9-12-2019

The best learning about nation or race is to walk through a museum. A visit to the museum is a search for the truth of the past history so that we will digest the meaning of our present existence. It was said that if you do not appreciate your history, you will not know anything. You are sadly a leaf that does not know you are part of a tree.

The Forbidden City is a marvelous palace complex in Beijing. It houses the Palace Museum and was the former palace of emperors from 1400s to 1910s. It had been the political centre of China for over 500 years. Every year, around 16,000,000 visitors go there to remember the glory days of China.

In 2016, Hong Kong government announced it would build a roughly 30,000 sq. m museum to accommodate the regular display of arts and relics generously provided to us by the Palace Museum in Beijing. This grand Museum is scheduled to open in 2022. Curating from the refreshing Hong Kong and international perspectives, the museum should be a very popular culture and tourist spot with first-rate exhibitions and other programs.

In 2019, Dr. Louis Ng Chi Wa was appointed to the position of Director of the Hong Kong Palace Museum (HKPM). He has to be responsible for 5 duties:

1. developing the museum’s strategic visions;
2. exhibitions, programming and managing its collections;
3. educational functions and activities;
4. operations including audience-building strategies; and
5. fundraising and financial management.

I have known Louis for many years. He was a visionary and capable high-level cultural official. I was taken by surprise when he resigned from his stable government position and took up the challenge of building up a much anticipated museum from scratch.

I asked him why. Louis said, “I love history and this is why I have been studying and researching in history since my university days. HKPM is the golden opportunity for me to be focused on history in an unprecedented way. I could not get a grip on my passion for this historian, if not historical, job.”

My curiosity led me to ask, “What is your magic formula to make HKPM significant, relevant and meaningful?” Louis replied, “The answer depends on what I have, what I need and what I want. We have the loans of great treasures from the Palace Museum. I obviously want a lot of audience who however expect HKPM to offer a totally different but equally attractive experience. So, what I want is to be able to do well in 3 challenging directions. Hong Kong is an international, modern and cross-cultural city. I want to connect the artifacts with the audience today and from a modern perspective. I also want to make the exhibitions bear a quality, character and atmosphere which are charmingly international. Thirdly, I want the ‘civilians’ not from the art world but perhaps even a housewife at Shau Kei Wan to come to HKPM for enjoyment. They will find things which will interest and excite themselves. My job is to return great times of the past into great spaces of the present.” I laughed, “The three are lovely directions. But, have you come up with any special recipe?” He chuckled, “The recipe is to employ a diversity of good chefs. I want world-standard museum teammates from various backgrounds and expertise within or outside Hong Kong. As you know, we do have a limited budget but hopefully, I can get people having dreams and passion to work with me.”

I tried to play devil’s advocate, “Some said HKPM, like a hurricane, would sweep away our local cultures. How do you think?” Louis disagreed, “It must be an overstatement and in fact very narrow-minded. Let us not look at it politically. The Mainland and Hong Kong both belong to a ‘Greater Chinese’ culture, past, present and future. Culture of a race is not given or taken. It is organic and grows like a jungle. We speak Chinese. We eat and live the Chinese ways. Respect and love for one’s history and culture need no moral justification or warrant any regional concern.”

Thanks to Dr. Louis Ng for giving me a congenial crash course on HKPM. I think some people in Hong Kong tend to be more and more ideology-driven. As writer Stendhal said, “The pleasures of love are always in proportion to our fears.” So, let us center on the results of the upcoming admirable world-class museum. Big work will produce great pleasures for us——why not think as simple as that?

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