These museums are the richest of resources for recreation and education. Sinorama is undertaking a series of occasional reports on small museums in Taiwan that have particularly noteworthy features.
Li Chin-hua, 34 years old this year, was invited to participate in a field trip by her daughter's first-grade class. Their destination was the "Su Ho Memorial Paper Museum" founded by paper manufacturer Chen Su-ho.
She said that she headed out for the museum in a respectful state of mind. Little did she expect that she would come to a four-storey structure, open at the top, located in a busy street and resembling a commercial enterprise. The exhibits in the museum were neither rare nor valuable, and the atmosphere was not in the least quiet and stately. This did not fit her conception of a museum.
However, it turned out not only to be very fun, but even touching. The young guide led the 40-plus babbling small children and parents to the top floor, and explained everything in detail. She showed them how to use a paper recycling machine-which they could then try out themselves. And she helped them to understand the origins of paper, its manufacturing process, and the environmental importance of recycling paper.
"My first impression of museums came during the graduation trip of my 6th grade primary school class. We went to the National Palace Museum. I only remember that it was like a maze inside, and that the exhibits were all securely locked in glass cases," says Li. Though this inspired feelings of awe and respect, it did not give her any expectations that there could be any interaction between a museum and its visitors. In recent years, though she has visited a few famous museums abroad when these have been on the itinerary of her tour groups, she has virtually never taken the initiative to visit a museum in Taiwan. She admits, "It turns out that museums can be very cozy and intimate."
The museum next door
In fact, in recent years more and more small museums like the Su Ho Memorial Paper Museum have sprung up in every corner of Taiwan, north and south. They do not have the collections or the prestige of the big museums, but they are working hard to develop their own special advantages.
Chen Kuo-ning, curator of the Hwa Kang Museum at the Chinese Culture University, has done a study of museums in the Taiwan area. Statistics that she published in 1996 show that the number of museums in Taiwan exceeded 130 at that time. These extended to every corner of Taiwan from Keelung at the northernmost tip to Hengchun at the southernmost, and even as far as the offshore islands of Penghu.
She points out that the establishment of museums in Taiwan dates back more than 70 years, to the Japanese occupation era. Nevertheless, in the early post-war days resources were limited. Except for the large government-sponsored museums, such as the National Palace Museum, the National Museum of History, the Taiwan Provincial Museum, and the National Taiwan Science Education Center, most museums were "artifacts showrooms" set up by academic institutions using pieces that had been accumulated in the process of research, such as the specimen rooms in the zoology and botany departments at various universities.
The social education law passed in Taiwan in 1954 clearly designated museums as social education institutions that could be set up by the central government, local governments at every level, and private individuals. Also, the Ministry of Education created incentives to encourage the private establishment of museums. Nevertheless, according to Chen's survey, the only private museums of any real consequence early on in postwar Taiwan were those of Puli insect researcher Yu Muh-sheng, who hope opened his private workshop as the Muh Sheng Museum of Entomology; of entrepreneur Ku Chen-fu, who donated his ancestral residence in Lukang to be the Lukang Folk Arts Museum; and the now-defunct Cathay Fine Arts Museum, founded by the Cathay financial group.
Discovering local culture
In the 1970s, in order to improve the cultural infrastructure, the government established cultural centers and specialized museums in each city and county. The number of museums steadily rose, and included, among the larger institutions, the Taipei Municipal Museum of Fine Arts, the Taiwan Museum of Art, and the National Museum of Natural Science.
Smaller museums generally have focused on local cultural artifacts, special local products, or folk arts. They often have carried the responsibility of reinvigorating local industries and folk culture. Such institutions include those for the tea industry in Pinglin, for the wine making industry in Puli, for prehistoric culture in Taitung, and the Hakka Village in Meinung. All of these are important channels for understanding local industries and culture.
It's more fun in a group
In the 1990s, as people have grown more wealthy, the trend of collecting artifacts has spread. Corporations, groups, and individuals have established museums one after another. Chen Kuo-ning's survey reveals that, from 1991 to 1995, the number of museums in the Taiwan area grew by more than 30, with more than half of the new ones being privately run.
