The first exhibition hall I stumbled into as it was at the ground level, was the exhibition of ancient text, specifically by Emperor Yong Le, who has a collection of text commissioned under his reign. It's not like I could read much of the text found here, but it's still cool to be among them. Plus, the one China exhibit their items is really cool!
Ancient scroll text. Imagine books used to be like this.
The writings on them.
I think this is the Art Of War written on bamboo sticks. The sticks are preserved in a test tube with solution so that they can be kept forever. Isn't that cool? I mean, I haven't been to many museums, but this is the first time I see text in this form displayed in such a manner.
I think it's due to the lightings as well. It just felt like you are inside someone's treasure chest.
Something about Chinese language? Feel free to zoom in to read more about it.
There was an interactive map of the Yellow River of China too. It's based on an old map drawing from the past, so it's not that relevant any more, but you could still scroll through it and see just how long the river was, cutting through different areas in China. I did spend some time playing with the display here.
Beautiful writings with red ink chope. Even if I can't read them, I can still admire them. Just like someone who can't play music watching a concert and still loving the melodies.
Next was the actual collection of text from Emperor Yong Le. I thought they would only display replicate or examples of it. But this being China, I wasn't quite ready to witness what was displayed here!
Since this is a library, they did have to make things more children friendly, so there were displays that looked like those made for kids to interact with. The one above allows you to read the text from the collection of Emperor Yong Le.
And at the center of the exhibition, there were the full collection in closed glass shelves. The actual thing! Seriously, I'm blown away! The amount of treasures I've seen in my short trip to just Beijing was more much than I've seen in my life time to-date!
Anyway, there were some text that I did understand and did like, so I took some photos of them. To think all these meant nothing to me when I was studying in a Chinese school. They were just text to memorised to pass exams. But now, older and hopefully wiser now, I am able to appreciate them better.
Some great sayings from Mencius about books.
And another saying about poetry. Poetry is a big thing in Chinese culture. I think I have all these weird classics in my book collections. I know they are important. But I must confess, I don't think I have read them, only those forced upon me in school. Even then, I might have just memorised them without nothing much about them, lol. So much for education eh? Well, at least with some grip of the language, perhaps it is not too late to start learning more about them!
