北京博物馆漫游指南 - 东城区篇A Roaming Guide to Beijing Museums: Dongcheng

A Wanderer’s Guide to Beijing Museums - Dongcheng District

A few words up front

• I had meant to fit all the museums / ancient buildings / art galleries I’ve visited in Beijing these past two years into a single post, but writing it up really does take time. So it will have to come out in installments, by location
• The ratings / recommendation levels are largely based on the author’s personal interests; the author has tried his best to be objective..
• The author’s knowledge is rather limited, so if you spot errors or omissions in this guide, please don’t hesitate to point them out. Many thanks

• • • I am the divider before the main text - - -

The National Museum of China

Exhibits rating: 5

Facilities / curation rating: 4

Uniqueness rating: 5

Does the National Museum even need an introduction…

• ‘Ancient China’ on floor B1 is a permanent exhibition; walk through it and you will have seen, in the flesh, pretty much every artifact pictured in your history textbook

• Among the second-floor permanent exhibitions there is also ‘Friendly Exchanges,’ which displays the state gifts sent over by various countries, and it’s rather fun: the peoples of Africa are warm and unreserved, with a feeling of bringing over whatever good things they happen to have; European countries sometimes just send a pair of chopsticks hahahaha. I won’t spoil any more

• Other permanent exhibitions cover bronzes / jades / coins, Buddhist statuary and porcelain. Honestly, the bronze and coin displays are far richer than those of some of Beijing’s specialized museums. The rotating exhibitions also tend to be of very high quality. You can follow the museum’s official WeChat account to check what’s on; the writing there is quite good..

The museum’s curation has improved a great deal these past two years. As for the interpretive texts, most of the background knowledge an exhibition touches on gets filled in for you, so you come away having learned quite a bit

• Free; closed Mondays
• Several gift shops, with original merchandise
• Volunteer-guided tours at irregular times
• No parking
• Dining nearby is superbly convenient. Wangfujing is a few steps away. Food and water available inside

Strongly recommended.

The Palace Museum

Exhibits rating: 5

Facilities / curation rating: 4

Uniqueness rating: 5

Does the Forbidden City even need an introduction…

Since Director Shan took charge, the Palace Museum has grown more and more like an actual museum. The share of the grounds open to the public, the standard of curation, and the quality of the exhibits (the buildings themselves as well as the objects) have all improved enormously. So even though the Hall of Mental Cultivation is under restoration, I think right now is exactly the time to visit. Whether you come for the imperial architecture, for the ceramics, paintings, furniture, and statuary, or even just to gawk, the Palace Museum’s 1.8 million-plus objects and eight-thousand-odd rooms will not let you down.

• Set aside a full day (5 hours or more) for the Forbidden City and take it slowly

• When buying your ticket, get the Hall of Clocks / Treasure Gallery tickets at the same time (the Treasure Gallery building seems to be under repair at the moment). The Hall of Clocks is probably the largest collection of Qing-dynasty clocks in the country hahaha (corrections welcome). The Treasure Gallery, for its part, is a fine place to glimpse the craftsmanship of the Imperial Workshops and the Qianlong Emperor’s retirement life. If you have time to spare, book Along the River During the Qingming Festival 3.0 and the Duanmen digital exhibition as well; very much worth it!

• When touring the Forbidden City, don’t just follow the crowd straight down the three great halls the moment you enter. Start instead with the Hall of Martial Valor and the Hall of Literary Glory, which now house the ceramics gallery and the painting-and-calligraphy gallery respectively. Spend some extra time in the Cining Palace garden too, strolling the deer park and watching the koi, away from where the visitors concentrate. The Palace Museum’s official website has extremely detailed guides, and you can easily put together something like an ‘imperial dining tour’ or ‘a day in the life of Cixi’

• By the end you will probably be feeling ‘holy crap, why is the Qianlong Emperor everywhere!’ hahaha

• The Palace Museum’s series of apps are all of fairly high quality; worth downloading and trying

• Paid admission; closed Mondays since June 2018

• Gift shops in abundance, original souvenirs in abundance, decent quality. There is an online store

• No parking

• Dining nearby is superbly convenient. There are fast-food outlets inside the palace as well: taste 3/5, not expensive

Strongly recommended.

The China Customs Museum

Exhibits rating: 4

Facilities / curation rating: 4

Uniqueness rating: 5

The Customs Museum is mainly devoted to telling the history of the customs service, from the Ming dynasty all the way up to recent years. The main holdings are documents, along with the working paraphernalia of customs offices such as seals / instruments of every kind, plus the smuggled goods customs has seized and so on, available in types A, B, AB, and O.

