This is the National Palace Museum. I've touched on it a few times over the year. Essentially over thousands of years the rulers of China stockpiled the great treasures of China and would exhibit some of them for their distinguished guests, while most of it was locked up in storage somewhere. When CKS lost china, he took/stole all these treasures (along with real treasures such as gold) and fled to Taiwan. Eventually he set up this museum to display some of the goodies.
I say "some" because the collection is said to be so large that at one time they are only able to display 6% of the total collection. While that sounds pretty incredible, it's actually more a sign of one of the problems of this museum, that not everything is new. What i mean is they only change in a few things every few months, so if you go often, most of the things aren't new displays. But this might just be a problem for me as for awhile I used to go every month. Mainly because I lived nearby and on Saturday evenings admission is free. Now you see what kind of party animal I am.
Given how difficult it must be to store everything that is not displayed and keep the temperature just perfect, it seems like instead of storing so much, it would be easier just to add more buildings so they can display more things. As it is the museum is not a very large one. Perhaps the country could benefit by having more than one location in the city, or even around the country. A simple way to provide more jobs.
On today's visit, I finally pegged the one thing I don't like about this museum. Don't get me wrong I really like the museum, or else i wouldn't have been going monthly. There are some amazing pieces here, and seeing things that are over four thousand years old, is truly amazing. However since it is mainly things made for emperors and collected by emperors, almost everything in it is a super high quality marvel. Yes those things are great to see, but you don't get a sense of history, and what life was really like back then, if you only have items made by the best craftsmen for the ruling families.
For example a sword on display might be from three thousand years ago, but it was the sword of the emperor's brother. While great to see, I'd love to see what kind of weapon the average person had for personal protection. Or in Chinese culture you use your own personal stamp for official documents. They have on display the intricate ones that the rulers used, but I'm curious what one was like for the farmer which had a stamp on sales documents.
But that still doesn't take away from how incredible this museum is. While they do show too much of the same kind of items, and it really isn't anything too far off from what you've seen in your local museum, there is something about being there and feeling it as much as seeing it. Also it's kind of interesting to see so many tourists from China there, as this is the one only place in the world where they can see most of China's most important treasures.
