With the announcement of the fifth batch of first-tier museums in China, the total number of the nation's top museums now stands at 327. Of these, 69.1 percent are at the city level or below.
"This indicates a significant improvement in grassroots museums in recent years, allowing more people to enjoy public cultural services," said Liu Shuguang, director of the Chinese Museums Association.
A highlight of them is the Fuyang Museum in Fuyang, Anhui province, which jumped from the second to the top tier. This came as a surprise to Wei Han, director of the museum's exhibition department.
"There were many applicants this time, making the selection highly competitive, and we didn't have much confidence in our museum being upgraded," he said.
Wei said the museum began preparing for the latest evaluation about three years ago, organizing a team to fulfill tasks listed in the criteria.
The Fuyang Museum boasts a rich collection of 126,000 cultural relics, a significant number for a city-level museum. But because the museum used to be small, about 90 percent of its relics were kept in storehouses and never exhibited.
With the opening of its new venue in 2022, the museum has entered a new stage of development, said Wei.
Historically, Fuyang has been a hub of cultural communication since Neolithic times. Wei said that during the Shang (c. 16th century-11th century BC) and Zhou (c.11th century-256 BC) dynasties, Fuyang was a convergence of the culture from China's Central Plains and the tribes along the middle and lower reaches of the Huaihe River.
During the Three Kingdoms period (220-280), Fuyang became a strategic location fiercely contested by the Wei (220-265) and Wu (222-280) dynasties. The long history has left a significant mark on the city, reflected in the extensive collection of the museum, said Wei.
In 2021, when starting to prepare for the most recent grading operation, staff members examined its strengths and weaknesses based on the findings. They discovered that while they had a rich collection, they were lagging behind in research. The evaluation provided suggestions for them to collaborate with university academic programs.
Taking this suggestion to heart, the museum began working with Fudan University in Shanghai in 2021 to take part in a national project to organize and study bamboo slips from the Han Dynasty (206 BC-AD 220) that were unearthed from a tomb in Fuyang in 1977. The project is nearing its end.
According to Wei, the Fuyang bamboo slips — different from many other Han Dynasty slips that are typically regional administrative records — are copies of many famous ancient books written before the Qin Dynasty (221-206 BC), including Shijing, or The Book of Songs, the oldest existing collection of Chinese poetry from the 11th to the 6th century BC.
"We generally believe the earlier the ancient books are, the closer they are to the original version," Wei said. "Although only fragments of words and sentences remain on the slips, they can help us compare the differences between the old and modern versions. As a result, those who study pre-Qin ancient books can hardly ignore Fuyang bamboo slips."
He said the museums' cooperation with Fudan has not only helped the museum gain more understanding of its artifacts, but has also helped cultivate more talent for the museum.
"We didn't have many specialists involved with studies of bamboo slips in the past, so we provided the slips to experts at the university and sent people to learn from them. This has improved our research capabilities and the expertise of our staff," he added.
In Wei's eyes, the grading evaluations play a huge role in the development of grassroots museums.
"Grassroots museums seldom have a comprehensive plan for development. As a result, they may possess their own characteristics, but often develop in an imbalanced way," he said. "The evaluation actually offers a more comprehensive and clearer plan to guide its development."
Since its trial operation in October 2022, the new museum venue has logged more than 1 million visits. "People often come here with high expectations, and we want to build an excellent museum and not let them down," Wei said.