Themed train

The National Museum of China has gone beyond showcasing and studying its collections to work with schools in Beijing, organizing tailored courses and tours for students. Beijing No 4 High School became the first high school to make a cooperation agreement with the museum in 2016. On this basis, the school has set up an optional course, integrating history, philosophy and the arts.

"We simulated the casting process of hufu, a tiger-shaped tally issued to generals for troop deployment, with wax," says student Zheng Hanyun, as she recalls a class on ancient bronze-casting techniques.

Zheng says her immense interest was ignited by a trip to the national museum in junior high school.

The course aims to lead students to dig deeper and to shape their values with the help of traditional culture, according to Xu Yan, a history teacher from the high school, who initiated the cooperation.

The national museum has also extended its showrooms to the Beijing subway. A train decorated with patterns inspired by cultural relics runs on the tracks of Beijing Subway Line 1. Inside the six-car train are decorations showcasing representative relics and exhibitions of the museum.

The train began running on Nov 11 to offer people a window into the Chinese civilization. It is estimated that nearly 5 million passengers will get a closer glimpse of Chinese culture during the train's three-month operation.

"We hope the cultural relics can come out of the storehouses and showrooms, and enter people's lives in a new way that may arouse stronger interest in cultural relics and history," says Liu Jun, an official with the museum.

Tang relics

The large-scale exhibition, Meeting the Tang Dynasty Again, kicked off in the Liaoning Provincial Museum in Shenyang on Oct 7. It will last through Jan 5. Calligraphy and paintings from the Tang era are rare and seldom exhibited. The exhibition has a total of 100 displays, including 38 national first-class cultural relics. Many of the items have been deemed national treasures for centuries. The quality and scale of the exhibits are unprecedented.

A special part of the exhibition is a detailed introduction on display boards for almost each item, describing such elements as historical background, scripts of connoisseurship seals, an introduction to dressing styles and comments by authentication experts. The exhibition has attracted numerous visitors not only from Liaoning but also across China, who wait in long lines to check out items from the legendary dynasty.

"Our aim is for visitors, even those who do not know cultural relics well, to gain an understanding of the culture and life in the Tang Dynasty," Dong Baohou, the museum's director of academic research and exhibition curator, says.

"I frequently check the messages that visitors leave us."

Li Na, a young nurse, says: "Behind the museum's fashion is our ever-growing recognition of, and desires to, explore traditional culture.

"This is the charm of China."

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