• Customs being a record-keeping fiend, whatever it did, whoever ever worked there, it all got written down… so the collection is remarkably thorough, practically a history of modern China from another angle. If document-type exhibits interest you / you’re willing to dig, there is plenty of fun to be found hahaha. For instance the various amusing customs declarations from the Republican era, or the customs staff ID issued under a Japanese customs commissioner during the occupation etc.. I won’t spoil any more

• The modern documents even include originals of New China’s policy circulars / various appointment papers, which I suspect you won’t see anywhere else

• The modern gallery on the first floor displays customs’ assorted trophies: an elephant tusk nearly a meter tall, fossil skeletons of every kind etc.. even narcotics and demonstrations of the various methods of smuggling. Remarkably candid, and quite the eye-opener..

• The Customs Museum also has an annex beyond the main building: they simply put Vessel 902 in the basement. Yes, the real ship, the very one Comrade Xiaoping once sailed on, the whole thing… Inside, ‘1992, That Was a Spring’ plays on loop, and honestly it moved me a little.. those with claustrophobia should think twice, though

• Free; closed Mondays

• Gift shop, with its own line of cultural merchandise

• Volunteer guide service: unknown

• No parking

• Dining nearby is fairly convenient; plenty to eat at COFCO Plaza

Recommended. The Customs Museum is remarkably candid and has brought out a great many good things for everyone to see. Though it is run by Customs itself, red-rooted and true, the staging and the interpretation are objective, the exhibits are rich, and it is worth the trip.

The Temple of Heaven Park

Exhibits rating: 5

Facilities / curation rating: 3

Uniqueness rating: 5

The main exhibit is the architecture itself.

• The Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests / the Circular Mound Altar / the Imperial Vault of Heaven and the Echo Wall are all worth seeing. The Hall of Prayer uses no great beams or long purlins; the roof is held up entirely by agarwood pillars and interlocking squared rafters. Not to be missed (even if only as a photo for your WeChat Moments..). The Hall of Prayer’s side halls also carry brief introductions to the rites of Heaven worship and the history of the Temple of Heaven

• I recommend entering by the park’s south gate at dusk when the visitors have thinned, and walking straight north: through the Circular Mound Altar and the Imperial Vault of Heaven, then along the Danbi Bridge to the Hall of Prayer. Wrapped in the ritual culture of imperial architecture, you get a strong feeling of the twilight of empire

• Paid admission; open every day

• Gift shop with a good range of original merchandise. Honestly I’d rank the care put into the Temple of Heaven’s cultural products second only to the Palace Museum’s. There is an online store

• Volunteer guide service available

• Dining nearby is inconvenient. Though there is a rather famous old Tianqiao luzhu place

Recommended. The architecture alone repays the ticket and the time.

The Beijing Museum of Natural History

Exhibits rating: 5

Facilities / curation rating: 4

Uniqueness rating: 3

Beijing has quite a few animal-themed museums: the paleozoological museum, the natural history museum, the zoological museum etc

• This natural history museum’s main exhibits are specimens of all kinds of animals / insects and the skeletons of ancient creatures. There is also a smallish aquarium inside

• As for the exhibits, the specimens are numerous, arranged mostly by taxonomy and by reconstructed scene. The skeletons include the ancient Yellow River elephant, Mamenchisaurus, and Sinornis santensis, all rather precious fossils. Among the more interesting pieces, the fossil of the largest pig ever and the reconstructed subtropical jungle are both worth a look

• On the first floor there is also a small hall with a reconstructed dinosaur scene, where the dinosaurs move and make sounds; the third floor has a little cinema, though I’ve never been. Both are magnets for small children

• Most of the reconstructed scenes are fairly immersive to view

• Free; closed Mondays

• No gift shop

• Volunteer-guided tours at irregular times

• No parking

• Dining nearby is inconvenient

Recommended. Best to avoid holidays, though. Small children are not only terribly easy to step on, their shrieks pack real firepower!

The Confucius Temple and Imperial College Museum

Exhibits rating: 4.5

Facilities / curation rating: 3

Uniqueness rating: 5

The Confucius Temple and the Imperial College are a single site.

