The Road of Rejuvenation: a lesson in Chinese history, according to the CPC

As I mentioned in my previous post about my visit to the Chinese National Museum, the one of the main exhibits, entitled "The Road to Rejuvenation," chronicles Chinese modern history from 1840 onwards. However, to call it it an historically accurate exhibit would be quite a stretch, a point highlighted in a New York Times article entitled, "At China's Grand New Museum, History Toes the Party Line."

Now of course, in general, national history museums of any country, not just China, are not the best places to go when searching for the most accurate historical accounts of a nation's history. However, the exhibit on modern Chinese history seems to take historical revisionism and blatant pro-Chinese Communist Party propaganda to a new level.

Inside the exhibit, which is aptly named, "The Road of Rejuvenation," you can find plenty of flaunting of what the CPC (the Communist Party of China) considers it's greatest achievements, including mementos from China's first voyage into space in 2008. But you'd be hard pressed to find any actual mention of any of their failures, such as The Great Leap Forward and the resulting famine, Tian'anmen Square Massacre or the Cultural Revolution.

Perhaps the best part about this very biased exhibit however, is the very bombastic language used in their explanations. Many of the statements in the summaries and captions seem straight out of a bad Communist Party propaganda novel. Needless to say, I found many of them highly amusing and almost made my two hour wait in line worth it.

Unfortunately, my camera battery was dead so I have no (good) pictures to share with you, but I had my cell phone camera to help me record some of crazy things written in the exhibit.

Below are some quotes from the exhibit. I think there are some real gems in there and you'll find them as amusing as I did. Enjoy!

• "The Chinese nation is a great nation whose people are industrious, courageous, intelligent and peace-loving and have made indelible contributions to the progress of human civilization."

• "'The Road of Rejuvenation' is a permanent exhibition showcasing the explorations made by the Chinese people form all walks of life who, after being reduced to a semi-colonial, semi-feudal society..., rose in resistance against humiliation and misery, and tried in every way possible to rejuveniate the nation"

• "Today, the Chinese nation is standing firm in the east, facing a brilliant future of great rejuvenation. The long-cherished dream and aspiration of the Chinese people will surely come to reality."

• "...the imperial powers descended on China like a swarm of bees, looting our treasures and killing our people."

The Chinese National Museum

As I briefly mentioned in my last post about Labor Day here in China, I had last Friday off in honor of the holiday. Since traveling in China during national holidays seems to more of a lesson futility due to the large crowds of tourists everywhere, I decided to stay in Beijing and visit some places I wanted to see before I leave. Included on that list, was the newly-reopened Chinese National Museum (中国国家博物馆).

After undergoing over three years of renovations, the National Museum recently re-opened after years of arguing and revisions. Historically, the current site of the National Museum was home to two separate museums, the Museum of Chinese History and the Museum of the Chinese Revolution; they were combined in 2003 to make up the Chinese National Museum. In an effort to boost China's (specifically, Beijing's) international standing, the Chinese government decided it was time to renovate and bring the museum up to par (or at least, what they felt like was up to par).

The original plan was to have the museum completely redone, renovated and opened for the 2008 Beijing Olympics, however due to years of arguing and disagreement over the museum's content and endless revisions on the interior design, was not finished in time. Nor was it finished in time for it's second hoped-for end date, which was supposed to coincide the 60th Anniversary of Communist rule on October 1, 2009. Finally, the National Museum reopened just this past March after years and years of delay.

Since 2008, China's museums have gradually begun waiving their entrance fee, in hopes of attracting more visitors. While I appreciate free museum admission as much as anyone, in the case of the National Museum, this seems to have backfired.