In just three months, the Forbidden City found itself at the center of a public relations storm due to the so-called "Ten Scandals." The issues implicated in these scandals varied in severity and nature but all had a significant impact on the rapidly developing museum sector.
The Forbidden City has long been considered one of China's finest museums, with its management often claiming to be "world-leading." If such a prominent institution can be exposed to have so many problems, then surely other museums are even less able to withstand scrutiny?
In a sense, the public's questioning of the Forbidden City is not solely directed at it alone.
Museums Have Become Selectively Scrutinized
Rapid expansion and free admission have forced museums, which were once secluded in their own little worlds, to face public scrutiny and fulfill the audience's right to know.
Before the Forbidden City became the target of widespread criticism, the museum world was not exactly calm. According to Song Xiangguang, a professor at Peking University's School of Archaeology and Museology, museums have already become selectively scrutinized.
Sun Shouling, a researcher at the Wuwei Museum in Gansu Province, vividly remembers an incident involving the destruction of a national first-class artifact within his museum. In September 2007, a relative of the museum director accidentally dropped a Han Dynasty wooden dove while photographing it, causing its beak to crack. Instead of promptly reporting the incident to superiors, the director simply glued the pieces together himself. It wasn't until nearly a year later that the issue was discovered, becoming a news story and leading to the director's immediate dismissal.
Earlier, there was also the highly publicized incident at the Hubei Provincial Museum where a national first-class artifact, the Nine Tripods and Eight Guis, was damaged. On February 6, 2000, during the Spring Festival, a 50-kilogram glass panel fell onto the display case containing the artifacts, damaging two tripods and two guis. Following the incident, the museum repaired the artifacts, sought compensation from the construction party responsible for the exhibit hall, and the Wuhan procuratorial authorities filed charges of dereliction of duty against the former museum director. Although the director was ultimately acquitted, the debate over the valuation of the damage to the national treasures and accountability caused quite a stir.
There was also the Xinjiang Museum. This large museum, housing numerous Silk Road artifacts, saw its director imprisoned for improperly disposing of cultural relics and economic issues related to some infrastructure projects. In December 1997, preservation staff at the museum discovered that about 80 artifacts from minority groups like the Kazakh and Evenki had mold damage. To cover up his mistake, the director ordered employees to bury and burn the artifacts.
In reality, museums have never been isolated from the world. As institutions bearing human culture, they are merely one type among many cultural organizations in China, and the issues present in other units are no less prevalent here. Mistakes commonly made by other units also frequently occur in museums. For example, Li Haitao, the head of the Cultural Relics Preservation Department at the Chengde Outer Eight Temples Management Office, engaged in embezzlement for ten years before being caught; he substituted many valuable artifacts with fakes and was eventually sentenced to death. Ji Bing, the former director of Liaoning Provincial Museum, was sentenced for repeatedly embezzling public funds. In another case, in 2009, Li Ming, the former director of the Guangdong Revolutionary History Museum, was sentenced to five and a half years in prison for accepting bribes totaling over 650,000 yuan…
The sustained attention on the Forbidden City this time around highlights not only the prestigious position of museums represented by it but also the public's growing awareness and defense of their cultural rights. As cultural symbols of cities, since 2004, the number of museums in China has been increasing at a rate of 100 per year, with continuous renovations and expansions of both large and small museums.
Since the implementation of free admission in 2008, the number of people visiting museums has surged dramatically. Museums, which were once secluded in their own little worlds, now face critical audiences and must satisfy the public's right to know. However, innovations in the system and mechanisms of museums clearly lag behind improvements in hardware facilities, and the concepts of museum personnel have not kept pace with the times. They were not adequately prepared.
Who Are the People Handling National Treasures?
Major museums worldwide have implemented qualification certification systems, with many directors being selected through open recruitment from society, whereas in China, the appointment system is still largely in place, with greater consideration needed for the professional competence and management abilities of officials.
What is the management level of Chinese museums? This might be discernible from the National Museum, which is geographically closest to the Forbidden City.