For example, the Chang Foundation, the Chi Mei Museum, and the Shung Ye Museum of Formosan Aborigines are all funded by corporate profits, which have paid for the collections and sudsidize the foundations that manage them. With their vast financial resources, corporate museums often exceed large state-run museums in terms of their collections and size. For example, the Western art and sculpture collection at the Chi Mei museum has often been drawn upon by the Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts and the National Palace Museum for special exhibitions.
There were also many individuals who began collecting out of personal interest. As their collections have grown, they have discovered that enjoying their holdings in private is not as much fun as sharing them with the general public, so they have opened their private collections to visitors. These private museums range greatly in size, and their collections cover an enormous range, from all kinds of books, paintings and art, to fossils and stuffed animals.
Recently the "Lion's Kingdom" was opened in Ilan. On display is a collection of lion-shaped art works accumulated by an architect named John Kao over more than 30 years.
A quiet refuge amidst the bustle
On another front, after many years of work and innovation in the folk arts, a number of artists have produced prolific quantities of work. The artists themselves, family members, students, or local cultural centers have collected the artists' works and established museums or galleries to preserve and commemorate their achievements. For example, sculptor Yang Ying-feng and painters Yang San-lang, Li Mei-shu, Lee Tsu-fan and Chao Er-tai all have commemorative museums.
These museums stand out by virtue of the particular artist's personal style. For example, although the Hsinchu painter Lee Tsu-fan had a son who was even more famous-Nobel prize-winning scientist Lee Yuan-tseh-the father devoted his entire life to fine arts education and creating works of art.
After the elder Lee died, his children rebuilt his studio into a large building, and his paintings and cultural objects are on exhibit on the third floor. For example, there are vases, bamboo baskets, and old desks and chairs that he used as still-life subjects, which can be compared to the paintings with their straightforward and simple style.
"It's like a lotus blossoming amidst the traffic!" says one visitor. Because the museum is located right in Hsinchu's busiest commercial section, she often stops in here while out shopping on the weekend. She feels it is like a "pure land" where she can think in peace.
Folk arts potpourri
Interestingly, seeing the curiosity of the general public and their fondness for collecting the unusual, many theme parks have also established museums right on their grounds. Some have even made these the main attractions of the park. The collections vary from folk art to high art to the natural sciences. Museums have thus become important recreational resources in Taiwan. For example, the Guiness Book of World Records Museum in Taichung has attracted over one million visitors.
These various musuems large and small not only pioneer new aspects of culture and enrich existing ones, they are spread across the island and are flexibly run, closing the psychological distance between museums and the public at large. They are educational and recreational resources that have become part of people's daily lives.
People have long been aware of the educational and recreational functions of museums. But now the global trend is toward moving the focus of museums away from the elite to the general public, and relating them more closely to the lives of the people who live nearby.
From elite to mass
Han Pao-te, currently director of the Tainan Academy of the Arts, pointed out in an article entitled "The Age of Cultural Tourism," that the earliest museums in Europe were founded to meet demand from the upper strata of society. "During the Enlightenment, the educated upper classes were very interested in the natural world, so the collection and study of all kinds of natural and human material became popular."
Later, people discovered that they could get more out of a museum than new knowledge and an appreciation of the achievements of their forebears. They could also have fun. People began to treat visits to museums as a recreational activity.
Beginning in the 1960s, modern communications technology began to shrink the world. There was a knowledge explosion, causing the great majority of people to find static collections of rapidly-outdated knowledge and aesthetic concepts much less fascinating. Museums faced a serious test. It was necessary to make adjustments to win back visitors.
Today museums are striving to make their exhibits more entertaining, to add multi-media effects, and to increase interactiveness with visitors. Above all, the most important direction of reform is in emphasizing special local features and the surrounding environment.
For example, traditionally most museums have had permanent collections built around a specific theme. But very often their artifacts are far removed from their places of origin, cutting off their connection to their original environment, thereby obscuring much of their contextual meaning.
Han Pao-te says that museums should help people to understand the past, present, and future of their surroundings. The main point should be aimed at residents, and not at visitors from outside. The museums should help local residents to understand themselves and the evolution of local culture.
The collections of these museums should be connected with the development of local history and culture, or even be objects made by the local people themselves. Local visitors will feel a sense of attachment to these objects; what's more, visitors will feel as if these objects belong to them, and that they belong among these objects.
