Since
the 1990s, new museums in Taiwan have, to use a Chinese idiom, been
springing up “like bamboo shoots after rain.”
Undoubtedly
the most important one to have opened in the past two years is the
National Museum of Taiwan History. The opening of this
20-hectare complex last October was a major event – as it should
be, because it filled a glaring gap. Taiwan has long had museums
dedicated to the arts and sciences, and also to its ethnic
minorities; countries of comparable size and wealth have had history
museums for decades, if not longer. But Taiwan’s peculiar history
has meant that, until quite recently, building a consensus about the
past – let alone the island’s future direction – was extremely
difficult.
The
project was conceived during Lee Teng-hui’s presidency and nurtured
by the Chen Shui-bian administration, but the finishing touches were
not made until well after the Kuomintang returned to power in 2008.
As a result, many who toured the museum just after it opened were
curious to see if it presented a “green-tinted” or “blue-tinged”
version of Taiwan’s past.
Anyone
looking for a political subtext inside the NMTH will be disappointed,
however. The museum has not attracted criticism of the kind leveled
at Taipei’s 2-28 Memorial Museum, and it manages to be both
thorough and engrossing. The standard of English throughout the NMTH
is very high, even if the text is often too small for comfortable
reading.
Rather
than present history in a traditional text-heavy format, the second
floor’s permanent exhibition, “Our Land, Our People – The Story
of Taiwan,” is filled with images and models. It goes all the way
back to the days of Taiwan's earliest known human inhabitant,
“Zuozhen Man,” 30,000-year-old fragments of whom were found in a
riverbed about 20 kilometers inland of the museum.
Of the
several tableaux vivants on the second floor, two in particular stand
out. One is a recreation of Lukang’s waterfront as it would have
looked in the 18th century, when the central Taiwan town was one of
Taiwan's busiest harbors. The diorama features several lifelike
waxworks figures, among them stowaways (who cower in the hold of a
single-mast junk, hoping to evade the imperial ban on migrating to
Taiwan), the vessel’s captain, stevedores, and an official wearing
a traditional mandarin’s gown.
Another
depicts a traditional religious parade. Anyone curious about the
roles played by Bajiajiang (fierce-looking young men with painted
faces who prance menacingly in front of the palanquin bearing the
effigy of a god) and others during such events will appreciate the
clear and concise information – even if they have to kneel on the
floor to read some of the panels.
According
to a museum spokeswoman, more than 200 waxwork figures (actually
fiberglass) were crafted for the museum, and the physique and face of
each one was modeled on an actual living person – including, in one
case, NMTH Director Lu Li-cheng.
Elsewhere
on the second floor, displays look at the role of irrigation,
camphor, and sugar in Taiwan’s development. Financiers will be
interested to read that in the mid-1600s, four currencies – Dutch,
Spanish, Chinese, and Japanese – were in daily use in those parts
of Taiwan controlled by the Dutch East India Company. Exchange rates
were, by modern standards, very stable...
To read the rest of this article - which also covers National Taiwan Museum's Land Bank Annex, the Presidential and Vice-Presidential Artifacts Museum, Lanyang Museum (the photo above shows part of an exhibit about Atayal aborigines) and Xiaolin Pingpu Culture Museum - go here. I have three lengthy pieces in this year's Taiwan Business Topics' Travel & Culture Special, and will post the other two in the next few days.
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