Wed, Feb 27, 2002 page2

• Legislator says staff stole museum relics

  DISAPPEARING INHERITANCE DPP Legislator Chen Chin-jun said staff members of the National Taiwan Museum are stealing many of the museum's stored pieces

  • By Sandy Huang / STAFF REPORTER
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  DPP legislator Chen Chin-jun (陳景峻) yesterday said he suspects that some of the staff members of the National Taiwan Museum have helped to steal some of the museum pieces.

  He said that a large number of Taiwanese cultural relics are missing from the museum's store rooms.

  "According to my understanding, there are staff members within the museum who are collaborating with outside antique merchants," said Chen, during his inventory visit to the museum's storage area, located on Taipei City's Chingtien Street.

  

  DPP legislator Chen Chin-jun displays an Aboriginal sculpture from Orchid Island at the National Taiwan Museum's storage facility yesterday. The sculpture turned out to be a woodcarving, despite having being registered in the museum's documents as a piece of earthenware.

  PHOTO: CHIANG YING-YING, TAIPEI TIMES

  By Chen's request, James An (安奎), director of the National Taiwan Museum, and Wu Mi-cha (吳密察), vice chairman of the Council for Cultural Affairs, were also present at the site during Chen's inventory visit yesterday.

  "It is unacceptable," Chen said as he spoke of the museum's dismal inventory monitoring practices.

  "Based on the inventory list I have here, there are at least a thousand historical and cultural relics that are missing from the museum's store room -- some of these are being replaced," said Chen.

  He added that relics such as weaponry, paintings and Aboriginal crafts comprised most of these pieces.

  "For example, according to the inventory list, there is supposed to be one original Aboriginal costume from early in the last century. But now the original is missing and has been replaced with a modern reproduction," he said.

  "It has been almost fifty years now [since the museum was taken over from the Japanese]," Chen said. "Yet, in all this time, the museum still hasn't finished listing items that are included in a collection of more than 25,000 relics contained in this storage room."

  Chen based his estimate on historical figures that describe how the museum, Taiwan's oldest, was taken over from the Japanese in 1945 with approximately 50,000 cultural and historical relics.

  "It is just simply ridiculous that all these cultural relics are locked inside the storage room instead of being out there in the museum for public display and appreciation," Chen said.

  In response to the dissatisfaction that Chen expressed over the way the museum managed its collection, Wu said that the council would assign a task force within the next week to look into the matter.

  Meanwhile, An said that it is his goal to completely finish the museum's inventory work within the next two years -- as well as to improve the condition of the storage room.

  "Since the inventory work has not been finished, I cannot say for certain if museum members have done anything [illegal]," An said.

  "However," he added, "if it is found that illegal dealings have taken place, the museum would definitely not hide it from the public."
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