• A large share of the Confucius Temple’s exhibits are stone steles of various kinds. Steles like the Qianlong Stone Classics are genuine treasures, but the labels are sparse, with almost no interpretation of the inscriptions. A layperson basically comes for the spectacle

• The other part of the temple is an exhibition on the life of Confucius, mostly pictures and replicas. A quick browse will do

• The Imperial College has Beijing’s only glazed archway not belonging to a temple, along with the Biyong hall, symbol of the round heaven and the square earth

• The Imperial College’s exhibition takes the civil examinations as its theme. Among the exhibits are period admission slips describing a candidate as ‘handsome, with double eyelids (kidding)’ / imperial results lists as posted, plus a reconstruction of the examination cells etc. On the whole the curation is careful. The exhibits are ordinary, but it’s still fun to wander

• Paid admission; open every day

• No gift shop

• Volunteer-guided tours at irregular times

• No parking

• Dining nearby is superbly convenient. There’s a good vegetarian restaurant in Wudaoying Hutong, and no shortage of Japanese options either

Recommended. The recommendation rests on the singularity of the architecture and its place in history.

The Poly Art Museum

Exhibits rating: 4

Facilities / curation rating: 5

Uniqueness rating: 5 (it has four of the bronze animal heads) / 3 (in case the heads are away on loan..)

The Poly Art Museum is not large, but the collection is of fine quality and in superb condition. The permanent exhibitions are one of bronzes and one of Buddhist statuary.

• It has the Old Summer Palace bronze animal heads, bought back at great price! Four of them!

• Among the bronze gallery’s exhibits, the spirit-face you vessel / the Bogan Bi xu vessel / the dragon-head canopy-bow caps are all superbly preserved bronzes in immaculate state

• The statuary gallery holds mostly Buddhist figures from the Wei-Jin and Northern and Southern Dynasties, earlier than the Ming and Qing statuary we usually see. Figures of this period differ utterly from Tang, Ming, and Qing work in both form and expression; come and see the bodhisattvas smile

• Interpretation is delivered through the WeChat official account, with audio guides, extremely detailed.

• Free for students, 20 yuan for adults; closed Sundays

• Gift shop, with original merchandise

• Volunteer guide service: unknown

• Parking available

• Dining nearby is fairly convenient. Plenty of good food beneath Galaxy SOHO

Recommended. The four animal heads alone repay the ticket.

The Overseas Chinese History Museum of China

Exhibits rating: 4

Facilities / curation rating: 5

Uniqueness rating: 2

The museum’s subject is just that: the history of the overseas Chinese and how they live today.

• Across the whole museum, historical exhibits to reconstructed scenes runs about 6:4. The exhibits are mainly historical documents and photographs of various kinds. On the whole it keeps close to its theme, the interpretation is relatively objective, and though most exhibits are old objects collected from overseas Chinese families, they are detailed and plentiful

• The second gallery is one whole imitation Chinatown, essentially all reconstructed scenes, great fun. If the history of Chinese migration overseas interests you, and you’re willing to pore over the IDs and papers donated by overseas Chinese for display, you’ll turn up plenty of interesting things and stories. For instance, Chinese people were already teaming up to bamboozle the Americans by the early twentieth century lol (not exactly a proud moment..)

• Free; closed Mondays

• No gift shop

• Volunteer guide service: unknown

• Dining nearby is superbly convenient; Gui Street is a few steps away

Recommended. A visit will teach you a good deal.

The Yonghe Temple

Exhibits rating: 5

Facilities / curation rating: 5

Uniqueness rating: 5

The Yonghe Temple is a Tibetan Buddhist monastery. Today it is a living temple, and also the Yonghegong Museum of Tibetan Buddhist Art. Whether your purpose is worship or viewing Tibetan Buddhist statuary, I think it’s worth the visit either way.

• As a temple, Yonghegong is famously efficacious (it really, really works!)

• As a museum, it also displays a wealth of Buddha figures / thangkas / ritual objects and implements. The Ten Thousand Buddhas Pavilion holds an 18-meter statue of the Maitreya Bodhisattva carved from a single trunk of white sandalwood; the bronze-cast Mount Sumeru, the Buddhas of the Three Ages, and the Mountain of Five Hundred Arhats are likewise national-treasure-grade artifacts.

• Paid admission; open every day

• Gift shop (the Dharma goods counter)

• No volunteer guide service

• Dining nearby is superbly convenient. There’s a good vegetarian restaurant in Wudaoying Hutong, and no shortage of Japanese options either

Recommended. The straight five-star scores rest on the fact that Yonghegong really works!

The Beijing Police Museum

Exhibits rating: 4

Facilities / curation rating: 3

Uniqueness rating: 4

The Police Museum occupies the former Citibank building, on the same street as the Supreme Court. To my mind the building alone is worth a look. As for the collection, it consists mainly of the everyday gear of the police system plus documents and credentials of every kind.

