How many museums can you name in Beijing?

Many people, including Beijing residents, can probably name five to six famous places of interest such as the Palace Museum and the Museum of Chinese History. But there are actually 118 museums in the ancient city. Some of these museums hardly have any visitors compared with others.

Tomorrow these neglected museums hope to impress visitors with a grand street show. They will exhibit replicas and photos of their best collections along Wangfujing Street, Beijing's shopping center.

"This event, held in celebration of International Museum Day (May 18), is to highlight the enjoyment that can be found in visiting museums," said Xiao Yuan, spokesman for the International Museum Day committee.

According to Xiao, all 118 museums in Beijing will take part in the event tomorrow.

In the Wangfujing shopping center there will be replicas of many national treasures, like those of the three famous bronze animal heads collected by the Poly Museum.

The event highlights the series of activities held in Beijing in the past three weeks to celebrate International Museum Day. The State Administration of Cultural Heritage, Beijing Municipal Administration of Cultural Relics and the Capital Museum are the hosts of the activities. The theme of International Museum Day this year is "Museum and Globalization."

"Beijingers just pass by many of the museums, when they are rushing to concerts, art exhibitions, bars and shopping malls," said Guan Hong, a scholar on museum studies. "This is because some museums haven't made changes to their exhibitions for years," he added.

As an answer to Guan's remark, 16 new exhibitions are being held at Beijing museums around May 18 along with their regular displays.

The Palace Museum is giving exhibitions on Japanese cultural relics, Chinese calligraphy and paintings belonging to a Belgian collector, as well as Jiang Guofang's oil paintings.

The Capital Museum takes its exhibition on Chinese tradition out of the museum into six universities and high schools around Beijing. It is also inviting primary school pupils to visit the ancient trees in the museum and to paint them.

"We want to change people's old ideas about museums and to give them a new impression of being lively," said You Bingxia, director of the education division of the Capital Museum.

(China Daily May 17, 2002)