The exhibits in the museum were truly astonishing and gave me an awesome (100 million hotdogs!) perspective of just how puny my mind is. At school, I was tought that modern civilization arose out of the roman empire. We spent a year learning about how the greeks morphed into the romans and then how the romans dissolved leaving only some outposts in the UK. those outposts evolved into the great British Empire which again dissolved only to leave some outposts in the new lands of America-the modern US and the just heir to the roman throne.
Anyways, not only did the exhibit show equal or more advanced refinement of the chinese civilization at all times through history as their western counterpart. There was also a big map showing the world around 400 A.D. you had the roman empire, you had the chinese han empire (equally large). But then there were also massive empires in India and the Middle East. Sure, I knew that there were other civilizations at other times and that they were all really impressive. But i had never before understood just how massive these empires where, and that they existed at the same time as the roman empire was about to implode from it's own size.
Among the exhibits were a couple of items that were pretty mind-blowing. The heart of the exhibition was a jade stone cut to look like a lettuce. It's masterfully done such that the cutting uses the natural colouring of the jade to get an almost photorealistic replica of a lettuce without any paint- a white stalk with green leaves.
But since I don't eat vegetables, the item that caught my eye was the "stone that looks like meat". These items are related naturally, they were part of some movement where artists had become so sophisticated that they saught after materials that naturally resembled something, and then worked with nature to achieve spectacular effcts. The stone below does really look like the meat they seel here in the night markets and it makes my mouth wet to look at it.
The next item that blew my mind was a small olive stone that had been carved into a boat. It's difficult to appreciate from this picture, since it's been magnified. So just think of an olive, you know, the ones you eat with bread while waiting for the main course in an italian restaurant. They's nice aren't they? Now, the photo below is of the olive stone, the stone inside an olive. Can you grasp how small this is?
The nuts who did this carved a boat with 8 men inside, tables and i think there's even food and drink on their tables. The doors are fully functional, they can be opened and closed.
And underneath the boat somebody who was very bored indeed has written the entire story of the 8 high officials that went somewhere on a boat and signed some kind of treaty. Where do they get the energy, that's what I wonder...
Oh it's pointless, you've got to see it to really appreciate how tiny it is. Come to Taipei and check out the National Palace Museum! It's humbling to say the least.