Unequal distribution of resources
But small private museums face a common difficulty.
Chang Yu-teng of the Graduate Institute of Museology at Tainan National College of the Arts, argues that the "leading role" in museums should be played by "people" and not "objects." That is to say, the museum is not just shelf space for displaying collections. The museum should be a place that inspires visitors to think, imagine, and learn. In this respect, private and small local museums lack the support of expert researchers, and they cannot provide visitors with in-depth and systematic information. "Cultural artifacts should be fruits acumulated by cultural historians in the course of their research. The object of display should be to allow people to explore the meaning and significance behind the objects through an understanding of where these objects come from."
Chen Kuo-ning points out that the main factor behind the lack of research is that "social resources are unevenly distributed and there is inadequate support."
In fact, the primary problem that many private museums must face is whether or not they will have enough money to continue to operate.
"Although the government has passed legislation creating incentives for private individuals to open museums, they have not provided concrete financial support," says Liao Kuei-ying, assistant curator at the Chang Foundation. Most government resources are concentrated on a few large museums. Government-funded museums like the astronomical museum or maritime museum can spend from budgets in the tens of billions. Private museums must rely on themselves. Except for the small number with corporate support, the remainder depend to some extent on ticket sales. However, people in Taiwan are rather reticent about spending on private museums. This has made it difficult for some museums that had hoped to rely on ticket sales to support themselves.
As they are all located in Taipei City, the Chang Foundation, the Su Ho Memorial Paper Museum, the Shung Ye Museum of Formosan Aborigines, and the Taiwan Folk Arts Museum have formed an association which they call "The Four Little Dragons Among Museums." They hope to broaden their public exposure and attract more visitors. They even tried selling a single ticket that would give entry to all four museums, though the results did not meet original hopes.
"On an average day there are 50 to 60 visitors. Most of them are in groups which have free admission. Less than one percent are casual visitors who buy tickets at the door," says Liao Kuei-ying. And that's in northern Taiwan, where people more frequently visit museums. Those private museums located in remote areas which lack the support of foundations or groups must rely on themselves.
A window on Taiwan
It's worth noting that these private museums are still striving to earnestly develop and innovate in the area of local special characteristics, preserving the common memories of the people of Taiwan, and displaying special features that had in the past been ignored and that belong to Taiwan.
If you want to see Chinese culture, you can go to the National Palace Museum. If you want to understand Taiwan, then you must go to these scattered private museums.
p.124
An ancient lamp in the collection of the Chi Mei Museum.
An oil painting by Li Mei-shu, The Iced Fruit Shop. (courtesy of the Li Mei-shu Memorial Museum)
p.125
The paper arts exhibit at the Su Ho Memorial Paper Museum.
Red sandalwood prayer beads in the collection of the Chang Foundation. (courtesy of the Chang Foundation)
p.127
The National Museum of Natural Science in Taichung adopted much in the way of design and exhibits from similar museums in the West. It attracted huge crowds for a time. (photo by Diago Chiu)
(opposite page) One of the special features of smaller museums is that there is more interaction between visitors and exhibits. The photo shows visitors to the Su Ho Memorial Museum being taught to make recycled paper by hand.
p.128
With small museums offering a more lively alternative, traditional large museums have had to innovate to keep people coming.The photo shows an insect exhibition at the Taiwan Provincial Museum, Taiwan's oldest museum. (photo by Pu Hua-chih)
p.130
Because large museums get more government funding, there has been much discussion over what role they should play as compared to private museums. The photo comes from an exhibition on desire and sexuality at the Taipei Municipal Fine Arts Museum.
（opposite page） One of the special features of smaller museums is that there is more interaction between visitors and exhibits. The photo shows visitors to the Su Ho Memorial Museum being taught to make recycled paper by hand.
The National Museum of Natural Science in Taichung adopted much in the way of design and exhibits from similar museums in the West. It attracted huge crowds for a time. （photo by Diago Chiu）
@List.jpg?w=522&h=410&mode=crop&format=webp&quality=80)
@List.jpg?w=522&h=410&mode=crop&format=webp&quality=80)
