Q: Can I first of all just ask you about another topic? Not long ago you went to Taiwan to buy a vase for the V&A by Sun Ch'ao. Is it true that this was after you saw them in Sinorama?

A: Yes, I often read Sinorama. It really happened like that.

Q: I think that among our readers there are certainly many who are familiar with the V&A. However, most people know more about the British Museum. Could you first of all introduce us to the V&A and the special characteristics of its Chinese collection?

A: The V&A was established in 1851. I would not say it has "the best" collection of ornamental art in the world, although there are many people who do say that. But it does in fact have the most surprising collection and one of great quality and beauty.

The museum started collecting Chinese items in its second year. Now it has over 20,000 objects distributed among seven galleries--the widest Chinese collection in Europe. Its furniture and textile collections are the biggest outside China. We even have a carved lacquer Hsuan-te palace table. According to a mainland scholar this kind of soughtafter treasure cannot even be found in mainland China.

Most recently we found in our collection the oldest bronze Buddha head in the world, hidden amongst the other galleries and not yet cleaned. It was flaking on the outside and we never thought that when we had it repaired it would turn out to be from before 1200 AD. It can in fact be traced back to the T'ang dynasty. Also among our most precious possessions is some Northern Sung court ru ware.

Q: The first reaction of a lot of Chinese people when they see Chinese objects in Western museums is to think that they were stolen by looting imperialist armies. The first time I visited the ceramics collection at the V&A I was interested to see explanations saying that things had been "found in China." Moreover, according to the catalogue, some things " . . . after leaving China earlier this century, had entered the international art market." How could such rare objects have been "found"? And how did they "leave" China and "come to" the West.

A: Actually, the reason some of the things in the ceramics gallery have the explanation "found in China" is because their origins are not clear. It is probably that someone just picked up something in a certain place but nobody now knows the details, so we have to just register it in this way.

Our Chinese collection is in fact built on donations made by several collectors over the years, such as the big gifts of porcelain, bronzes and sculpture made early this century and the Eumorfopoulos donation of T'ang and Sung items given to us in the 1930s. Of course, the museum personnel continue to buy Chinese artifacts today.

Most of the items have been purchased at international auctions, although some were collected earlier in China by people such as Bushell, who was a doctor in Peking and understood Chinese. The things bought at auction could well include items from palaces. Around 1910 there was quite a flood. For example, we have an eighteenth-century cloisonne? incense burner which could be part of the booty acquired when British and French troops looted the Summer Palace of the Chinese emperors in 1862. The museum bought that piece from the auction of General Gordon's estate.

After the Second World War, the museum began to collect textiles and furniture and in 1983 we started to concentrate on contemporary art and design. It is the policy of the whole museum to display contemporary art and design. This is so for Europe, and it is the same for China. Moreover, the Far Eastern Collection was only allocated a budget of ￡13,000, so it was more feasible to buy good quality contemporary design work than antiques. The new acquisitions are, therefore, mainly contemporary works bought by museum personnel from factories, kilns and workshops in Hong Kong, Taiwan and mainland China.

Q: The V&A already has seven well-known Chinese galleries. When you received the donation from Hong Kong, how did you decide what direction to take for the new gallery?

A: In fact, we had already decided on making some changes, but only when we received the donation did we start to really think about how we would do it. In the past the Curator would decide what people should see. But this time we decided to let the visitors decide.

The new gallery hopes to attract new visitors, including those people who either rarely go to museums or have no knowledge of Chinese culture, so we carried out an opinion poll which included the views of students, people from the Chinese community and the average home. The result of the poll was obvious--what people most want to know is how things were used and how they are made. We decided it is impossible to do both and decided to concentrate on the first.

We also found that history normally puts people off; especially because Chinese history is so complicated and foreigners have problems with the names of Chinese dynasties, people and places. Such tongue-twisting was not like finding common areas of experience between East and West, such as eating, drinking and wine. Everyone is interested in such things; people would like to find out, for example, how the Chinese drink wine.

We thus had the advantage of soliciting the opinions of the public, then rearranging the existing collection in the gallery, hopefully making it more easily accessible and acceptable to people. We hope that people will like the new arrangement but, of course, some people will not.

