Palace Museum
Nov 16th, 2006 by Michael Max
You know this kind of familiarity.
Your destination is North. Do you take I-5 or Aurora? 新生南路 or 中山路?
Don’t even think, kick over the scooter and give the handles a twist.
North is all you need to know, just flow the feeling and follow northward.
To the uninitiated, Taipei traffic looks like Chaos on a bad hair day.
Truth is, there are 3 simple rules to this high speed game of “GO”.
It has a simplicity that emerges once you stop following the rules in your head, and instead recognize that every moment is a negotiation.
In essence,Taiwanese traffic is the moving definition of 讓 and 勢力。
In Beijing there is a palace without a museum. In Taipei, there is a museum without a palace. They both go by the name “Palace Museum”. This would not be the first time in Chinese history that the North and South had disputing claims.
When the KMT lost the mainland to the Communists. They emptied the Palace, and the banks too. Looting would not be too strong a word. Thousands of cases of 5000 years of Chinese history, slipped through Japanese bombardment and Communist patrols. Floated it’s way across the Straits to Taiwan.
Spoils do not always go to the victors, sometimes the wily in retreat have few tricks up their sleeve. And then perhaps there is a god that looks after creation. No doubt China’s frenzy of self hatred, the so called Cultural Revolution, would have seen an end to much of the cultural treasures that for the most part lay in vaults in the mountain behind the museum.
GPS and “smart” cars are the latest craze in the States. Punch in a destination and the car tells you were to turn. In Taipei, with it water rules traffic, scooters drip like water through the lanes of congestion, and up to the front of the red light. I just pause along side a taxi and ask directions.
Cabbies are more up to date than a GPS, and they know the shortcuts too.
North, north to the 大直 bridge, bear right. Ask the guy on the scooter for clarification. “I’m going that way, follow me”. Circle a roundabout, chase through a tunnel, and emerge on the other side into mountains with a faint fragrance of flowers, and a sense of having departed the city.
While circling looking for a place to park the scooter, I notice how the museum on the high ground, with it’s back against the mountain, feels like a fortress.
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Only a portion of the treasure is on display at any given time. Specialty of the season is Han Dynasty bronze. Kettles, knives, blades fit to the ends of poles. They are trimmed in designs that recall Mayan, Tlingit and Haida.
Trademarked Ming ceramics. The platters of Emperors, bowls and cups of rich merchants. Delicately carved ivory that only a Chinese courtesan would have the grace to handle.
I was hoping for Song paintings, but they are in hibernation. What I do find, in an auxiliary building are a collection of fans.
Painted fans.
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夏山雨後. Summer Mountain After the Rain.
It draws me like a lost memory. Something about the how the clouds between the mountains are full of emptiness. It reminds me a water country love affair.
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It’s odd the influence of ancient Masters. I walk back out into the world, and the mountains surrounding the Palace/Museum appear to be Song painted.
