A new permanent exhibition opened to the public March 15 at National Taiwan Museum in Taipei City, highlighting the rich natural and cultural diversity of the country’s past and present.
Part of a project aimed at reinvigorating the museum’s collection, “Exploring Taiwan” comprises more than 1,700 artifacts and specimens spanning the realms of anthropology, botany, earth science and zoology. It is the third such event held since the project’s launch in 2014, following “Discovering Taiwan: Re-visiting the Age of Natural History and Naturalists of Taiwan” in 2017 and “Taiwan, Our Home” in 2020.
At the opening ceremony, Deputy Minister of Culture Hsiao Tsung-huang said NTM is an ideal place to learn about Taiwan’s varied landscapes and geology alongside the history and culture of its ethnic groups including the Han, Hakka and indigenous peoples, as well as new immigrants. The museum’s collection showcases the country’s natural beauty and the development of a Taiwan identity, he added.
One highlight is a reconstructed version of the Yellow Tiger Flag, the banner of the short-lived Republic of Formosa established in 1895. NTM created the reconstruction in 2012, which helps to fill in the missing detail from a painting of the flag in its collection made in 1909 by Japanese painter Untei Takahashi.
Of equal interest is “The Portrait of Koxinga,” which features the Ming dynasty (1368-1664) loyalist Zheng Cheng-gong, renowned for driving the Dutch East India Company out of Taiwan in 1661. The piece is believed to be the earliest picture of the general, earning recognition as a national treasure from the Council for Cultural Affairs—now known as the Ministry of Culture—in 2010.
Originally established at a different site in 1908 during the Japanese colonial era (1895-1945), NTM was moved to its current location in 1915 and designated as a national historic site in 1998. (YCH-E)
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