While reporting on a proposed extension of the National Palace Museum at the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) Central Standing Committee meeting on Wednesday last week, museum director Fung Ming-chu (馮明珠) said she hoped the Taipei MRT system could be extended out to the museum to solve traffic problems caused by the rising number of visitors.
President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), who is also the KMT chairman, poured cold water over the idea, saying that because of environmental constraints, it was not feasible to build an MRT station near the museum. Ma added that he would like to see extension plans for the museum be completed on schedule by the end of next year, to reach its goal of attracting 10 million visitors each year.
This is an ill-thought-out, contradictory policy, and Ma’s style of governance will only worsen the museum’s problems.
As the Ma administration encourages cross-strait relations, the number of Chinese tourists visiting the museum has also rapidly increased. However, the uncouth behavior of many of these visitors is spoiling the atmosphere inside the museum, making it more akin to a bustling market filled with hawkers. It has come to the point that many Westerners and Japanese visitors are often put off venturing inside.
The museum should remove the shops and restaurants and use the space exclusively for showing exhibits. The problem of overcrowding could be alleviated by building small extensions to house shops and restaurants.
Instead, the museum intends to expand to five times its size, claiming that this would help it meet the target of attracting 10 million visitors each year.
However, the surrounding area Ma referred to makes this plan unfeasible. The museum is located in the middle of a small river valley in the Taipei suburb of Waishuangxi (外雙溪), which is connected to the city by only one main road. It already has a serious traffic problem, which will only worsen when more cars and people flock to the museum.
If an MRT line is built underneath this river valley, it would easily be flooded; and if it is built overhead, it would spoil the surrounding scenery. Moreover, given a lack of road space, there is no way a light rail system can be built. Besides, even if an MRT line was built, visitors accustomed to traveling by tour bus probably would not use it anyway.
A museum that claims to be one of the biggest in the world should never have been built in the small Waishuangxi area, nor should it be overly expanded, as it would only aggravate its traffic problems.
Since Ma is clear about the environmental constraints that the museum faces and yet insists on having the extensions finished on time, he is clearly an incompetent and irresponsible leader.
That same day, Ma also said that when he was running for president for the first time, although he did not know much about museums, he promised to establish a branch of the National Palace Museum in Greater Taichung. Ma has made many promises over the years, such as his “6-3-3” campaign promise (6 percent annual economic growth, less than 3 percent unemployment and US$30,000 in annual per capita income), a golden decade for Taiwan, banning imports of US beef containing the leanness-enhancing drug ractopamine, the cross-strait service trade agreement, a capital gains tax, the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA) and free economic pilot zones.
It is evident that they are all like the promises he made for establishing a branch of the National Palace Museum as well as the promise he made for expanding the current one. They are simply not viable. Ma still has two years left in office. God help us all.
Jhang Shih-hsien is a former head of the National Palace Museum’s Conservation Department.
Translated by Drew Cameron
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