Beyond relics: Chinese museums seek more visitors

Museum products including art-themed phone cases and toys modeled on historical figures are on show at the Museums and Relevant Products and Technologies Exposition, a biennial event that was held in Xiamen, Fujian province, last week.[Photo by Wang Kaihao/China Daily]

A recent expo shows that Chinese museums are keen to innovate. Wang Kaihao reports in Xiamen, Fujian province.

By designing stereo earphones fashioned after chaozhu, a pearl necklace that high-ranking officials wore in ancient China, the Palace Museum may have set off a trend to attract visitors in creative ways.

The museum in Beijing, and other museums in China, are all seeking to do more than just exhibit cultural relics.

The Museums and Relevant Products and Technologies Exposition, a biennial event that was held in Xiamen, Fujian province, last week, turned out to be a useful platform for an exercise in innovation. More than 100 participating museums presented different approaches to draw visitors.

Other than the chaozhu-styled earphones, the expo had varieties of museum products such as antique-shaped cookies, traditional art-themed phone cases and toys modeled on historical figures.

"It's the responsibility of public museums to promote culture better and help visitors take home the experiences," says Shan Jixiang, director of the Palace Museum.

His museum sold some 6,000 kinds of cultural products for more than 600 million yuan ($97.8 million) in 2013. The museum also unveiled a model pair of mascots, a dragon and a phoenix, at the expo. The items will likely become hot properties in souvenir stores.

The Palace Museum was recently in the headlines for installing its own app and games on smartphones, the first by a Chinese museum.