Q: I am curious to know more about the results of your survey. How much does the average British person understand about China?

A: Little, very little. Many people do not even know where China is, only that it is very far away. If you give them a map and ask them to point it out, they have to think about it. Of course, different groups show different results. Chinese history is part of the curriculum 15- and 16-year-old schoolchildren have to study, so we are very keen to attract these pupils. Tests show that their general knowledge about China is very little and there are some pupils who have a very negative outlook, saying that they can find nothing in Chinese history relevant to their own lives.

Faced with that kind of attitude we must work very hard to get their interest. For this we have cooperated with the museum's education department to design a teaching pack for Chinese history and culture which will be ready at the end of the year. When it is launched we want to invite interested teachers from the whole country to come and look at the first draft and the gallery and then, after discussion, make any necessary changes.

The new history curriculum stipulates that everybody must study either India, Africa or China, so we hope that these teaching materials will prove to be satisfactory. After all, people will only look at an option if teachers have good interesting material to use and it is only through teachers that we can really improve this society's understanding of China.

Q: Can we talk about the experience of your own early attempts to understand Chinese culture? What opportunities did society and school present you with?

A: I have always lived in London so when I was small I used to come to the V&A and I liked the Chinese items very much. In the sixties BBC radio broadcast Chinese lessons and I bought a book to go with the series. Some children wanted to be train drivers and some wanted to be ballet stars. I do not know why but I wanted to study Chinese.

When I went to university, as well as being in the art department I also attended Chinese lessons. After that I went to the Peking Foreign Languages Institute. The Cultural Revolution was in its last stage at that time and all the students had to do physical labor. I worked in a factory packing cabbages and then spinning in a wool factory. Finally, I ended up selling fruit in a market near Tienanmen Square. It was very interesting and gave me a good insight into real life.

Q: Did this influence your later approach to your work in the Far Eastern Collection?

A: Actually, at that time I did not think I would go into museum work. When I chose to study Chinese, my school said that I could study it for my own interest, but that I would never get a job.

As for my approach to museum work, I have always felt that the job of a museum, as well as doing research, is to let the public accept and enjoy the delights of culture. The level of research must be high but when there are exhibitions then the complexities must be explained in everyday language. People in the West know that China has a long and splendid history and that Chinese poems and paintings are beautiful, yet there are still a lot of stereotypes like Charlie Chan and Fu Manchu. Even as early as on maps of the fourteenth century China is labeled as the "yellow peril."

It must be remembered that China is still a distant, strange and inscrutable place for people in the West. That is why we hope to tell people that life for the Chinese has in fact got much in common with our own lives, such as eating, drinking and wine. Everyone has their own experience through which to communicate.

When I was young there were not many opportunities for contact with China. The explanations in museums were also very brief and I could not really understand them. Now our explanations are aimed at people aged about thirteen and adults who read tabloid papers such as The Sun. In other words, they are for young people or adults who have not had a university education and for those who have no previous knowledge at all about China. We also hope that we will not only expose people to Chinese art but to Chinese culture as well. Even if visitors have no knowledge of China they can still be interested, as can experts too.

Q: You just said that the new visitors you hope to attract will also include people from the Chinese community. Was this originally your own idea or the request of the sponsor?

A: In 1987, when we opened the Chinese export art gallery, we also organized design and workshop activities for the Chinese community, and even lectures in Cantonese, only not on the same kind of scale as the present plan. Of course, though, our aims are also related to the wishes of the sponsor. When he was very young he fled to Hong Kong from Shanghai in poverty. After that he became fully occupied in business but has always regretted that he did not have the opportunity to absorb the culture of his mother country. He thinks that there must certainly be second-generation Chinese immigrants in Britain who have the same problem.

For this reason we must work even harder this time, sending out letters like we did before and telling people we have again opened a Chinese gallery and inviting them to come and take part in our activities. This time we will have transport laid on so that we can even go and collect them from their communities in places such as Liverpool, Birming-ham and Manchester. We do not only want them to come and look at the exhibition, however. Every Sunday is a family day with all kinds of classes. There is kite making, shadow puppets and music. Whole days of activities. We have also put out a lot of publicity in the Chinese press, on community radio and printed leaflets in Chinese.

