Quiet museum a hit on livestream
Print Edition
Facing a livestreaming camera, Gao Xiaolong, curator of the Beijing numismatic museum at the historic Desheng Gate watchtower, narrated the millennia-old history of ancient coins with his vivid storytelling.
鈥淲ith various shapes and textures, coins in ancient China bore profound cultural connotations and reflected social life and political changes in those days,鈥 Gao went into his long monologue in the empty exhibition hall.
To his surprise, the half-hour live broadcast attracted 150,000 online viewers, about five times the annual total amount of visitors to the museum in recent years.
As museums, monuments and historical sites across China embrace the digital age, a new upsurge in online exhibitions and live broadcasts has awoken the sleeping relics. Many that closed due to the novel coronavirus pandemic have joined hands with livestreaming platforms to offer online guided tours for the public.
The Beijing Administration of Cultural Heritage has launched a special program that invites museum staff on duty during the closing period to make live broadcasts, with elite commentators, antique experts and sometimes the curators themselves coming out in front of the cameras and telling stories about the national treasures.
鈥淥ne person, one mobile phone, a brand-new stage to exhibit,鈥 said Li Yang with the administration, noting that nearly 30 museums in Beijing have so far offered live 鈥渃ultural feasts鈥 with an average number of viewers reaching 200,000, and 500,000 for the most-watched ones.
The biggest names drew the greatest attention.
The live broadcast of a two-hour guided tour of China鈥檚 600-year-old former imperial palace, the Forbidden City, racked up millions of views.
The livestreaming session last week was the first such event about the Palace Museum during its closure, said curator Wang Xudong in a video message.
The Potala Palace, a landmark in southwest China鈥檚 Tibet Autonomous Region and a UNESCO World Heritage site, held a livestreaming tour session for the first time on China鈥檚 popular e-commerce platform Taobao on March 1 and drew over 1 million viewers in less than an hour. A second livestreaming tour was held eight days later using 5G.
Dozens of others, including the National Museum of China, the Dunhuang Academy and the Nanjing Museum, also livestreamed on popular online platforms like Douyin, also known as TikTok.
Yan Haiming, director of the secretariat at Chinese Committee for the International Council on Monuments and Sites, said livestreaming is a further extension of the museums鈥 public cultural services as well as an exploration in communication methods.
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