest is kept in
temperature controlled basement vaults.

But about a thousand more crates are kept in another area - off limits to all
but a handful of museum staff - in one of two tunnels carved into the
mountainside behind the museum, designed to protect the treasures if China
ever attacked Taiwan.

We entered through three elaborately sealed and locked doors, accompanied by
two security guards and five museum staff. On either side were black steel
crates, all numbered and stacked on top of each other. One group of boxes
were the original wooden crates used to ship the treasures from China.

Kao Ren-chun, now 84, helped transport the artefacts from China to Taiwan to
prevent them falling into the hands of the communists.

"Our mission was to transport these 5,000-year-old Chinese relics and to
safeguard them. We could not allow any loss or damage to the pieces. It was a
very important job," he said.

"Nobody thought about their own safety. There was just one goal and that was
to move these objects which were so important for Chinese culture, and the
world's."

Despite the drama of that time, Mr Kao did not hesitate when asked what he
thought about calls by Beijing to have the artworks returned.

"You can put these pieces anywhere. The most important thing is that they can
get shown to the public - and can spread this culture, to share it with the
rest of the world, and let people know about Chinese arts and culture," he
said.

A Chinese tourist visiting the museum gave almost exactly the same answer.

Gao Yonglin, from Henan province, said he was happy to see the treasures so
well preserved.

"My view is different from the conservative attitude of people born in the
1940s and 1950s who still want these objects to be returned to China," he
said.

"No matter where these things are kept, they are still promoting Chinese
culture."


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All Comments

Sandy avatar
By Sandy
at 2007-02-10T23:27
希望對您有幫助 http://Now.to/1l1

昨天下午三點,有人用雷射筆照谿山行旅圖...

Kelly avatar
By Kelly
at 2007-02-08T02:32
昨天下午三點的時候 我正在三樓俯視四大山水畫的展示櫃 突然間看到不知道是誰 竟然用雷射筆照谿山行旅圖 正想出聲的時候 就看不到了 因此不知道是誰竟然下這個毒手 希望諸君在看展時 假如看到有人拿手電筒、照相機、或雷射筆時 能當場勸阻他們 - ...

再請問一個問題 關於把大觀展的作品全댠…

Harry avatar
By Harry
at 2007-02-08T00:54
您好, 推薦您一個網站, http://tech2.npm.gov.tw/sung/ 這是故宮書畫處為大觀展做書畫部份的網站, 裡面有非常多這次大觀展出的書畫, 可以看得非常細喔~而且每幅畫作上的印章,都有解釋, 有興趣的朋友可以上去看看! 那些印章的說明非常的有趣,看這些東西就可以看好久, 另外整個大觀特 ...

大觀展跟大英展所需要花的看展時間

Agatha avatar
By Agatha
at 2007-02-07T16:37
前面聽說大觀展跟大英展如果要一天內看完的話不可能 那可否請問一下已經有去看過的 大觀展andamp;大英展所需的看展時間大約是多久呢?? 或是哪一個特展的展出物比較多??所需要的時間比較久呢?? 因為是外地要去看的,要大約估一下時間,比較好掌握交通 感謝感謝^^ - ...

再請問一個問題 關於把大觀展的作品全部看完

Robert avatar
By Robert
at 2007-02-07T15:30
這次大觀展a檔我已經錯過了 爬文之後發現要再同時看到這麼都的鎮館之寶要等很久 所以我決定一個一個分批把它看完 請問故宮是不是會把他每期要展出的作品都放在網頁上?? 谿山行旅圖、早春圖、萬壑松風 宋徽宗的蠟梅山禽 蘇東坡的寒食帖 這幾幅是該注意哪些的展覽呢?? - ...

大觀展的時間也是到五點嗎

Victoria avatar
By Victoria
at 2007-02-07T10:24
有看到大英展的網頁寫著他們的展覽時間到下午五點 請問大觀展的時間也是到下午五點嗎 今天驚覺A檔到今天而已TT -- █▆▇◣ █◣ ◢▉ ◥███ ◢▆█ ▇████◣ ▉ ...