Henan Museum
is a free admission provincial level museum that should not be missed. Located in the central plain of partly mountainous province, Henan is regarded as the cradle of Chinese civilization. From the fractional collection of display, one can only glimpse generally about the long recorded history of China.
12th Day of Chinese New Year 2009

(Below) Blooming in cold winter, a type of plum flower 腊梅 or la-mei gives off unmistakable fragrance that even birds and bees are attracted to them. By reason of this, scholars or philosophers alike have taken this to symbolize the unbending character, strength, perseverance and dexterity.

(Below) A legendary figure, Fuxi is regarded as the person who made observation of nature. The standing elephants are symbols of cosmic order, hence the evolution of human nature.

(Above) The parts and nomenclature of a conventional vertical scroll chinese painting. (Below) This is a part of a long horizontal scroll that depicts life during the spring festival.

(Below) The symbolic painting depicts human nature craving for eternity as shown by the flying crane and longevity as shown by the four easy and casual immortals.

(Above and below) Models showing prototypical forms of life necessitated by the immediate environment and amenities available.

Tortoise oracles (above) with cursive calligraphic inscriptions on them served to record histories during classical period, also the origins of chinese writings.

The flute shown above is made out of a bone while the chart below shows the musical notes in chinese and compared.

(Above) The clay container is the prototype of the later musical instrument called bian bells. The protrutions on the container are taken as the decorative nipples form. (Below) Whereas, clay can be formed into another type of container with meaningful acrobatic actions pragmatic as a handle.

(Above) this beautifully sculpted bulbous metallic animal figurine appears like some crouching dog or leopard biting at something, with a squarish compartment in the center set other isntrumental parts or for other unknown use. The figurine (below) is most likely a type of oil lamp.

While this one (below) appears dragon like and it could be a part of other use as well.

(Above) Multi-tiered pagoda is a building type deriving from buddhistic culture from India.

(Above) Horse and camel (below) play an important part of transportation mean during the silk road period when the east met the west, trading across the Gobi desert that brought a long and prosperous period during the Tang Dynasty.

(Above) The relatively prosperous and peaceful period has evolved into pleasurable indulgence such as musical entertainment as shown by the women troupe.

And women during the Tang Dynasty leaned toward obesity as the standard of beauty during the Tang Dynasty. With available wealth and time, women engaged themselves into various creative hair-do coiffer.

(Above) Nothing is more gothic than a piece of ghoulish figurine to defend the tomb of deceased and to ward off unwanted tomb raiders.

The model (above) depicts the modernistic urban scale during the relatively peaceful and wealthy Tang periods. Below in 3-dimensional format, the model is based on the painting of By the River during Clear and Bright Festival, of Ming period, sectionally depicts a properous Ming Period in the current Kaifeng city, located east of Zhengzhou.

(Above) a nifty scale model showing architectural work of a simple house form while (below) is a spread out display of a jade mask, a part of the larger whole scale human body jade figure that is also made out of these similar various forms of jades pieces.

Jeremy

Zhengzhou, Henan

February 6, 2009