Trekking into the Past

Headed out to the ‘burbs by subway and bus to see a museum. I’m a master of the subway system but a virgin to buses. Getting on is easy – it’s getting off at the right stop that’s tricky. No worries I thought. Just ask the driver if he stops near the museum and he’ll remember me (being a Westerner of course) and let me know when we’re there. As I’m sitting in the bus, I began to wonder if an Asian with no language skills taking a bus in Seattle has that same level of narcissistic confidence. Well, the driver must have been busy – because he forgot to let me know to get off. Thank God I was smart enough to follow the crowd.

The Palace Museum. Contains the artwork of China from 8000 BC to 1921. Imagine the depth of those roots. 10 millennium. That’s knowing from whence you came.

Take a look at a map. Note the size and population of China – where this stuff had its origins. Note the size and population of Taiwan – where it didn’t. Interesting that all this stuff is here and not there. Seems as though Chiang Kai-shek loaded it all onto ships when he fled from China in 1949 after Mao kicked his butt. Good for the Taiwanese. Bad for the Chinese. Strange, and unfortunate, that the most populated nation on earth is separated from this wealth of their history. What an unusual dynamic between these two lands.

10 millennium of stuff. The museum can’t display all of it at once. Impossible for me to take in what was displayed. 3.5 hours and I was on overload (but then I’ve never been known for a long attention span). The most striking impression - not a single thing was framed. I’ve been to the Louvre, the Prado and our National Gallery (just to name a few he says smugly) and everything is framed. In this museum, all the paintings are on scrolls. It’s just odd.

From ancient bronze work inscribed with hieroglyphic ancestors of the present day characters to an interactive, electronic replica of a famous 5.28 meter long painted scroll depicting a scene by scene panorama of city life in the early 1100s (I lost count after 814 peoples, 28 boats, 60 animals, 30 buildings, 20 vehicles, nine sedan chairs, and 170 trees) My thoughts, impressions and images can go on and on. Here are a few that really captivated me:

• A large olive pit carved out to look like a covered boat. In it were 8 people and furnishings appropriate to a leisure boat in the 1700s. And a poem was inscribed on the bottom of the boat.
• A glass snuff bottle (western influence) 2 inches high that was hand painted on the inside (in reverse of course) so that it had the right perspective viewed from the outside. The scene is a tavern and courtyard in a beautiful landscape setting complete with people and animals
• 10 delicately carved miniature ivory boxes, each with an attached ivory chain with moveable links. Some have ivory carved contents that can be removed from the box. And all ten boxes and their contents fit into a single carved box 1 inch by 2 inches by ½ inch.
  

And like any museum, this one had its share of young kids, with attention spans even shorter than mine, who kept resisting their parent’s best efforts at engaging them. I guess that phenomenon is not just endemic to the states. They and I were ready to leave.