History annotations

One of Zhang's US counterparts once asked him at a forum why Chinese museum relics perform as mere annotations for history.

"I think that's just because of cultural differences," said Song. "China owns its tradition of focusing on the historical view towards education while the West prefers to use a museum as art for the sake of art."

Fannie Yan, who works for a Shanghai exhibition company, said museums needed some variety.
"In Sao Paulo, Brazil, there is a Portuguese museum displaying the transition of languages in the country and illustrating the days of being colonized in its history.

"So it is another angle on the same thing of memorializing and exhibiting."

Talking to foreigners, even the Chinese mainland's best museum, the Shanghai Museum, has considerable room for improvement.

"The things displayed here are beautiful," said a tourist from Hawaii examining the ceramics hall, "but it would be much better if there were photos to illustrate how these items were actually used above each item."

Folk custom expert Shang Hong agreed.

"Displaying pottery but ignoring the underlying relationship between the audience and the exhibit, the whole show will attract no one," he said.

"The audience gets confused about dates or numbers and even has no idea why pottery of ancient times is so important or related to their life, which drives them away from many museums."
Yan, a graduate of the Department of Cultural Heritage and Museology at Fudan University in Shanghai, disagreed somewhat.

She claimed the flip side is a lack of "museum sense" among visitors which should be partly corrected through education. "They rarely realize what a 30 yuan ($4) ticket can bring to them."

Nonetheless, museums in China should shoulder the prime responsibility of educating their visitors, Yan said.

"When I was in Europe," said a 23-year-old Shanghai girl surnamed Sun. "I frequently found in the museum that groups of students gathered around their teacher to learn how to appreciate one exhibit.

"They do a meticulous job of education at the museum like I have never experienced at school."
During her exchange tour of Europe in the second half of year in 2009, Sun visited many museums in which she saw "many people" in rapture at the exhibits.

In Shanghai, she went to nearly all the major museums of the city. "Their most common characteristic? Bronze ware," she said.

Zhang believed in the end, the difference between East and West all came down to aesthetics.
"What most Chinese museums lack is an eye for beauty and a desire to promote a sense of beauty to the masses," he said.

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