Museums thriving amid growing thirst for knowledge, culture

BEIJING, Aug. 9 (Xinhua) -- Among the tourists crowding the Beilin Museum in Xi'an is Liu Qin, who has come with her 11-year-old grandson, hoping that he might learn something from the centuries-old exhibits.

Liu believes that museums show the history of civilization. "Children can develop an interest in culture from a young age through visiting museums," she said.

Located in the historical city of Xi'an, capital of northwest China's Shaanxi Province, the Beilin Museum displays a number of steles and other stone carvings from ancient China. It attracts numerous children and teenagers during the summer vacation.

"Currently all the tour groups I'm guiding are composed of juveniles," said local tour guide Zhang Lin, who was leading a group through the Beilin Museum. Visiting museums is a major part of the trips that Zhang runs.

Dong Baohou, vice curator of the Liaoning Provincial Museum in northeast China, checks the composition of visitors to the museum every day, and the data shows that more than 30 percent of the visitors this summer are children. "We pay great attention to cultivating the interest of children and teenagers in culture and museums," Dong said.

However, museums have also become increasingly popular with adults in recent years, with many viewing them as an entertaining and educational option for their leisure time.

The Henan Museum in central China received over 12,000 visits per day on average over the past several weeks, nearly twice the figure for the same period in 2019, according to curator Ma Xiaolin.

Located in north China's Hebei Province, the Dingzhou Museum received about 40,000 visits in July, an increase of 186 percent from the same period in 2019.

"The popularity of museums has become a cultural phenomenon," said Liu Yanchang, curator of the Shandong Museum in east China.

Museum lover Yu Shaojing feels that museums bring history back to life. "Visiting the museums is like going deep into the world of history and the environment in which our ancestors lived," Yu said.

According to Lin Liugen, head of the institute of archaeology at Zhejiang University, amid economic and social development, the country is witnessing the growing popularity of fine traditional Chinese culture. More people want to learn more about Chinese civilization and the history of the Chinese nation through visiting museums, said Lin.

Official data shows that China had over 6,500 museums as of May this year. Thanks to technological advancement, more museums have been using modern tools such as 3D projection and AR glasses, as well as attractive ways of displaying cultural relics and promoting traditional Chinese culture.

The Nanjing Museum, located in east China's Jiangsu Province, launched over 1,000 creative cultural products this summer. "Of all the products, the notebooks and bookmarks bearing designs based on the museum exhibits are the most popular. We can sell as many as 1,000 items per day," said Tian Tian, who is in charge of the museum's creative cultural product department.

The Henan Museum has formed an orchestra that plays both classical and modern music on replica instruments based on cultural relics. Curator Ma Xiaolin said that museums have been identifying various comprehensible and acceptable characteristics of cultural relics and combining them with popular trends. "It makes the traditional culture seem less dull and thus meets the growing cultural needs of the public," Ma said.

Liu Yanchang, the curator from Shandong, sees a bright future for museums in China, with growing interest among the general public. "In the future, more and more people will visit museums as a way of life," he said.

Meanwhile, some professionals warn about the possible negative effects of overcrowded museums. "Too many visitors may lead to an uncomfortable environment for viewing exhibits and cause changes in humidity and other conditions in the exhibition halls, which may increase the difficulty of maintaining cultural relics," said Sun Mingli, vice curator of Suzhou Museum.

Since Aug. 1, Suzhou Museum and eight other museums in the historical eastern city of Suzhou have been staying open until 9 p.m. every evening to accommodate the extra visitors. Sun suggested that popular museums can also take measures such as entrance reservations and online exhibitions to provide better experiences to visitors.

"There is more space for cultural institutes and museums to explore in the future," said Liu Weihua, head of the social education department of the Hebei Museum.