During a recent visit to Henan Museum I met Douglas and Bill (as always, I’m using English names), 17-year-old best friends from Yueyang, a city in Hunan Province that’s about 400 miles south of Zhengzhou. They just graduated from high school, and Douglas is going to study at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia.
I asked Douglas, who speaks clear, unaccented English, why he was visiting Zhengzhou, which isn’t a major tourist destination. He said that when he was in middle school, he read a vampire story that took place in Zhengzhou and that he had been fascinated by the place ever since. “But I find there are no vampires in Zhengzhou,” he laughed.
Douglas also told me a funny story about basketball legend Wilt Chamberlain, who claimed in his autobiography that he had slept with 20,000 women. According to Douglas, one of Chamberlain’s Chinese nicknames means 20,000. So much for Wilt the Stilt and the Big Dipper.
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The pyramid-shaped Henan Museum is considered one of the best art and history museums in China. It has extensive collections of ancient pottery, weapons, musical instruments, statues and other remnants from China’s proud history.
One of the most impressive exhibits is a giant bronze statue in the atrium showing a warrior with his arms outstretched, pressed against an upright elephant on each side. The elephants, which are standing on two legs with their trunks pointing skyward, are about 30-feet tall. Many tourists pose for pictures in front of the statue, with some even imitating the warrior’s stance.
There’s also a striking jade outfit knitted with gold thread, stuffed to look like it’s being worn by a mummy. It belonged to the royal family of the Western Han Dynasty and includes a hood, mask, coast, gloves, pants and shoes. I can picture Michael Jackson wearing this at a concert.
During my visit, I had to make an emergency trip to the bathroom. I had managed to avoid squat toilets in my first month here, sticking to the Western facilities in my hotel and then my apartment. But this time I had no choice because the museum only had squat toilets and I couldn’t wait. As usual, there was no toilet paper, but fortunately I was carrying my reporter’s notebook. Sometimes, being a journalist pays off.
