Exhibition shares journey home for cultural relics

A group of students stands before an exquisite gilded brass clock adorned with cloisonne enamel and a tour guide revealing the artifact's history.

They're visiting the exhibition A Journey between North and South: Relocating Treasures for Perpetuity, which launched on Friday and runs until Nov 16 at the Summer Palace Museum and the Deheyuan, or Garden of Virtue and Harmony, in Beijing.

This year marks the 80th anniversary of the victory in the Chinese People's War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression (1931-45).

In January 1933, Japanese forces broke through the Shanhai Pass, a strategic pass of the Great Wall, putting Beijing, then Beiping, under the imminent threat of war.

To avoid the ravages of war, the Palace Museum in Beijing spearheaded the evacuation of over 19,000 boxes of cultural relics from institutions across Beijing, including the Summer Palace.

The treasures were transported to Shanghai and then Nanjing, in present-day Jiangsu province. When the Chinese People's War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression broke out in full scale in 1937, the relics were forced to be transferred to southwestern China. The relocation covered more than 10 provincial-level regions and tens of thousands of miles.

This exhibition is themed on the southward relocation of the Summer Palace's cultural relics and their return to the north from 1933 to 1951.

It features 160 sets of objects that survived the chaos of war. Many are from the Summer Palace's collection, alongside treasures from institutions such as the Palace Museum, as well as Jiangsu province's Nanjing Museum and Zhenjiang Museum.

"The cultural relics' southward relocation was an unprecedented endeavor to safeguard the roots of Chinese civilization amid the flames of war. Such spirit embodies not merely the unyielding belief that guarded our civilization during wartime, but also the enduring soul of contemporary cultural heritage preservation," says Rong Hua, deputy head of the Summer Palace.

Visitors can read an innovative first-person narrative from the perspective of the cultural relics on boards, which guides them through the historical scenes about how these national treasures were protected during the war.

The relics were carefully packed and transported to cities by road, rail and waterway.

According to Wei Lijia, head of the Summer Palace's cultural relics department, they chose some exhibits that symbolize the perilous journey, such as mountain-themed stone carvings and two brass barometer-thermometer clocks crafted in the form of a steamship and locomotive.

In the yard of the Summer Palace Museum, a group of installations featuring the lunar phases — from waning to waxing — mirrors the theme of the exhibition to welcome visitors.

"Audiences can observe the moon's gradual transition to fullness via the installation, which symbolizes the homeward journey of these cultural relics," Wei says.

"Rooted in the traditional Chinese belief that the moon shines the brightest over one's homeland, it symbolizes that when the moon is full, the cultural relics would finally return home — a homecoming now fulfilled."