After three years of renovation and expansion, in March of this year, the National Museum of China opened its doors to the world. However, many visitors left feeling disappointed. Without going into details about the slow-moving queue under the scorching summer sun without any shade, or the few reservation phone lines that are always busy and the almost non-existent free exhibition materials, or criticizing the staff who lack knowledge and cannot answer questions, the mere arrangement of the exhibits was shocking. A paid trade brand exhibition prominently occupied prime space, while the real basic permanent exhibitions required searching high and low to find. There were very few tour guides, almost no volunteer services, and most exhibition descriptions were available in only two languages—Chinese and English—as if everyone in the world either understood Chinese or spoke English. The vast exhibition halls offered pitifully few chairs for visitors to rest on. Perhaps during the three years of closure for renovation, the staff at the National Museum were all on extended holidays.
Professor Pan Souyong of Minzu University of China, who studied museology at Harvard University, said that countries like the US and Japan have strict threshold designs for museum professionals, and museum directors are usually erudite individuals with doctorate degrees. Among the thousands of museum directors in China, those with doctoral degrees are exceedingly rare. Many engage in management without any professional background. Some museums have even become places to arrange positions for idle staff and relatives of various leaders, yet the cultural relics collected by Chinese museums require more specialized technical expertise. One could say that the professionalization of Chinese museums has only just begun.
In the first half of this year, after a decade-long effort, the digitization work of precious cultural relics in state-owned collections was basically completed. The 1.66 million national treasures across the country bid farewell to the era of handwritten paper cards and fully achieved informatization management. In theory, the management of national treasures has become evidence-based.
Currently, the State Administration of Cultural Heritage only has the authority to appoint and dismiss personnel for the two directly affiliated museums. Local museum directors are appointed by local governments, with the administration providing only business guidance. In 2002, the Palace Museum and the National Museum of China became vice-ministerial-level museums under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Culture, with appointments made by the Ministry of Culture. Due to their high status, very few people can effectively supervise them.
It is undeniable that the quality of museum management personnel has significantly improved in recent years. Currently, there are 11 museums co-built by the central and local governments, known as the "national team" museums: the Palace Museum, Shanghai Museum, Nanjing Museum, Shaanxi History Museum, Henan Museum, Zhejiang Museum, Hunan Museum, Hubei Museum, Shanxi Museum, Capital Museum, and Chongqing China Three Gorges Museum. Let us take a look at the heads of these museums.
Zheng Xinmiao served as the director of the Palace Museum while concurrently serving as deputy minister of culture. He once said that the Palace Museum is more famous than the Ministry of Culture. With his extensive political experience, he should have been able to manage the Palace Museum well, yet incidents have occurred frequently.
Among these heads, some are "old veterans" in the cultural heritage field with over 30 years of experience, possessing rich management experience and familiarity with every aspect. Others are scholar-directors with certain academic standing in archaeology, history, religion, and art. However, experts point out that while museum management requires professional knowledge, it also demands reverence for cultural relics. With many born in the 1960s entering the ranks of museum directors, cultivating their sense of responsibility toward cultural relics is particularly important.
However, the management of cultural relics does not solely depend on the directors. Every link in the chain requires professionals to maintain vigilance. Taking the staff of the Forbidden City as an example, their sources can be divided into three main categories: administrative management personnel from different industries, outstanding apprentices selected from places like Liuli Factory who specialize in restoring paintings, bronzeware, jade artifacts, etc., and university graduates in recent years who have received systematic training in art history, archaeology, history, and Chinese literature, with strong research capabilities but limited practical knowledge regarding common-sense issues like jade fearing contamination, ceramics fearing movement, and paintings fearing humidity.
Currently, China has over 3,000 museums with more than 60,000 employees. According to a recent survey conducted by the State Administration of Cultural Heritage on the museum workforce in 25 provinces, autonomous regions, and municipalities, only 51.6% of the staff are professional technicians. In terms of titles, there are 3,161 senior titles (7.6%), 7,961 intermediate titles (17.2%), and 10,316 junior titles (24.8%). In terms of education, there are 106 doctoral degree holders (0.26%), 767 master's degree holders (1.8%), and 10,733 bachelor's degree holders (25.8%). Overall, the educational structure, knowledge structure, and title structure of museum staff nationwide fall far short of the professional requirements of museums.
