World Treasures at Your Fingertips

Let’s Go to e-School Showcases Over 3000 Years of Chinese Culture

At Taichung’s National Museum of Natural Science

With the revolution of digital technology, “going to the museum” is no longer an arduous trip packed with scheduling and detailing. Now, equipped with a digital information device such as the computer, the iPad, or the smartphone, the world of treasures is accessible with the click or swipe of the fingertips.

Taiwan e-Learning and Digital Archives Program (TELDAP) shows off its decade-long efforts and exuberant treasures in the exhibition, Let’s Go to e-School at the National Museum of Natural Science from October 9^th to November 25^th. The exhibition’s six themes, “Field Trip, Wiki Baseball Stadium, Wonder Trip to the Past, Audio-Visual Room, Knowledge to Go, and Zoom in Ecology,” are designed to be interactive and fun learning experiences that will open eyes and ears to a treasure cyber-universe that is inexhaustible.     

The Taiwan Puzzle─Complete record of the 368 townships

Each of the 368 townships of Taiwan has its own character and pride. How many representative images of each township can you identify? Off the larger-than-life LED wall, try to piece together your impression of Taiwan, and learn all the beautiful places yet to explore along the way.

Wonder Trip to the Past─Interact with artifacts of 3 millenniums

The Maogong Ding has the largest numbers of engraved characters among Chinese bronze vessels which reserves best features of Chinese characters. The National Palace Museum constructed the “Maogong Ding Interactive Tabletop of Chinese Characters” to show the development of 500 characters in a digital way. Audiences can experience the cultural content inside the inscriptions and have a lot of fun from the installation that combines technology and humanity. “Turning Rust into Gold” demonstrates the corrosion process on the Maogong Ding according to individual measures of the depth and speed to the audience’s breathing tempo. The amazing effects and close proximity to unraveling of ancient history make the trip to the past one to remember.

Audio-Visual Room─A Feast of Music and Films

The Audio-Visual Room guarantees a rolling feast of rare and educational films accountable to the preservation of digital archiving. Famous Taiwanese songwriter, Tai-hsiang Li’s unique innovation of incorporating culture, ethnic, ballad and even traditional music instruments has seen monumental impacts on the music industry in Taiwan. His music and the music of Taiwanese indigenous people will be available by choice at the free listening stations on-site.  

The Audio-Visual Room’s visual showcase boasts a roster of more than 50 rare documentaries and films ranging from performing arts performances of the famous U-Theatre, art films of the process of mosaic paintings by Chung-Jung Chen, Historic reviews of Taiwan’s Cinema, biographies on the Foreigners in Formosa dating 4 centuries ago, scientific learnings on Taiwan’s geography, minerals and ecology. Parents with small children will guarantee to a tickled hour with adorable 3D animations about the treasures of National Palace Museum.  Meanwhile, Chinese Taipei Film Archives and TELDAP have come together to exhibit the rare documents by the forerunner of Chinese costumed films, King Hu, for which he was accredited with the genre “culture within martial arts, and swordsman with Zen spirits,” and influenced the making of today’s cinema.

Wiki Baseball Stadium─Relive the victorious games

The glorious baseball history is one that Taiwanese have always take pride in, from little leagues to the big pitchers Chien-ming Wang and Wei-yin Chen. Besides the world-famous Taiwan Economic Miracle, the achievements in sports also encourage Taiwanese reach out to the rest of the world with uninterrupted courage and passion. Baseball, among all the realms in sports, is especially one of the favorite sports in Taiwan’s national culture. Wiki Baseball Stadium displays a particularly treasured collective memory in the Taiwanese baseball history. Young audiences learn about the history such as “who is the first player to play the US major leagues” through quizzes designed as flipping scoreboards. A series of six baseball mitts, on loan from baseball coach Kuo-huei Yeh, spanning from 1887 to 1996 are on display to mark the evolution of their era and the makings.

Knowledge to Go zoom in on the convenience of the digital archives and learning resources by creating a large reading room that contains worlds of treasures in the touch screens and tablets. Zoom in Ecology takes you on a spin around Taiwan, and get you acquainted with the plants, fish, shellfish, amphibians in the ecological environment.

At the Gallery Boulevard of the exhibition, audiences will come upon a rare mosaic painting by renowned artist Ching-Jung Chen, and see up close the intricate details that had taken the artist and a team of 30 members more than a year to finish the masterpiece.  His art creations are rarely seen in Taiwan’s art history and present significant values for the development of art and esthetics. Before exiting the exhibition, don’t forget to participate in being a part of a hundred people’s art collective that will make the large Art Brut creation, the Graffiti Red Turtle, resembling good luck in Chinese culture.  Detail information on special events during the exhibition can be found on Let’s Go to e-School website at http://ae.teldap.tw/101ae.