[National Palace Museum]
The National Palace Museum has the widest collection of Chinese artefacts, namely Bronze ware, Chinese paintings and calligraphy, pottery, ancient books and records, hand crafts and ancient palace artefacts etc. The most renowned bronze ware are the cauldron of Duke Mao, San’s family plate and the Zhong-Zhou Bell; the 3 most famous paintings or calligraphy of Early Spring by Guo Xi, Travelers Amid Mountains and Streams by Fan Kuan and The Cold Food Observance by Su Shi; and the books on collection includes The Siku Quanshu of the Complete Library in the Four Branches of Literature, the Chizao Tang of the annotated catalogue of the Siku Quanshu etc. The hand crafts on collection are the world famed Jade Cabbages, the Meat Shaped Stone, and thousands more, including many Jade, Japan lacquerware, glassware, gold, silver and ancient Chinese paper, ink and pen.
If this is your first attendance, do spend enough time on the most popular collections on exhibition, if time allows, add others to the list, including: “jade pot with coral K'uei-Hsing standing on a jade dragon-fish”, “Lady of Tang Dynasty”, “The Northern Song Dynasty Ru kiln sky blue glazed hollow lotus”, “Ching dynasty blue glaze revolving vase with gold tracery”, “Zun wine vessel in the shape of animal with malachite and turqoise inlay of the mid Warring States Period”, “Bixie auspicious beast, Eastern Han dynasty” and the “Jade Duck”. The collection rotates within the museum every so often and special exhibits are on display year-round depending on the themes assigned. The museum will sure to satisfy your need to discover the mysteries of ancient Chinese culture.
*The ticket is for the admissions to the National Palace Museum, suitable for all attendees, valid for entry for the main building of the Northern Branch of National Palace Museum.
【Shung Ye Museum of Formosan Aborigines】
There are 4 stories to the museum, permanent exhibitions are themed under the following: “Human and the Nature”, “living and Utensils”, “Clothing and Culture” and last but not least, “Religion and Rituals”, the exhibition is intended to educate the way of life of the indigenous cultures and how they respected their environment from the mountains to the sea, how they lived, their abundance in material culture, their order of living, their religions and rituals and their diversity in ethnicities; and their importance on the history of the island of Taiwan.
Every spring and fall, the museum holds special exhibition in collaboration with a selected group of indigenous ethnicities to promote the issues they encounter today and to diversify the exhibition the museum has on offer. Every Winter, one ethnicity will be highlighted to further promote a “collaboration exhibition” in the hopes that their cultures can be learned, and that their interpretation of their own culture can be heard.
The museum has other auxiliary services, such as audio guides, Audiovisual library to aid exhibition goers’ understanding of Aboriginal cultures, the history behind their stories and further readings or information are also available should anyone choose to dive deeper into the indigenous cultures of Formosa.
