Museums, Beijing

The museum is located in a lovely area within the Peking University campus, near the West Gate. Opened on 1993 the buildings take the inspiration from buildings that already exist on campus and fits in well with the Chinese architecture.

The collection of Chinese art and artifacts housed in the museum contains more than 10,000 objects and spans a period of 280,000 years, from Paleolithic hominids and stone tool remains to costumes, ceramics and paintings of the present era.

I loved the displays; this is an intimate museum so different from the many large and impersonal museums.

You can get a foreign speaking guide if needed - I just wandered.

Open 9 am to 4 pm

The National Museum of China houses two museums: the Museum of Chinese History and the Museum of the Chinese Revolution. The museum has been reorganized and restaurated since 2003. It will be opened again in 2010.

Just everything, which China is famous of, can be seen here. The museum is a great place to start a trip to China with, as it gives you an impression of the long history of this country. Ancient machines are exhibited as well as old silk and paintings.

Wikipedia:
"Some of the most important collections at the National Museum of China are the "Simuwu Ding" (a form of vessel) from the Shang Dynasty, which was casted over 3,000 years ago and weighing 832.840743a kg, and it is the heaviest ancient bronze ware in the world; the Shang Dynasty square bronze "Zun" (wine vessel) decorated with four sheep heads, a large rare inscribed Western Zhou Dynasty (11th century BC - 771 BC) bronze Pan, gold-inlaid bronze tally in the shape of a tiger from the Qin Dynasty, a Han Dynasty (206 BC - 220 AD) jade burial suit sewn with gold thread, and a comprehensive collection of tri-colored glazed sancai of the Tang Dynasty and ceramics from the Song Dynasty."

Further Information:

Closed for renovation

Meanwhile you should try the Beijing Capital Museum. See my tip about Beijing Capital Museum.

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Fa yuan Temple is a temple and an university, and so well a museum, which was built about two thousands years ago and now became part of The Buddhist Academy Of China. It still maintain the whole buildings including hundred rooms and always have exhibitions about Buddhist. During the spring, many people enjoy lilacs here.And during the Spring Festival in Jan or Feb, visitors can taste the traditonal rice porridge for free, the rice porridge with nuts and dried fruit eaten on the eighth day of the twelfth lunar month.

I think it is interesting, for this temple has an old friend nearly, the oldest mosque in Beijing. Actually, they are neighbors for thousand years.

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Impressive building of the Military museum is typical Socialist realism architecture; large, massive, uniform, controlled with perfect symmetry - and with red star as the highest point dominates the square in front of the building at Fuxing road. Total area is 60 000 square meters. Inisde there are 4 floors with 10 large halls arranged into different historical periods and themes - the biggest one is Hall of Weapon.
Outisde you can see two large sculptures of Chinese people - one at each side of the massive stairway - with serious and bold faces, proud standing and passionate look in the eyes. One of the sculpture is of peasant woman with child greeting soldiers while another woman - probably her adult daughter - offers fruit to one of man - it is like different generation in their typical (or wanted) role - all happy here. Another sculpture is of three people (2 men, one woman) looking straight, all armed and ferocios, somehow - here their bodies and determination feels unbreakable.

When you enter the first place in the museum - large reception hall with shining red star upon its high ceiling, you will be greated by few meters tall Mao Zedong sculpture, all white, powerful and below the star. On the front wall there are large photographies of Zhou Enlai and Deng Xiaoping - and soon you'll start exploring the museum from the Hall of Weapon first with its 20 m high ceiling and exhibits of modern military hardware with tanks and rockets. Here it seems lays the focus of people's attention as cameras flash most frequently.
Worth observing is exhibition of old guns, daggers, swords and knives - some of them decorated with interesting details. Into some halls I looked for very short time: the Sculpture hall was just collection of work of one man, all those CP men and acts made of odd material added recently (since 1997). Hall of Ancient wars was somewhat small and Hall of Presents wasn't so interesting to me either, although they gained impressive collects from their foreign friends.
It is those places where you spend a lot of time again: the early revolutionary era, anti-colonial resistance and all those propaganda posters, tactics and map displays and models of fighting. One can also see items used by Mao - nothing exciting, though.

The museum is impressive collection of warfare - and it helps you understand the powers behind all that. The building itself is monumental, one of those relics from cold war. It was established in 1959. Walking around the halls take its time but unfortunatelly toilets are better to avoid if possible.
In museum shop you can nowsadays buy plastic imitation of military hardware and some more advanced copies of weapon and models made of metal, books, knives and practical tool - although it doesn't look like there's some extra quality here - it's not for specialists.

Museum is open between 8.30 - 16.00
No admission fee.

More photos:
Travelogue

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The Beijing Folk Custom Museum is housed in a few halls towards the rear of the Taoist Dongyue Temple in the Chaoyang District of Beijing. It is the only museum of its type in the city. It exhibits over 1,600 pieces of folk ornaments from more than ten provinces including Beijing, Shandong and Inner Mongolia from the Ming and Qing dynasties. The museum also displays photos from recent renovation projects plus a model of the temple complex.

Open: 8:30am - 4:30pm. Admission: RMB10.

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The collections of the Palace Museum are based on the Qing imperial collection. According to the results of a 1925 audit, some 1.17 million items were stored in the Forbidden City. However, some of these items were shipped to Taiwan when the Japanese invaded in 1933.

The Palace Museum holds 340,000 pieces of ceramics and porcelain. These include imperial collections from the Tang Dynasty and the Song Dynasty, as well as pieces commissioned by the Palace, and, sometimes, by the Emperor personally. The Palace Museum holds close to 50,000 items of paintings. Of these, more than 400 date from before the Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368). This is the largest such collection in China. The Palace Museum's bronze collection dates from the early Shang Dynasty (founded c. 1766 BC). Of the almost 10,000 pieces held, about 1,600 are inscribed items from the pre-Qin period (to 221 BC). The Palace Museum also has one of the largest collections of mechanical timepieces of the 18th and 19th centuries in the world, with more than 1,000 pieces. The collection contains both Chinese- and foreign-made pieces. Chinese pieces came from the palace's own workshops, Guangzhou (Canton) and Suzhou (Suchow). Foreign pieces came from countries including Britain, France, Switzerland, the United States and Japan. You'll have to pay extra to see some of the palace museum collections such as the clocks which are well worth visiting.

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This interesting museum is located on a street that runs off the western side of Tiananmen Square. Money can come in many different forms: bulky as bronze shovels, iron knives and gold bars, or as small as shells and silver dollars. With a collection of nearly 1,000 items of currency, this educational museum traces the evolution of Chinese currency.

Open: 9am-4pm Tue-Sun. Admission: RMB10

Not my type of place but I went with Chinese friends who loved the place.

The museum is huge, you can’t miss the building with the emblem of the Chinese People's Liberation Army, a golden star, on top and a missile in front.

If you are interested in the history of Chinese warfare this place is definitely worth a visit. If you’re not – don’t bother. There are lots of weapons, and artifacts from military history.

There is not a lot of English language info and I thought that there were only so many stately statues and black and white photos, (without English captions) that I could tolerate.

A Chinese interpreter will definitely help you to appreciate this museum (didn't help me tho!).

Apparently since the admission-free policy was introduced in March 08 there has seen a huge surge in visitors, so be prepared to spend some time queuing...