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Mouth-watering minerals on display
By Vanessa Xu |
November 10, 2010, Wednesday
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AS a feast traditionally reserved for emperors, it is very unlikely for most people to have had or even seen the manhan quanxi, the Manchu Han Imperial Feast, one of the grandest meals ever documented in Chinese cuisine. But they can now feast their eyes on a stone version.
Consisting of 108 dishes made from natural minerals, the eye-catching replica banquet is shown in the "The Soul of Wetland ? Selected Mineral Exhibition" that started at the National Wetland Museum in Xixi Wetland, Hangzhou last Saturday.
Glittering braised duck, life-like emerald peas, crude brown walnuts, ham with detailed veins? as these fake dishes are displayed on a large rotating round table, visitors' mouths are almost watering.
"Those are peanuts," "That should be meatballs," "That one is preserved fish," "How can it look so real?" audiences wonder, discuss and guess excitedly.
It's just one of the show's highlights. As a joint exhibition between the Chongqing Nature Museum and National Wetland Museum, the show features 106 pieces/groups of minerals, and the manhan quanxi is just one group.
The 106 pieces are chosen from more than 700 collections belonging to the Chongqing Nature Museum, and some of the curiosities have never been exhibited before.
It's the first time for the white stone that is covered in white "hairs" to be exhibited. The 60-centimeter-tall aragonite is from Yunnan Province, and its "hairs" embracing the core stone are actually semi-transparent calcium carbonate crystal.
Aragonites are rare, and the white hair form is large and well preserved, and therefore valuable.
The most expensive collection in the show is the 1.3-meter-tall turquoise valued at more than 3 million yuan (US$449,768).
There are also some rarely seen minerals such as blue coral distinctive from ordinary pink or red forms, a 2-ton green tree fossil jade, Asia's largest amethyst geode which spans 3 meters by 3 meters and a water bladder stone containing 100-million-year-old water.
The exhibition of minerals echoes the theme of the museum - wetland. Items such as the quartz stone, stalactites and water bladder stones in the show were all involved with water or wetland in their formation.
Date: Through January 6
Address: 402 Tianmushan Road (Near the West Inter-city Bus Station)
Consisting of 108 dishes made from natural minerals, the eye-catching replica banquet is shown in the "The Soul of Wetland ? Selected Mineral Exhibition" that started at the National Wetland Museum in Xixi Wetland, Hangzhou last Saturday.
Glittering braised duck, life-like emerald peas, crude brown walnuts, ham with detailed veins? as these fake dishes are displayed on a large rotating round table, visitors' mouths are almost watering.
"Those are peanuts," "That should be meatballs," "That one is preserved fish," "How can it look so real?" audiences wonder, discuss and guess excitedly.
It's just one of the show's highlights. As a joint exhibition between the Chongqing Nature Museum and National Wetland Museum, the show features 106 pieces/groups of minerals, and the manhan quanxi is just one group.
The 106 pieces are chosen from more than 700 collections belonging to the Chongqing Nature Museum, and some of the curiosities have never been exhibited before.
It's the first time for the white stone that is covered in white "hairs" to be exhibited. The 60-centimeter-tall aragonite is from Yunnan Province, and its "hairs" embracing the core stone are actually semi-transparent calcium carbonate crystal.
Aragonites are rare, and the white hair form is large and well preserved, and therefore valuable.
The most expensive collection in the show is the 1.3-meter-tall turquoise valued at more than 3 million yuan (US$449,768).
There are also some rarely seen minerals such as blue coral distinctive from ordinary pink or red forms, a 2-ton green tree fossil jade, Asia's largest amethyst geode which spans 3 meters by 3 meters and a water bladder stone containing 100-million-year-old water.
The exhibition of minerals echoes the theme of the museum - wetland. Items such as the quartz stone, stalactites and water bladder stones in the show were all involved with water or wetland in their formation.
Date: Through January 6
Address: 402 Tianmushan Road (Near the West Inter-city Bus Station)
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