The exhibits have labels and explanations in both Chinese and English, although they will not be identical due to the different cultural backgrounds of the visitors. Moreover, some of the Chinese will not only be for Chinese visitors but will also be an opportunity to allow Western visitors to appreciate the beauty of Chinese writing while conveying information to the Chinese.

Q: The V&A has recently seen the establishment of new Japanese, Indian, Chinese and Korean galleries sponsored by various enterprises. Is this apparent enthusiasm for the Orient just coincidence or a sign of the times; have the donations from foreign enterprises come as the result of approaches made by the museum or were they initiated by the enterprises themselves?

A: Actually, we are also in the process of planning a new gallery for British sculpture and an Italian gallery as well, so the establishment of the new Japanese, Indian, Chinese and Korean galleries should be considered as just a coincidence.

The museum is financed by the government and has enough money to keep it going but no way to open new galleries. So if we want to try a new experiment then we need to find a sponsor. Generally speaking, we select good proposals then seek support. The Toshiba and T.T. Tsui galleries came about like this. In December next year we will have a new Korean gallery funded by Samsung.

Q: Have you had any contacts with Taiwanese enterprises?

A: Yes, we have contacted a few. Of course, we are asking for very large sums of money but perhaps later we will have some kind of cooperative relationship.

Q: In this country many people do not distinguish between what they perceive to be faraway places, such as Canada and New Zealand. When it comes to the remote Orient, can they really perceive the special characteristics of China, Japan and Korea? When organizing exhibitions is it possible to consider explaining the relationships between these places?

A: In fact the old Far Eastern Collection did not even have a Japanese or Korean gallery. They were just included in the Chinese gallery. The Japanese gallery was only established in 1986 and this has been very good for Western visitors because they can compare the Japanese and Chinese galleries and see that they are not actually the same. In fact, the name "Far Eastern Collection" should be debated, with its connotations of remoteness. Perhaps "East Asian Collection" would be more suitable. But as you know, changing a name is a big matter and not easy.

Q: Recently there has been massive Japanese sponsorship for the arts which has made quite an impression. Not long ago there was an exhibition about Japanese porcelain. The exhibition was well organized, only it seemed that viewers might well come away with the mistaken impression that Chinese porcelain was just a branch of the Japanese tradition. As curator of the Far Eastern Collection how can you manage to clarify this kind of intercourse between different cultures?

A: The Japanese have put many resources into promoting Japanese culture. This autumn we will also have an exhibition to coincide with the festival of Japanese culture that is going on in Britain. We have a very good Japanese gallery, but we also have a very good Chinese gallery and a huge Chinese collection, so this kind of problem should not be able to arise in our museum.

Q: We wish you all the best for the new gallery and welcome you to come back to Taiwan to visit our artists in the future.

[Picture Caption]

Rose Kerr, curator of the Far East gallery of the Royal Albert and Victoria Museum, is an expert in porcelain.

(Right) The new Chinese gallery is distinctively designed. (photo by Peter Cook)

This carved ivory junk, made around 18O0, is 70 cm long and equipped with a motor inside. Sold only for export at the time, it is now displayed in the Chinese export art gallery.

There are more than 20,000 Chinese artifacts in the Albert and Victoria collection, displayed in seven galleries.

The Chinese export art gallery was founded in 1987 with help from a Hong Kong businessman.

Westerners understand little of China, but museum exhibits can help shorten the distance.

Rose Kerr has done a great deal of promotion to attract more people of Chinese descent to the exhibition.

（Right） The new Chinese gallery is distinctively designed. （photo by Peter Cook）

This carved ivory junk, made around 18O0, is 70 cm long and equipped with a motor inside. Sold only for export at the time, it is now displayed in the Chinese export art gallery.

There are more than 20,000 Chinese artifacts in the Albert and Victoria collection, displayed in seven galleries.

The Chinese export art gallery was founded in 1987 with help from a Hong Kong businessman.

Westerners understand little of China, but museum exhibits can help shorten the distance.

Rose Kerr has done a great deal of promotion to attract more people of Chinese descent to the exhibition.