Archives For Museum

the Tank Museum

john —  April 13, 2013

The sole tank museum in Asia is situated between the beautiful Summer Palace and Badaling Section of the Great Wall. In front of the museum, there is a tank with Chinese characters bayi (August 1, the foundation date of the PLA), which makes the tank look majestic. Entering the spacious and bright exhibition rooms, you will find nearly 1,400 materials, photos, pictures which tell you the development of China’s armor cause and the efforts world military powers have made to build strong tank forts. 11 exhibitions rooms inside the museum respectively display the development history of China’s armors, tank armored cars, tank training simulators, and weapon imitated models.

From the first tank named little vagabond used by England in 1916 during the first world war to the brand-new battle tanks nowadays, from 59-style mid-sized tank to Japanese 90-style tank, the most costly tank in the current world, and from the Soviet T34 tank which has the longest service in the army to the tank captured by the PLA from the Kuomingtang army in the liberation war, all kinds of tank will tell you the story of human’s creation and employment of tanks.

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[China.org.cn/Photo by Jing Bo]

Beijing’s bulwarks

john —  March 9, 2013
The red sandlewood and ebony miniature of Yongding Gate displays fine details and craftsmanship. Photos by Lu Zhongqiu / China Daily

The red sandlewood and ebony miniature of Yongding Gate displays fine details and craftsmanship. Photos by Lu Zhongqiu / China Daily

A self-made billionaire is reconstructing the capital’s ancient city walls – in miniature and in sandalwood. Deng Zhangyu reports.

Those born before the 1950s remember Beijing’s walls as the “city’s necklace”.

Most of the greatest pearls of this historical treasure have been destroyed but are being reconstructed – in sandalwood, at a tenth of their original size.

Sixteen miniatures will be created, and the first – Yongding Gate, at the south of Beijing’s city axis – has been unveiled to the public at Beijing’s China Red Sandalwood Museum.

“Younger people don’t know what Beijing looked like before,” the project’s director and museum’s founder Chan Laiwa says.

The 71-year-old descendant of a Manchu Yellow Banner clan family spent her childhood in Beijing’s hutong (alleys) and grew up playing on the city walls.

She became a self-made billionaire and an art and culture advocate who set out to produce a replica of Beijing’s city gates out of red sandalwood and ebony.

Both are costly materials. Red sandalwood trees require centuries to mature while ebony comes from semi-fossilized wood that has lain at the bottom of the great rivers for thousands of years.

Continue Reading…

The Palace Museum in Beijing is closing on Monday afternoons during the off-season.

The museum will open on Mondays from 8:30 am to noon. Ticket sales will stop at 11 am and ticket checking will stop at 11:10 am.

A staff member closes the gate of the Palace Museum in Beijing on Monday morning. It was the first day of the museum's trial to close on Monday afternoons during the off-season, from Jan 1 to March 31. [Photo/China Daily]

A staff member closes the gate of the Palace Museum in Beijing on Monday morning. It was the first day of the museum’s trial to close on Monday afternoons during the off-season, from Jan 1 to March 31. [Photo/China Daily]

On Feb 11, the second day of the lunar calendar during the Spring Festival holiday, the museum will be open during its normal hours.

In 2012, the museum’s one-day record reached 180,000 visitors, and the annual visits hit 15 million.

The museum has been operating at an overload, said Palace Museum Director Shan Jixiang. Continue Reading…

The Imperial Palace, also known as the Forbidden City, is located in the heart of Beijing. It has served as the residence to 24 emperors throughout the Ming and Qing dynasties between 1368 A.D. and 1911 A.D. but is now used as the Palace Museum.

The Forbidden City has been the center of the highest authority for more than 500 years in China. With garden landscapes and an enormous architectural complex consisting of 9,000 chambers and halls containing furniture and works of art, it has become the historical landmark witnessing invaluable Chinese civilization during the Ming and Qing dynasties.

The Forbidden City Part 1: Initiation of the Forbidden City:

Part 2: The pinnacle of the flourishing age

Part 3: Governing the country by rites

Part 4: Administration of state affairs

Part 5: Between the state and family

Part 6: Porcelains in the Forbidden City

Part 7: Paintings an calligraphic works in the Forbidden City

Part 8: Jade objects in the Forbidden City

Part 9: Western Fever in the Forbidden City

Part 10: From palace to museum

Part 11: The shifting and loss of national treasures

Part 12: The everlasting Forbidden City

Ming Tombs

john —  March 29, 2012