On August 6, visitors lined up to enter the Shanxi Museum in Taiyuan, Shanxi Province. Photo by Xinhua News Agency reporter Wang Xuetao
Taiyuan, 31 Aug (Xinhua) -- Early in the morning, a long line of several tens of meters formed at the Shanxi Museum. The museum is bustling with visitors, teams, parents, students, relatives and friends, adult volunteers, and children's docents are all seriously explaining the history and culture to visitors.
Mr. Wang, a tourist from Beijing, and his wife and children are walking through the courtyard with their luggage in tow. Mr. Wang said that they traveled to Shanxi and had to come to the Shanxi Museum before returning home.
"There are a large number of bronzes, Buddha statues, architectural components and other cultural relics in the courtyard, and after seeing them, children have a preliminary impression of Shanxi's long history, ancient construction culture, Jin merchant culture, etc., which is conducive to broadening their horizons and increasing their knowledge." Mr. Wang said.
This summer, many museums across China have become "check-in places" for tourists, and their popularity is bursting with them. Many museum staff said that such scenes of shoulder to shoulder are rare.
Zhang Huiguo, vice president of the Shanxi Museum, said that taking the Shanxi Museum as an example, it received 1.41 million visitors in 2019, and in 2023, under the condition of limiting the flow, as of August 15, it has received 1.11 million visitors, of which from July 1 to August 15, the number of visitors reached 400,000 in one and a half months.
"In order to meet everyone's visiting needs, the Shanxi Museum will be closed for one hour every Saturday and Sunday from July 15 to August 31." Zhang Huiguo said that during holidays, more than 20 batches of voluntary explanations are arranged every day, which is about five times that of usual.
On August 6, visitors listened to an explanation at the Shanxi Museum in Taiyuan City, Shanxi Province. Photo by Xinhua News Agency reporter Wang Xuetao
Tourists are enthusiastic about visiting, and some popular museums have been "sold out" with tickets reserved a week in advance, and visiting museums and museum research have become hot words on social media.
Taking the Shaanxi History Museum as an example, the maximum daily visitor capacity is 12,000, but its ticket reservation platform receives more than 600,000 hits per day. For this reason, the Shaanxi History Museum has extended its opening hours on summer Sundays and is also open to visitors on Mondays when it was originally closed.
"Visiting museums has become a trend for people to travel during the summer." Yang Rong, president of the Research Branch of Shaanxi Tourism Association, said that this year's summer study tour has recovered significantly, and in Shaanxi, which is famous for its historical and cultural heritage, the Shaanxi History Museum, the Mausoleum Museum of the First Emperor of Qin, and the China Qin Cavity Art Museum are very popular.
The Beijing Municipal Administration of Cultural Heritage also announced on August 18 that the summer "museum fever" continued to heat up, in order to meet the needs of visitors, 46 museums in Beijing were closed on Mondays from now until August 31, and were open to visitors every day.
On August 6th, students participating in the study tour experienced Qin opera culture in the Yiseshe Cultural District located in Xi'an, Shaanxi Province. Xinhua News Agency
This summer, study trips have become an important part of the summer life of many primary and secondary school students, and visiting museums is one of the must-see trips.
At the beginning of August, the Confucius Museum "Confucius Engraving Book Exhibition" in Qufu, Shandong Province was launched, attracting many tourists. "We did a strategy before we came, Confucius engraving has a long history, mostly woodblock printing, which is an important invention of our ancient Chinese. After watching this exhibition, I was even more shocked by the charm of China's excellent traditional culture. Du Pengfei, a middle school student from Heze, Shandong, said.
In response to the research needs of tourists from all over the world, the Confucius Museum not only opens regular exhibitions on the theme of Confucius, but also launches many exhibitions related to the daily life of Confucius, etiquette and customs, and holds research activities such as aesthetic education summer camps and calligraphy study camps.
Guo Sike, director of the Confucius Museum, said that behind the "museum fever" is the "traditional culture fever", the development of modern technology has made traditional culture have more expressions close to life, such as virtual reality and other emerging technologies to empower traditional cultural expression, so that traditional culture can truly "live".
On August 6th, students participating in the study tour experienced Qin opera culture in the Yiseshe Cultural District located in Xi'an, Shaanxi Province. Xinhua News Agency
In the cultural block of Xi'an Yi Society in Shaanxi Province, which takes Qin cavity culture as the theme and relies on the Centennial Qin Cavity Opera Society, the research activity of "Summer Student Tour of the Centennial Yi Society" is very popular among teenagers. At the China Qin Cavity Art Museum and the Yi Lay Society Centennial Museum, students can learn about Qin cavity culture, appreciate Qin cavity excerpts, draw Qin cavity faces, and wear costumes to learn to sing Qin cavity classic excerpts.
"Students hope to come to Xi'an to learn a few words of Qin dialect, experience the restoration of cultural relics, learn to perform shadow puppets, etc." Yang Rong said that with the diversification of cultural experience needs, various scenic spots and research units are actively innovating study tour products.
Industry insiders analyzed that the number of visitors to this year's summer museum is significantly higher than in previous years, which is related to the prosperity of the tourism market, and also reflects that the state attaches importance to the protection and utilization of cultural relics and the protection and inheritance of cultural heritage has received good results.
Yang Chaoming, distinguished professor of the Institute for Advanced Study of Confucianism at Shandong University, said that the museum is a bridge connecting the past, the present and the future, and behind the "museum fever" is the revival of China's excellent traditional culture in recent years. (Contributors: Sun Xiaohui, Zhang Xinyi, Cai Xinyi)