IN recent years there has been a growing number of scandals involving museums.

This May a thief broke into the high-security Palace Museum in Beijing and made off with a few gem-studded, modern luxury items on display there. After the thief was caught, the museum sent an inscribed silk banner to the police to express gratitude, but botched the job by using a wrong word.

The faux pas drew further attention to the museum and it was revealed that the palace was running an exclusive private club on its premises.

Since late July the palace has to answer some fresh accusations: damaging relics in its custody, criminally pocketing ticket sales, and offering hush money to cover up the crime.

Last week an article by Yang Xuemei in the People's Daily described the qualities that should be expected of museum curators: it boils down to professionalism.

Yang pointed out that these scandals involved the Palace Museum, which is regarded as one of the best in China and whose management has been praised as being "globally advanced."

Just a decade ago, employment with a museum might be seen as a sign of culture, but offering little opportunities for advancement, to say nothing of graft. That has changed.

In 2003, the curator of the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region Museum Du Gencheng was sentenced to 10 years in prison for negligence, destruction of relics and bribe-taking.

Last November, Li Haitao was executed for stealing and selling 259 cultural objects over a 10-year-period, exploiting his position as chief of the cultural relics protection authority of an imperial garden villa in Chengde City, Hebei Province.

In March 2007, the curator of Liaoning Museum Ji Bing was sentenced to 15 years for corruption. Among other charges, Ji was convicted of using public funds to acquire relics that turned out to be fakes.

In 2009, Li Ming, a curator of a museum in Guangdong Province, was sentenced to five and a half years for taking bribes.

In her People's Daily article, Yang questioned the credentials of China's curators, citing one insider as saying that most curators in the United States and Japan hold PhD degrees, whereas in China, a museum post is considered an easy job requiring little or no work.

Admittedly, professional expertise is important. But more important is a love of culture that transcends acquisitions and hoarding of relics.

A good curator (from Latin, meaning one who "cares") is more than a keeper of things.

The above-mentioned curator of Liaoning Museum spent a huge amount of public money to acquire fake furniture that he believed to be authentic.

This kind of mistake could probably have been prevented had he been a connoisseur and consulted experts before making a purchase.

But we have also seen recently how some recognized art connoisseurs can prostitute their judgment for the sake of profit.

Similarly, in recent years, some museums have spent astronomical sums in bidding for items that had been looted from China and taken overseas, in the name of patriotism, playing into the hands of international art mongers.

These facts raise questions about why we need museums.

If a museum exists for the sake of protecting culture or tradition, does the explosive growth in the number of museums further that goal? Are zoos a good means to protect species threatened with extinction?

According to Yang's article, since 2004, the number of museums in China has been growing at a rate of 100 a year, while more museums are being expanded.

These museums are eager to build their collections.

When I visited the many museums in Washington, DC, a couple of years ago, I was impressed by the rich collection, the easy access, the elegant ambience, and the dedication of the guides, usually older women, who are eager to provide a tour of highlights.

As a Chinese, I noticed there was a huge number of items from China, ranging from mammoth ding (huge cooking vessels dating back more than 3,000 years) to stone tablets and gigantic statues.

How did they end up there, I wondered?

And imagine the incongruity of seeing an Egyptian temple or a traditional Chinese dwelling in that alien North American continent.

Antiquities for sale

In the name of culture, these once lived in structures have been reduced to marketable goods to satisfy curiosity and cravings for exotica.

China's rising fever for antiquities, too, turns out to be destructive.

The People's Daily reported in August about an online shop owned by Lao Niu plying a brisk business hawking traditional Chinese dwellings in Zhejiang, Jiangxi and Anhui provinces, where an ancient dwelling can be had for around a million yuan (US$156,000).

According to the paper, the online shop represents just a small fraction of such business.

In recent years, a host of relics collectors and businessmen have been scouring the countryside in these provinces for anything built before 1911.

Once found, these structures are purchased, taken apart, reconstructed elsewhere or sent to storehouses where they await the highest bidders.

The original residents could be easily evicted.

In Zhejiang, the marketing of traditional dwellings has been particularly brisk in Jinhua and Quzhou. According to a local museum curator, these dwellings had survived waves of progress because until recently transport in those remote areas has been poor.

"Poverty" is an epithet favored by outsiders to describe the conditions of the natives.

This year Lao Niu has spent 180,000 yuan on a well-preserved 240-square-meter house in Ningbo dating to the late Qing Dynasty (1644-1911).

Lao Niu then dismantled it, collecting and numbering the roof beams, pillars, windows, doors and other parts of the structure. He then had it reassembled in his hometown Ninghai in Zhejiang Province.

"Externally it has retained its ancient facade, while within it has all the modern amenities. It is much more comfortable than houses in town today!" Lao Niu said smugly.

Destructive curiosity

Eviscerated and mangled, the surviving elements of the structure serve to flatter the upstart's craving for culture.

Clearly, the fetish for ancient, even simply old architecture, and relics is destructive.

At the Hengdian World Studios in Dongyang, Zhejiang Province, is a 900-mu (600,000 square meters) museum showcasing 120 dwellings from the Ming and Qing dynasties.

To acquire these, the backwater rural areas in Zhejiang, Jiangxi and Anhui provinces have been combed since 2001. The People's Daily's emphasis on professionalism and specialization is correct, but pure curiosity and specialization may be destructive, unless tempered by a deference to the living traditions or beliefs that go beyond mere material things.

Wu Han and Guo Moruo were among China's first archeologists. At their urging, from 1956 to 1958 the Chinese government decided to open the tomb of Ming Dynasty Emperor Wan Li, which had been there for 368 years.

Their curiosity was satisfied, the tomb was despoiled, the relics removed and the emperor's remains later incinerated.

Museums need expertise, but that expertise needs to be humanized by love of indigenous culture.