2010-06-26 China - Hubei Provincial History Museum

Today was a visit to the Hubei Provincial History Museum. We rode through Wuhan (capital of Hubei Province, and a history of 3500 years). It's also famous as the start of the revolution in 1911 depicted in the movie "The Last Emperor". The Museum visit started with a wonderful musical performance of both Chinese and Western music on the 65 ritual bells that cover 5 octaves. The bells are exact copies of from the Tomb of Marquis Yi of Zeng (around 433 BCE). The performers were in traditional, very beautiful costume, and put on a delightful performance. AFter the concert, we went in to the main part of the 4-story museum. Starting on the 4th floor, we walked through the Minority Ethnic Clothes exhibit, then down to the Painting and the Calligraphy exhibits. Kiyomi was fascinated to see the original paintings that were copied by Japanese painters, and used as their inspiration until they developed their own style. She also appreciated seeing the evolution of the Kanji script, from the original scratching on turtle shells to the vertical writing on bamboo slats to the current form, which is similar to the Japanese Kanji, but a little different. So she can usually get the meaning of the Kanji, but not always; and cannot pronounce it in Chinese at all.

Later in the day after our return to the ship we had a Napkin Folding demonstration by our favorite waitress, Fiona.

Later we saw the A&E biography of Mao Tse Tung (now Mao Zedong –wikipedia.org). It painted a pretty grim picture of the Chairman from a Westerner's point of view; but apparently he is still revered by many Chinese. If he had not set Chinese progress back 40 years, who knows what China's place in the world would be today?