Beijing 2024 - National Museum of China (中国国家博物馆) Precious Metal Exhibition

There were also a few halls dedicated to metals, precious metals I take it? From bronze, to copper, to gold. It never occured to me that you could actually have different halls for each! That is how detailed and how much stuff the Chinese have to showcase! While reading up on these, I found out that copper is actually more valuable than bronze. So we start first with bronze and make our way up in this post! Above, already very fascinating, was just the display of the hall info before you even enter the exhibit. Those looked like a field of bronze lotus seed pod!

And wow! A sunflower display of bronze. This was so Van Gogh that I just had to take a photo of it and post it here. Not only was it made of bronze, it was totally 3D! Almost alive! So beautiful. And it shines too since it's made of bronze. I love the display. Like the sunflower was actually coming out of the painting. Beautiful! And I love how the lighting and the shadow just add to that effect. 

Next we have the copper exhibition hall. And again, the above row of pieces were just the welcoming sign! The way China casually flex their art pieces is really intimidating! Nothing caught my eye specifically here, so we will just move on to the gold exhibit.

A hall filled with gold items! And no, I don't mean petite jewelry or art pieces. I mean huge temple looking pavilion!

Or a whole pagoda made of gold!

And a whole bridge made of gold! Seriously, I think they are just gold platted. But they still looked pretty impressive! 

How huge are these pieces you ask? Here, let me put my husband on the golden bridge for scale! Lol. I think I might be missing some background mythology here, but most of the Chinese seems to be excited to take a photo of themselves crossing a golden bridge. Was I missing some reference here? Anyway, I just Googled it, and in summary :

"In Chinese culture, the "Golden Bridge" often symbolises a path to salvation or a bridge for cultural exchange. It also appears in Buddhist contexts, representing a path to the Pure Land of the West for those who have led exemplary lives"