Happy Chinese New Year & National Palace Museum

By Brian On January 26, 2009 · Leave a Comment

Yours truly and a very good opera actress.

Happy Chinese Lunar New Year, everyone. As the year of the Ox, this should be a good year for all oxen out there, including me.

I’m a huge history buff. Huge. While I struggled through many subjects in school, I never had a problem with history. For me there’s nothing better then a good discussion or debate on history and culture. Today I was able to go to what is my favorite place in Taipei, the National Palace Museum. Anyone who has any interest in Imperial-era China needs to visit the Palace Museum.

Why not just go to China?

Remember the Cultural Revolution? The end result of the Mao’s need to destroy all things historical and the Kuomentang (ROC) government’s desire to save (or “smuggle”, “steal”, and “sneak” if you live in the PRC ) relics from China’s past means that there are actually more Imperial-era artifacts in Taiwan then in China itself.

The National Palace Museum is an awesome, interesting, and wonderful place, akin to the Smithsonian in Washington D.C. or Exposition Park in L.A. .

Of course, having a pair of 4-year olds means I really didn’t get to explore and see much. I can’t blame them…I’m sure when I was 4 I was the same way (unless there was a dinosaur involved). Of the tiny bit I saw today was a small display on the first floor entitled: Compassion & Wisdom, Religious Sculptural Arts. Basically, it was a side-by-side collection of statues of Buddha from different dynasties. What was interesting is seeing the “evolution” of how the depiction of Buddha evolved and the different ways that different periods “saw” him. It wasn’t always the “fortune” big-bellied, big-eared, happy Buddha that we see most often in Chinese culture today. There were even some depictions that were somewhat scary, with Buddha sculpted with fangs and claw-like fingernails. It was all very interesting.

Too bad photography is forbidden.