Fan Jianchuan, director of the Jianchuan Museum: "Build the world's largest and best folk museum and donate it to the country"
Chengdu, May 9 (Shan Peng, Zhang Lang) "From 1999 to the present, we have built 56 museums, and there are still many museums under construction. Recently, Fan Jianchuan, a deputy to the Sichuan Provincial People's Congress, a private economic figure and the director of the Jianchuan Museum, talked about his goal of "building and donating 100 museums for the country" in an interview with China News Network. Fan Jianchuan said, "I am 65 years old this year, no accident, I can still work for 10 years, then I will build the Jianchuan Museum into the world's largest and best folk museum, donated to the country." ”
It is understood that the Jianchuan Museum is not a single museum, but a large-scale museum settlement composed of multiple museums. As a folk museum with the largest investment in private capital, the largest construction scale and exhibition area, and the richest collection content in China, Jianchuan Museum is distributed in Chengdu, Chongqing and other places, with tens of millions of collections, including 4790 national precious cultural relics. Anren Town, Dayi County, Chengdu is the "base camp" of the Jianchuan Museum. Here, the Jianchuan Museum has built and opened 33 theme museums such as the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, Folklore, the Red Age, and Earthquake Relief.
In the visitor center on the left side of the entrance to the Jianchuan Museum, a white wall is impressively printed with a striking "confession of the owner" with more than 100 words. At the beginning of the confession, a few 32 words tell the original intention of the "owner" Fan Jianchuan: "For peace, collect war; for the future, collect lessons; for tranquility, collect disasters; for inheritance, collect folklore." Fan Jianchuan said that in the form of a museum, passing on excellent things, experiences and lessons is the significance and value of the museum to the inheritance of national history and culture.
Fan Jianchuan, a deputy to the Sichuan Provincial People's Congress, a private economic figure, and the director of the Jianchuan Museum, was interviewed by China News Network. Photo by Zhang Lang
Fan Jianchuan's life experience is quite legendary. In September 1979, 22-year-old Fan Jianchuan was admitted to the Xi'an Institute of Political Science of the People's Liberation Army, and after graduation, he went to chongqing Three Medical University to teach, and in 1987, he transferred to the Policy Research Office of the Yibin Prefectural Committee. At the local level, Fan Jianchuan was promoted to executive vice mayor of Yibin City in 1991 with outstanding work performance. Just when outsiders saw that the 34-year-old vice mayor was about to "step into the clouds", Fan Jianchuan made a decision that surprised everyone: resign and "go to the sea".
"I have loved collecting since I was a child, and I resigned from the post of deputy mayor to collect. Because the place of work is in Yibin, the expansion of the collection is limited by geography. In addition, the income of civil servants cannot support this hobby, so they 'go to the sea'. Fan Jianchuan explained.
Fan Jianchuan, a deputy to the Sichuan Provincial People's Congress, a private economic figure, and the director of the Jianchuan Museum, was interviewed by China News Network. Photo by Zhang Lang
In 1994, Fan Jianchuan founded "Jianchuan Housing Development Co., Ltd.". After several years of hard work, Fan Jianchuan has accumulated a fortune. In order to complete the dream of collecting, Fan Jianchuan underwent another role change in his life: from a private entrepreneur to a museum director. Since then, Fan Jianchuan has called himself a "museum owner" and a "museum slave", "When I first started building a museum, I proposed to 'be the largest folk museum in Sichuan', and many people at that time did not believe that this goal has long been achieved." The cultural relics are the foundation of the Jianchuan Museum, which now collects nearly 4800 national precious cultural relics, as well as 20 tanks, 20 fighter jets and more than 100 cannons. Over the years, more than 10,000 cultural relics have been donated. ”
Talking about the achievements in museum construction over the years, Fan Jianchuan said that this reflects the superiority of the socialist system, and also brings inspiration to private entrepreneurs who have become rich in the reform and opening up. Private entrepreneurs should think about the significance of reform and opening up, think about why they can make money, and what they are making money for. ”
The construction and development of museums has not been a smooth road. On June 29, 2021, the theme exhibition "Struggle and Glory - Celebrating the 100 Years of the Communist Party of China" was unveiled in the comprehensive exhibition hall of Jianchuan Museum. The 15,734 cultural relics and more than 4,000 historical photos outline the great struggle of the Communist Party of China in the past hundred years since its founding. However, in preparing for this exhibition, Fan Jianchuan experienced a race against time. "The construction of the stadium only started on May 1, 2020, we repaired the house here, wrote the outline there, and did sculpture, painting, security and many other things. In the end, we actually used more than a year to build this 16,000 square meter museum. Fan Jianchuan said.
Fan Jianchuan in his youth. Courtesy of respondents
In Fan Jianchuan's view, collecting cultural relics is a way to inherit national culture and preserve the common memory of the nation. During an exhibition of cultural relics of the New Fourth Army, a veteran in his 90s personally attended the scene. After seeing Fan Jianchuan, the veteran said that he would hand over a bullet from the "38 Big Cover" rifle during the War of Resistance Against Japan to Fan Jianchuan. Fan Jianchuan was overjoyed and quickly asked where the bullet was now. "The bullet is still in my thigh, and if you want it, I'll take it out and give it to you." The veteran said. Later, the veteran underwent surgery to present the unusual bullet to the Jianchuan Museum. To this day, this incident still makes Fan Jianchuan unforgettable.
As a deputy to the Sichuan Provincial People's Congress, Fan Jianchuan has continued to pay attention to the construction of red culture and the development of Sichuan's cultural tourism industry for many years. He once proposed that the cultural industry should be branded, combined with rural tourism, combined with red tourism, and combined with the construction of characteristic towns. During the two sessions of Sichuan Province this year, Fan Jianchuan also suggested increasing the publicity of red culture in the Sichuan-Chongqing Cultural Corridor, and he believed that the red tourism provinces should have big moves.
In addition, the Jianchuan Museum has also given full play to its own resource advantages, participated in cross-strait cultural exchanges, and successively held and participated in the seminar for the directors of folk museums on both sides of the strait, and reporters on both sides of the strait re-walked to the rear of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression. In April 2022, Jianchuan Museum was awarded the "Sichuan Provincial Exchange Base for Taiwan".
Fan Jianchuan stressed, "We have a museum here that reflects the frontal battlefield of the War of Resistance Against Japan, which is of great significance to the Taiwan side, and many Taiwanese people have come to visit. This is a very important link in maintaining relations between the mainland and Taiwan. (End)