CHINA
Beijing’s private, and quirky, museums
Stuffed into a tiny room off an alleyway are items that Wang Jinming readily admits were put out with the garbage: Paper string, a needle holder, a metal pancake maker built for thrusting into a fire.
“These objects all look quite old and shabby,” he said. “But they record real history.”
Wang’s Beijing Old Items Exhibition in the heart of old Beijing is one of dozens of private museums whose collections range from items salvaged from the garbage to a limousine in which Mao Zedong once rode.
Entering these private museums is to peel off a largely forgotten layer of Beijing’s recent history.
While state-run museums seek mainly to legitimize the ruling Communist party through its own highly selective interpretation of history, the capital’s private museums are born from their founders’ hobbies and obsessions, along with trying to keep alive a little bit of history others might dismiss as trivial.
“If you throw it on the street, people would say ‘What’s this?’ and maybe think it’s useless and throw it away,” said Wang, in a room packed with hundreds of 1900s to 1970s household items and street objects. “But we think it’s culture.”
Wang delights in asking visitors to guess what the objects are in their hands. They might include a Popsicle holder used by street vendors or a bucket-shaped iron heated by charcoal.
Picking up a doughnut-shaped metal bell, Wang explained that before Beijing had many hospitals, itinerant doctors roamed the streets. “When you heard this sound, the doctor was walking in the street, available ...”
Visitor Liu Chen, 27, likes the down-to-earth quality of Wang’s museum.
“Here many of the old objects displayed might have been the kind of things used by Mr. Wang himself when he was a kid, so you can feel his enthusiasm, which is the key thing that distinguishes it from other museums.”
As China grows richer, wealthy citizens, banks and private businesses have invested in Chinese art and started museums to display their wealth or patriotism. Others, such as Luo Wenyou, opened their collections after their pastimes evolved into callings.
In 1998, when he already owned about 70 old cars, Luo took part in an 800-kilometre rally from the northeastern city of Dalian to Beijing, his iconic Red Flag sedan the only Chinese car in the event.
Inspired by shouts of “long live Red Flag” as he pulled up to Tiananmen Square, Luo decided to preserve the legacy of China’s early motoring history.
“I felt this was my personal duty.” His museum opened in 2009 and he now boasts more than 200 vintage Chinese and foreign cars.
Luo’s cars include one Mao refused to ride in until the brand’s Romanized name on the hood was replaced with Chinese characters.
Ma Weidu opened China’s first private museum in 1996, filling it with antiques bought cheaply from Beijing residents eager for cash to buy refrigerators and TVs.
His most valuable acquisition was a bowl made during the reign of Qing dynasty emperor Qianlong about 250 years ago. Purchased for just 6 yuan (less than $1), it might fetch as much as 600,000 yuan ($92,000) today, he said.
Ma’s Guanfu Museum now has three branches across China with two more opening this year. Ma himself hosts TV programs teaching antique hunters how to discern between real treasures and fakes.