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Redefining a museum's purpose

The National Taiwan Museum (國立台灣博物館) has recently once again exhibited the so-called treasure of the city -- the Yellow Tiger Flag of Democratic Taiwan (台灣民主國黃虎旗) -- and other relics from recent Taiwan history, something that will surely rekindle discussions about the status and function of the museum. In its heyday it was popular, but times have changed. With the establishment of many modern museums, this 100-year-old museum, the oldest in Taiwan, will be hard put not to become a relic itself unless it clarifies its function and status.

When the National Museum of History (國立歷史博物館) arranged the Terracotta Warrior exhibition, for example, the National Taiwan Museum had to post information at its main entrance to redirect the many people who had arrived at the wrong museum. The same scenario has occurred many times over the years.

How does one distinguish between natural history and the history of civilization ? This is an issue crucial for the development and future existence of the National Taiwan Museum.

The earliest incarnation of the museum, the "Affiliated Museum of the Business Property Bureau of the Civil Affairs Department under the Office of the Taiwan Governor" (台灣總監府民政部殖產局附屬博物館), was established in 1908. It was located where the Po-ai Building is today, on Po-ai Road behind the Presidential Office. With departments of zoology, botany, minerals and history, it already resembled a natural history museum.

Then, in 1915, it moved to its present location inside the 228 Park and its name was changed to "Affiliated Museum of the Taiwan Governor's Office -- The Kodama-Goto Memorial Hall' (台灣總督府附屬博物館 兒玉後騰紀念館).

In 1917, many of the industry-related specimens stored there were moved to another location [the Commodity Exhibition Hall of the Governor's Office (總督商品陳列館)], the first time any of the museum's specimens had been removed and defining its status as an orthodox natural history museum. In 2000, the Council for Cultural Affairs (行政院文化建設委員會) and the Ministry of Education agreed to confirm the National Taiwan Museum as a museum of natural history.

However, since the museum is concerned with zoology, botany, earth sciences, anthropology and education, it is similar to the National Museum of Natural Sciences (國立自然科學博物館). As part of an attempt to combine the two, the National Taiwan Museum will be put under the auspices of the Ministry of Education next year. Once this has happened, the museum could end up being taken over by the National Museum of Natural Sciences.

Even though the National Taiwan Museum has been in operation for the better part of a century, it has never been able to incorporate the words "natural history" into its name, ie to have a name that reflects its functions.

During the Japanese occupation, one aim of the colonial regime was to control public opinion and to treat the culture of Taiwan as an alien culture, leading to the museum's anthropological focus on aboriginal culture (including Taiwan, southern China and Southeast Asia) and the collection and study of the Han culture in Taiwan, instead of on archeological and biological anthropology generally, which is the usual focus of natural history museums. This is the basis for the chaos at the museum after Japan's colonial rule ended.

After Taiwan was handed over to the KMT government in China, the scope of the anthropological department was defined as "handling research, collection, study and storage of items related to anthropology and history." Not until 1994 was the word "history" struck from the museum's regulations regarding anthropology. The change, in fact, did not make much difference. The museum has always operated as a general museum.

In particular, activities involving recent historical relics, documents, art, folk customs, religion, festivals and rituals of the Han people have had the effect of crowding out natural history activities, in terms of budget, storage space and educational exhibitions. This has prompted frequent criticism that the museum functions are not clear. It has even been suggested that the museum should become "The National Taiwan Aboriginal Museum" (國立台灣原住民博物館), "National Human Rights Memorial Hall" (國立人權紀念館) and "Taipei City Museum of History" (台北市立歷史博物館).

The current collections of the anthropological department focus mainly on the history of civilization, folk traditions and aboriginal culture. These areas are also the main specialities of the museum's research staff. The museum has taken on the epochal mission of keeping cultural relics and among the aboriginal cultural relics collected are many gifts moved from the Taitung Local Museum (台東鄉土館) in 1949 and from Taichung Library (台中圖書館) in 1964.

However, with the forthcoming elevation of the Council for Cultural Affairs (文建會) to the Ministry of Culture and the establishment of new museums, all relics of a cultural or historical importance should be kept in museums specializing in a particular field in order to strengthen the collection, research and educational functions of museums.

Before the museum's administration is transferred to the education ministry, the personnel and collections of its anthropological department should be combined with the planning office of the National Museum of Taiwan History (國立台灣歷史博物館籌備處) under the Council for Cultural Affairs, in order to assist with the establishment of that museum and to solve its collection shortage problem. Since the main contents of the National Taiwan Museum of History will include the history of our forebearers, recent general history and treasures of traditional folk and aboriginal culture, and because collections are a prerequisite to the establishment of a museum, a system should be adopted for the transfer of collections between museums, in order to avoid an overlap in functions leading to a waste of national resources.

After the transfer of the museum to the education ministry, its name could be changed to the `National Life Sciences and Information Museum' (國立生命科學資訊博物館) in order to stress research, development and exhibitions in the following areas.

One, biotechnology and genetic research -- the Academia Sinica is currently promoting an important national plan in this field and results of advanced biotech R&D both at home and abroad could be on permanent exhibition in the museum, to educate the public about leading developments in the biotechnology.

Two, building biology and genetics databases -- biological categorization techniques have already entered the genetic level, and the museum should actively collect biological specimens from Taiwan and neighboring countries. This would allow it to build a complete collection of biological specimens and a genetics database and decide biological relationships and categorization of the specimens according to themap of the human genome. This technique has already been used for a long time in the examination of criminal evidence. Also, to explore the early beginnings of Taiwan's aboriginals, anthropologists in research organizations are already isolating DNA from pre-historic bone remains from Taiwan for comparison with aboriginals in neighboring countries. Sooner or later the same kind of research will have to be extended to cover all biological categories.

Three, biological conservation and habitat protection -- biological diversity planning is an important research topic for all universities and research institutions, and the results from these institutions could be gathered, analyzed and exhibited by the museum.

Four, museum digitalization -- the museum could function as the planning center and base for the digitalization of all museums in Taiwan, using advanced multimedia and information techniques to disseminate knowledge to all parts of the globe through the global reach of the Internet.

Wang Hsiau-yue is associate curator at the National Taiwan Museum.

Translated by Perry Svensson
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