A Must See in Taipei, Taiwan: National Palace Museum

Jadeite Cabbage, Source: NPM

Chinese-descent culture plays an important role in the diverse cultures in Taiwan. Taiwan and mainland China shared the same history until 1949 when the Chinese civil war ended. The Republic of China (a.k.a R.O.C. or Taiwan), originally based in mainland China, now governs the island of Taiwan.

After 1949, Taiwan and China has gone opposite ways, democracy in Taiwan and communism in China. Ancient heritage, relics, ruins and cultures have been carefully conserved in Taiwan. Yet many of them were demolished in China during the Cultural Revolution. For example, the traditional Chinese characters on the ancient calligraphy artworks are still used in Taiwan. Yet in China, they invented simplified Chinese characters that lose the  aesthetics and the origins of Hieroglyphs.

Every Chinese-descent culture is different. We encourage you to experience it in person. Taiwan is the place to observe some of the best conserved ancient cultures and relics. National Palace Museum in Taipei, Taiwan keeps many of the best high quality historical collections moved from China in 1949. 


In fact, the Taipei National Palace Museum has the largest collections of Chinese artifacts in the world, over 690,000 pieces. It was on CNN’s list of “Top 10 Things Taiwan Does Better than Anywhere Else”. 
 

If you like the antiques or history, it is a no-brainer to visit National Palace Museum, ranked #7 the most visited museum in the world.  Even if you are not too much of a museum person, a two-hour trip to the National Palace Museum will give you an idea about what happened in the past 10,000 years in China.

The antiques, paintings and calligraphy works are three highlights in the museum tour. We will cover basic introductions about each highlight in our future posts. Stay tuned.

Some basic information: 

“The National Palace Museum is an antique museum in Taipei, Taiwan. It is one of the national museums of Taiwan, and has a permanent collection of more than 696,000 pieces of ancient Chinese imperial artifacts and artworks, making it one of the largest in the world. 

The collection encompasses over 10,000 years of Chinese history from the Neolithic age to the late Qing Dynasty. Most of the collection are high quality pieces collected by China's ancient emperors.

The National Palace Museum and the Palace Museum in the Forbidden City in Beijing, China, share the same roots. The old Palace Museum in Beijing split in two as a result of the Chinese Civil War, which divided China into the two entities of the Republic of China (Taiwan) and the People's Republic of China (PRC) respectively. 

In English, the institution in Taipei is distinguished from the one in Beijing by the additional "National" designation. In common usage in Chinese, the institution in Taipei is known as the "Taipei Former Palace", while that in Beijing is known as the "Beijing Former Palace.

The Chinese Civil War resumed following the surrender of the Japanese, ultimately resulting in Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek's decision to evacuate the arts to Taiwan. A total of 2,972 crates of artifacts from the Forbidden City moved to Taiwan only accounted for 22% of the crates originally transported south, yet the pieces represented some of the very best of the collection." - wiki

Have you been to National Palace  Museum? Let us know.

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