• The more interesting holdings include credentials of every era since the founding of the People’s Republic, firearms, technical equipment, and scene photographs of all kinds. The firearms collection is especially rich; I’d say it doesn’t lose to some dedicated gun museums

• On the document side, there are also interrogation transcripts, convictions, and investigation records from every period since the founding, plus things like a household register printed with ‘never forget class struggle’ hahaha. You can get a close-up look at how the police system (of former times) did its work

• The second-floor gallery gives special treatment to several major cases investigated since the founding, with thorough photographs and write-ups. If you come out of morbid curiosity, you will not leave unsatisfied

All in all, though the Customs Museum and the Police Museum are both museums run by organs of the state, the Police Museum falls a shade short of the Customs Museum in the objectivity of its interpretation. Still, it remains a museum worth a wander.

• Free; closed Mondays
• Gift shop, no original merchandise, surly service
• Volunteer guides for group visits only
• No parking
• Dining nearby is middling. Walk a kilometer or so to Chongwenmen, though, and there’s plenty to eat

Recommendation depends on your interests. For those interested in the history of the Republic or in firearms / military matters, recommended.

The National Art Museum of China

Exhibits rating: N/A

Facilities / curation rating: 4

Uniqueness rating: 4

• Apart from the treasures gallery, the National Art Museum has almost no permanent exhibitions, and what’s on can change drastically. But in my experience of wandering in, most exhibitions are of a very high level, and even aimless browsing teaches you a lot..

• The curation is passable, and the exhibitions are all fairly substantial. The recent exhibition for the 120th anniversary of Han Leran’s birth and ‘Beauty in Harmony’ were both outstanding

• Exhibitions mostly run short, usually around 10 days. If one catches your eye, hurry

• Free; closed Mondays

• Gift shop, no original merchandise

• No parking

• Dining nearby is superbly convenient. Wangfujing is a few steps away

Recommendation depends on your interests. Check whether anything on show interests you before you come.

The China Railway Museum (Zhengyangmen branch)

Exhibits rating: 4

Facilities / curation rating: 4

Uniqueness rating: 3

The Zhengyangmen branch is the old British-designed Zhengyangmen East railway station; the building alone is worth seeing.

• The first floor mainly covers the history of China’s railways, with a good stock of historical exhibits.

• The second and third floors have plenty of station models and high-speed rail / EMU / train models / railway dioramas. Rather fun, especially for train fans!

• The second floor (?) has a 1:1 EMU driver’s cab experience; having tried it, it’s so-so, and rather thick with small children.

Paid admission; closed Mondays

• Gift shop, no original souvenirs
• Volunteer guide service: unknown
• Dining nearby is superbly convenient; Wangfujing is a few steps away

Recommendation depends on your interests. For those interested in trains and railway history, recommended.

The Cultural Heritage Exchange Center

Exhibits rating: 4

Facilities / curation rating: 2

Uniqueness rating: 5

The Cultural Heritage Exchange Center is Zhihua Temple. Zhihua Temple is an interesting site: it looks small (and truly is small), yet it has everything. Website, guide app, gift shop, the full kit.

• The Scripture Hall has a Ming-dynasty revolving sutra cabinet, moved here from elsewhere, but the only one in Beijing. Atop it sits a Vairocana Buddha, and the caisson ceiling is rather fine too. The preservation feels middling, though; the painted colors of the Buddha figures are no longer as bright as in the photos on the hall’s information board.

• Zhihua Hall has a mural of Ksitigarbha and the Ten Kings of the Underworld, likewise surviving from the Ming, national-treasure grade.

• Then there is the Ten Thousand Buddhas Pavilion. The pavilion itself is a beautiful building, and the wall beside it even carries an explanation of its structure. The Shakyamuni figure inside is exquisite, to say nothing of all the small Buddhas in the remaining niches. The second floor is currently off limits. It too once had a caisson ceiling of extreme beauty; it is in Philadelphia now.

• Paid admission; open every day

• Gift shop with original souvenirs, though not many

• Volunteer guide service: unknown. On the hour there are performances of Jing music, though the standard is beyond my judging

• Dining nearby is inconvenient. Anywhere with a slightly higher Dianping rating is a kilometer-plus walk, and there aren’t even many hole-in-the-wall joints

Recommendation depends on your interests. If Buddhist statuary particularly interests you, or you’d like a taste of Jing music, it’s worth going.

