The British Museum has in recent years run into financial crisis, a fact that has made it hard to well preserve 30 percent of its storage. This includes over 23,000 Chinese antiquities held by the museum as one of its most valuable collections, on par with the ancient Greek and Egyptian collections.
A costly donation box
The north gate of the British Museum is the easiest access to the gallery housing Chinese antiquities. On its threshold, a copper Qing Dynasty (1644–1911) Buddhist tripod censer starkly stands, marked with the word, "donation," silently taking small change dropped by passersby.
Robert Knox, Keeper of the Department of Oriental Antiquities of the museum, showed real surprise when asked why the Buddhist "treasure tripod" was used as a donation box, saying, "It's the first time that I heard that the censer has some extraordinary cultural denotation in Chinese tradition and religion."
Other staff of the department said that they would conduct a survey among local London Chinese to find out whether using the censer as a donation box really constitutes cultural insult and if the answer turns out to be "yes" they will retrieve the censer from its present status.
The misfortune of an ancient wood sculpture
Turning right and ascending a flight of stairs brings visitors to the entrance of the Joseph E. Hotung Gallery, housing Chinese as well as Southern and Southeastern Asian showpieces.
In the corridor outside the entrance is a rank of "airtight" glass boxes containing Chinese antiquities. The scorching summer afternoon rays pierced through ground glass windows, flooding a glass box with loosened seals. In the box is a wooden Song Dynasty (960-1279) Buddhist sculpture.
The box is no longer airtight, for at least one year some visitors bearing witness said, and thus the sculpture hasn't been in the constant humidity that it's supposed to be.
Sources with the museum said that four people with the Department of Oriental Antiquities are assigned to examine equipment in its galleries, including airtight boxes, once a day or a week -- depending on what the equipment is. They also check and measure all the antiquities in the department on the same frequency to decide whether they are properly preserved or not.
But how did the staff not notice the loosened seals on the box that even some ordinary visitors had identified up to a year ago? When asked this question, the museum authorities admitted that "it was a mistake" and they would notify relevant personnel, demanding them to make corrections.
Forty-five days then passed, but the loosened seals on the box still hadn't been fixed, and were left slouching in the air.
Mr. Robert Knox gave his explanation: "'Automatic' moisture regulating machines have been installed in the airtight boxes, so everything will be OK even if the seals are damaged or absent," he said. "The purpose in sealing the box is that we wanted to install an air conditioner in it. The antiquity is absolutely safe," he affirmed.
However, a museum expert, refusing to be identified, said that without tightly attached seals on the box the wood antiquity has been exposed to the air and hence it's hard to maintain proper and stable humidity and temperature inside the box. In such an environment the sculpture weathers and fades faster.
Poor storage conditions and financial crisis
The museum's recent annual reports reveal that thirty percent of the antiquities in its collection haven't been stored in proper conditions since 2000.
The British Museum largely lives on external financial aid. Reports said it is now facing a grave financial crisis. The museum has run into a deficit of 6.5 million pounds sterling, which has forced it into planning to slash 150 staff from its current 1,000 or so posts.
The museum ascribes the crisis to a reduced appropriate budget by the British Government and due to its shrunken sales income.
Aside from inflation, the museum's budget has actually decreased 15 percent over the past 10 years; moreover, the decline of the number of visitors has inevitably hit the museum's businesses of tourism souvenirs and cafes.
According to Knox, the actual government appropriate budget for the museum, as well as his Department of Oriental Antiquities, has shrunk 33 percent than that of last year.
Most of the appropriate money is spent on paying salaries to the museum's staff. If there are some big programs to be carried out, donations will become a must.
"The museum hasn't got any money for research; if there were, it should be our poor salaries," an archaeologist with the museum said.
Throwing a ball in the British Museum
In an effort to raise its income, the museum even encourage renting galleries to both individuals and companies for the use of holding balls. The museum once leased the gallery housing the Parthenon Marbles to a fancy dress ball. The act triggered vehement protests from the Greeks. Greece has long demanded the return of the antiquities transported to Britain during the 19th Century.
Such balls have been held in the Joseph E. Hotung Gallery many times.
"If somebody is willing to pay, we'd like to rent our galleries to them for holding balls and evening banquets. People can eat and drink here while listening to music. Departments are not allowed to withhold the money made from the business but submit it to the museum. It's one of the museum's major ways to make money."
Despite balls and banquets held there, many antiquities are exhibited in the open air in galleries in the museum.
Rotating Chinese displays 'not necessary'
Due to the lack of money and human resources, the Department of Oriental Antiquities hasn't been able to afford to hire professionals for three years to oversee its collection of ancient Chinese paintings, which is widely acclaimed as one of the best collections of its kind in the world, including many priceless masterpieces.
The museum's digital database shows that it now possesses 23,579 Chinese antiquities (with a few Korean antiquities among them) including 5,224 plane ones (calligraphies, paintings, fabrics) and 18,355 solid ones (stones, jades, metalwork).
"We have so many antiquities but only such a small amount of money to maintain them," said Mr. Steve with the museum.
The museum also encounters the problem of a lack of human resources in the areas of renovation of museum rooms as well as antiquities.
The original intention lying behind the design of the Joseph E. Hotung Gallery was to demonstrate "Chinese conceptions" to Western visitors. But it has at length turned out that the majority of the visitors to the Joseph E Hotung Gallery are Chinese.
The museum's display policy stipulates that displays should be frequently rotated in order to keep a high revisiting rate and let more antiquities in the museum’s storage have the chance to meet the audience.
Displays in the Joseph E. Hotung Gallery, named after its donor, a Hong Kong businessman, have seldom been rotated since the gallery was renovated in 1992 from the decades-old former one without any modern protection equipment. The renovation cost Hotung two million pounds sterling.
"We seldom rotate the displays because we haven't money to do this," an official with the department said.
But Knox explained that it's just not necessary to rotate the displays.
'Show the world to the world' vs. 'show the world to the first world'
"Show the world to the world" is a slogan alleged to be the top mission of the British Museum.
"The British Museum needs to enhance its exchanges with some countries with long pasts such as China and India. This is an important strategy that the new Board of Trustees has drafted for the museum," John Boyd, the chairman designate of the Museum's Board of Trustees from July 2001, said.
But a recent annual report doesn't mention any exhibitions conducted by the Department of Oriental Antiquities in China. Furthermore, although researchers in the museum have time and time again valued the support from their Chinese counterparts and described them as "responding to every plea," few Chinese researchers have been invited to do research in the museum. A preeminent Chinese scholar on Dunhuang studies once received an invitation from his colleagues with the British Museum but didn't expect that the museum would reject his formal application that he later filed.
Knox said he welcomes Chinese colleagues to do research in his department but also admitted that the museum has little money to support such programs.
By the same token, the Chinese antiquities held in the museum have never been displayed back in their home.
Chairman Boyd admitted exchanges between China and his museum have been restricted by the lack of financial support from the British Government.
But the museum's annual reports show that Chinese antiquities have been frequently displayed in itinerant exhibitions in the United States and Japan. The two countries and some rich European countries are major target countries in the British Museum's international exchange activities. It seems that the museum's motto of "show the world to the world" should be modified into "show the world to the first world."
(Nanfang Weekend, translated by Chen Chao for China.org.cn, August 13, 2003)