To maintain the professional level of museums, countries around the world have implemented qualification certification systems, with directors being publicly recruited. In China, however, the appointment system remains dominant, with officials who yesterday were office directors of provincial, municipal, or ministry offices possibly becoming directors of major museums tomorrow. In the future, more consideration should be given to the professional competence and management abilities of officials.
Museums Should Resonate with Society
Museums should not be government offices, nor warehouses for stacking cultural relics, nor purely academic institutions for research or intermediaries for appraising treasures. They are modern public cultural institutions, and openness and transparency should become the norm.
The State Administration of Cultural Heritage recently released an evaluation report on 83 first-tier museums. Among all the scores, the lowest was for museums proactively accepting social supervision and communicating with society. Some museum websites are outdated, with slow update speeds, let alone establishing new communication channels like blogs or microblogs.
Professor Song Xiangguang of Peking University's School of Archaeology and Museology said that the "ten scandals" of the Forbidden City should be treated separately. Museums will inevitably encounter unwanted and unforeseen incidents, but when they do occur, it is not necessarily terrifying. The key lies in how to resolve them. For instance, in November 2004, a batch of Chinese artifacts disappeared from the British Museum. The museum actively contacted the media to make the incident public and admitted during interviews that they couldn't immediately account for the exact number of missing items. However, there was no widespread condemnation of the British Museum from the British public; instead, the thieves were blamed. In the eyes of the public, the museum was like their home, and losing items meant everyone could help search together.
Tang Jigen, a researcher at the Institute of Archaeology of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, who is also the captain of the Anyang Archaeological Team, deputy director of the Chinese Characters Museum, and deputy director of the Anyang Yin Ruins Museum, believes that although people with backgrounds in cultural heritage are more suitable for managing museums, reverence for cultural relics and love for civilization are the most crucial qualities for being a good museum director. For instance, organizing an exhibition means that cultural relics may be exposed to various threats such as infrared, ultraviolet rays, relative humidity, temperature, vibration, and dust. Even the short journey from the storage room to the exhibition hall can lead to unexpected accidents. Therefore, ensuring the safety of cultural relics requires supporting technology, advanced transportation tools, storage cabinets, reducing middle steps, and strictly following operational procedures. Despite minimizing risks, unforeseen situations may still arise. If one lacks a vigilant attitude akin to walking on thin ice or standing at the edge of a precipice, the situation could worsen.
He candidly stated that ensuring the safety of cultural relics is a fundamental responsibility of museums but is only the most basic task. Museums also play a role in organizing different artifacts to tell historical stories and disseminate knowledge about civilization. When a cultural relic is damaged, it represents both a crisis and an opportunity for museums to popularize knowledge about cultural relics. Abroad, some museums even advocate for "naked displays," allowing visitors to have the closest possible contact with the artifacts. Elementary school classes are sometimes held in museums, and incidents of children damaging artifacts do occur, but museums do not become conservative because of this.
In recent years, the State Administration of Cultural Heritage has been promoting the establishment of legal governance structures in museums. In May this year, Peking University's School of Archaeology and Museology undertook the research task of the "Museum Board Organization Rules" commissioned by the State Administration of Cultural Heritage. Song Xiangguang introduced that governance systems in museums vary across countries. For example, in France, museum directors at all levels are indeed appointed layer by layer by the Ministry of Culture. In contrast, in the UK, represented by the British Museum, boards are widely established to implement macro-management, oversee the museum's financial income and expenditure, review, and nominate museum director candidates.
During the early development phase of Chinese museums, a similar board system was implemented. Composed of government managers, fiscal fund providers, relevant associations, experts, scholars, and the public, the board could collectively decide on museum affairs, making the director accountable not only to superior leadership but also to the board.
Song Xiangguang said that museums should not be government offices, nor repositories for storing cultural relics, nor purely academic research institutions or intermediaries for appraising treasures. They are modern public cultural institutions, and openness and transparency should become the norm.
Recently, Zheng Xinmiao, the director of the Palace Museum, openly admitted in response to the "ten scandals" that the Forbidden City remains a closed institution with insufficient communication with society. He promised to be more open and transparent in the future. Museum directors across the country hearing these heartfelt words would surely be deeply moved. "Correct what is wrong, and strive harder if there are none," this ancient saying should have extraordinary significance for today's museum community in China.