Let's spread the wealth
Dear Johnny,
What should be done with the treasures at the National Palace Museum? Considering the brouhaha with the two bronzes at the Christie’s auction, do you really think the Chicoms will give back anything we send over there?
We should call it the “Kiss That Shit Goodbye” exhibit. We need a pragmatic solution to the issue that will help create jobs here in Taiwan.
What vexes many art lovers is that the museum, as big as it is, can only show a miserly 10th of what’s available. I say we start converting unused buildings and public spaces into mini-museums housing parts of the treasures, put together by Taiwan’s brilliant, world-class curators.
This would not only create jobs within the art community, but also pay construction workers to modify the buildings, check that the bars on the windows are still OK, add security cameras if they’re not already there, and pay guards and ticket-sellers.
If the museum sets ticket prices so that these people can remain employed, there will be jobs galore!
Currently, the lion’s share of the treasures is buried in a mountain, safely out of view.
This is wrong. I’d like to see museum “branches” pop up everywhere: in Taipei 101, in train and MRT stations in Taipei and Kaohsiung, near high-end jade and gold stores, malls, military installations … ya know, everywhere a Chinese missile might land.
Let’s open one mini-museum for each missile pointed at us, and every time they add a new one, we should figure out where it’s going and open another branch there.
If the KMT won’t pay for this with their stolen assets fund, we could just auction off a few pieces until we have the cash to pay the start-up costs. Anyone can agree that it would be cool to be able to see the treasures as commonly as other public art. And they could play a role in Taiwan’s national security at the same time.
It’s totally win-win!
If Chinese people want to see our treasures, let them come here. That’s the whole point of tourism. There could be an “I lived through the Cultural Revolution” discount for the elderly.
Let’s spread the wealth, here at home, on the free and democratic island paradise of Taiwan, and create local jobs at the same time.
TORCH PRATT
Johnny replies: I dunno, Torch. The received wisdom is that the National Palace Museum treasures belong to China, whichever way you frame it. If Taiwan is not China, then we can’t lay claim to them.
Of course, the truth is that a good chunk of these priceless objects would have bitten the dust (perhaps “become dust” might be more apt here) in the late 1960s had they not been whisked away 20 years earlier.
But then, what is “received wisdom”? Most of the wisdom I ever had that was worth two farts was carved out of sheer experience — the kind you get from infiltrating Chicom spy networks, having a legion of lady friends, getting to know people who make things happen but never get their names in the paper ... that kind of thing.
To gain is not necessarily to receive, you see.
So screw it, let’s revitalize our economy with a treasure-based economic stimulus plan.
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