Monday, April 14, 2014

Shanghai Museum - A Glimpse into China's Past

       In a big City Like Shanghai there are many museums, or so I am told. There is one Museum known as the Shanghai Museum, which has a very modern outward appearance, but inside it is contains many ancient relics of China’s past. According to their website, www.shanghaimuseum.net, there are eleven galleries that showcase many types of art including sculptures, paintings, and calligraphy. Some sculptures are made from a popular mineral known as jade. Jade is a medium chosen by many artists and sculptors for its beauty and meaning in Chinese Culture. Jade is said to even contain healing properties. I will be particularly interested to examine the Jade art. I have always admired it for its natural beauty.

       Museums are the window through which we look into the past. I like museums because they often house the proof that the past actually happened. You and I were not in the past so we cannot testify to its existence. Without the artifacts housed inside of museums we could never really verify that the past even occurred. Without museums we would never really know what has come before us, if anything at all. So a visit to the Shanghai museum will be a glimpse into China’s past. Consider the Jade Exhibit, no doubt will there be priceless artifacts from the past, each with a unique story of how it came to be. With that story and that artifact comes a physical link to the past that is otherwise completely gone.