The Ancient Observatory

Exhibits rating: 3

Facilities / curation rating: 3

Uniqueness rating: 5

First of all, the Ancient Observatory sits in Dongbiaobei Hutong, a name that gets funnier the more times you say it aloud. The hutongs beside it have fun names too, Big Wool and Little Wool and the like hahaha but I digress.

• The exhibits are mainly classical astronomical instruments left from the Ming and Qing dynasties.

• The instruments up on the platform, such as the armillary sphere and the simplified armilla, are all genuine, all of considerable size, finely wrought, and quite well preserved. I have almost no astronomy in my stores of knowledge, so I’ll refrain from further comment.

• The other ground-level galleries are almost all pictures; the curation is middling and the interpretation rather poor.

• Paid admission; closed Mondays

• Gift shop; the goods are not original and have almost nothing to do with astronomy (if you insist that the beads on the bracelets stand for the eight planets, then.. fine, slightly related..)

• Volunteer guide service available

• Dining nearby is middling. Just walk over to COFCO Plaza

Recommendation depends on your interests. Recommended for those keen on astronomy; everyone else can drop in if passing or within walking distance, but there’s no need for a special trip.

The Bell and Drum Towers Museum

Exhibits rating: 3

Facilities / curation rating: 2

Uniqueness rating: 4

The Bell and Drum Towers are two sites joined together. The Drum Tower stands to the south, the Bell Tower to the north.

• The Drum Tower is the larger of the two in build; its second floor keeps the drum used from the Ming into modern times (now broken) and a few other timekeeping devices

• On the hour the Drum Tower has a drumming performance, fairly professional

• Of course neither of those is the point. The point is that you can look down the central axis from north to south, and the view is a fine one! On a clear day you can see all the way to Jingshan

• The Bell Tower is smaller; its main exhibits are a bell cast in the Yongle years of the Ming (no longer the tower’s original) and some write-ups of doubtful authenticity, better than nothing

• Paid admission; open every day

• No gift shop

• Volunteer-guided tours at irregular times

• Dining nearby is superbly convenient. Very close to Nanluoguxiang

No need for a special trip. Drop in if you’re passing or within walking distance.

The Shijia Hutong Museum

Exhibits rating: 2

Facilities / curation rating: 4

Uniqueness rating: 2

The Shijia Hutong Museum mainly covers the history of Shijia Hutong and the stories of the notable people who once lived there. Don’t be fooled by its being a mere hutong museum: it is run with great earnestness.

• The collection is small; its most distinctive feature is the hutong soundscape experience. The assorted hawkers’ cries and background sounds of every kind are well worth a listen.

• Most exhibits are photographs and everyday objects; the interpretation is middling.

• The museum itself is a siheyuan courtyard house. Shijia Hutong is also among the better-maintained hutongs, worth a stroll.

• Free; closed Mondays

• No gift shop, but the assorted old uncles around the courtyard are wonderfully warm; have a chat as your souvenir hahaha

• Volunteer guide service: unknown

• No parking

• Dining nearby is middling. No shortage of hole-in-the-wall joints. With good legs you can walk to Wangfujing, a bit over a kilometer, where there’s plenty to eat..

No need for a special trip. Drop in if you’re passing or within walking distance.

The Great Hall of the People

Exhibits rating: 5

Facilities / curation rating: 1

Uniqueness rating: 5

The Great Hall of the People can’t really be counted a museum, but in the spirit of ‘visit and learn something,’ I list it here anyway.

• The exhibit, naturally, is the Great Hall of the People itself

• If anyone asks me where to witness ‘understated luxury,’ this is absolutely my first pick

• Come feel the great radiance of our Party hahaha

• Paid admission; opening times vary

• No gift shop

• No volunteer guide service

• Dining nearby is superbly convenient. Wangfujing is a few steps away

Recommended.

The Chairman Memorial Hall

Exhibits rating: N/A

Facilities / curation rating: N/A

Uniqueness rating: N/A

• Free; closed Mondays
• No gift shop
• No volunteer guide service
• Dining nearby is superbly convenient

Recommended.

• • -the divider of finally being done- - -

There remain many proper museums / ancient buildings in Dongcheng that I know of / have heard of but haven’t visited, for reasons of time / interest / whatever else. For the completeness of the record I list them here (though of course even this is not all of them). I doubt I’ll get the chance to visit them anytime soon, so it’s see you in the Wanderer’s Guide to Xicheng District!

• The Tap Water Museum
• The Museum of Chinese Medical History
• The China Court Museum
• The Beijing People’s Art Theatre Museum
• The China Women and Children’s Museum
• The China Post and Postage Stamp Museum
• The Ancient Hominid Culture Site Museum
• Bailin Temple