Holidays without Mainlanders

It picked up a bit later on, more groups. But nothing like it used to be.

Wonder what it’s like in Taroko, Alishan, and Sun Moon Lake nowadays.

Taroko still overrun but I had no comparison to what it was like before.

Good grief. I went to the Historical Museum finally. It was my worst museum experience ever.

The place is outdated. The crowds are too large and it is unsafe. There is very bad ventilation and rooms smell of unwashed bodies. especially when you are close to large groups from guess which country.

And those guys… Oh my god, they kept on pushing us away from displays, one woman ran over my shoes and feet because she wanted to take a picture of an artifact close to me, some Italian guy tried to make way to a display and the crowd of mainlanders pushed him away, he started sewaring at them, the guide just said ting bu dong and dont pay attention to those weiguoren, they are weird, always so angry. Koreans werent much better, also very loud and very pushy. Who yells at a museum and why. I also got a lot of hostile looks from tour guides. I dont know why but they kept on looking at me with anger and would stop speaking in the middle of the sentence.

That was bizzarre. The worst museum experience ever.

But the collections were nice. Of course there was not enough and things were placed in a very chaotic way to put it mildly, but I am glad that I was bale to finally see some ancient real art from China. Not a single mainland museum compares to what they have on show here, so no wonder all the crowds flock to see and behave like they own the place. Which is weird because they are mainly elder people who smashed and burned what was left home. Didnt they get the memo from Chairman Mao that old art is just evil?

Historical Museum? Do you mean the History Museum next to the Botanical Gardens, on Nanhai Road, downtown Taipei? I didn’t know that one was plagued by Mainlanders too.

Or did you go to the National Palace Museum, over at Shilin? When I take visitors there, I wait at the shop. Heck of a mess thr best of times. Even before the Mainlanders came in hordes.

I still do prefer the Taiwan Museum, focused on natural history. Awesome bug collections. And I always get a bit of a lift from their awesome dome…and the tiger flag under it.

I went to The National Palace Museum a few years ago during Chinese New Year. Never again.

Oooops, sorry, I was tired. The Palace Museum.

I read some comments on TripAdvisor which were dramatic before going there but I thought that it can’t be worse than mainland and people not used to the Chinese wrote them.

It actually was much worse than mainland. People dont behave like that at Chinese meseums. Its because the management lets everyone in at the ame time and the guides yell, I had a feeling it was some political performance, especially the bad looks and people running over foreigners.

Hold on a second. You’ve posted about your traumatic experience at the National Palace Museum in a thread–which you started–on “Holidays without Mainlanders”?

If I got these details right, good luck to you.

Guy

Do you read threads you post in or are you another one who doesn’t?

Someone here mentioned that the museum seems to be less crowded than before and I said I would visit it then.

It is still pretty crowded by visitors who think manners is a kind of food. It is a valid information for someone who will read this thread in the future trying to avoid places frequented by Mainlanders and you came here just to attack me because I post relevant information.

Sorry man. It just never would have occurred to me to visit the National Palace Museum if I were seeking a “holiday without mainlanders.”

As I said before, good luck to you figuring these things out. Bye for now.

Guy

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Yeah, right, arent people idiots for asking questions on forums? After all everyone is born with an innate expertise of things Taiwanese, just like you were. Otherwise idiot and must be mocked on a forum by someone who deosnt have anything better to do on a Sunday morning.

In the 70s I used to go to the Palace Museum > it was often the epitomy of tranquility. Sometimes my gf and I were the only people in a whole wing. You could be alone with “your” Chinese treasures. And even steal a smooch or two with your SO.

I guess long are those days gone.

The 70s? Oh my. This is when the current visitors were smashing their temples with bamboo sticks and learning how to yell so they can hear you in another province.

Now they are all wenming and go to a museum to get some culture. But they forget to brush their teeth and wash their boombooms before.

But…but… I have been told by my coworkers that the real Palace Museum in Beijing has more, a lot more stuff than the one in Taiwan. Please, I cannot believe our bretheren from the Mainland behave inadequately while visiting their own museum in Beijing, so why would they poke at stuff in Taiwan?

Please read above paragraph with dripping sarcasm.

Nobody goes to museums in China so they are mostly empty and you can not see many people misbehave.

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Weird. How about other touristic spots? Cultural ones I mean. One thing I liked about India was that there were many locals visiting museums and temples. In the ol country, we have places where locals cannot go, but that is another story.

In my experience, it’s just like any other country: people are drawn to whatever the guidebooks/websites promote, and those on group tours go to whatever the tour companies are into. So you get empty museums and full ones too, depending on how hot the place is, what time of year it is, and what time of day it is. Same thing with other types of tourist attractions.

You also have obscure museums that are not very touristy but are significant for Party history, and outside of tourist season you get groups of civil servants (in uniform) on educational tours, yet most of the time it’s quiet.

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People go to cultural spots as log as they have loud music, a lot of shops and you can quickly go through them. Most of them are completely fake and rebuild and serve as means of making money. Nobody in China goes to museums to look at some atifacts mainly because they have very little left from the cultural revolution and also because it is boring.

In my experience if you want to find an empty well ventilated place during a summer heat you should go to a museum. It will be empty in China’s standards. In Shanghai or Beijing the madding crowds will be outside shopping and you have empty rooms almost for yourself only.

The only crowded place that was a museum I have ever seen was Shaoshan, where Mao was born. They opened his father’s house for public and have a lot of weird plaques that present a really funny version of his life. “This is a chair in which an 8 year old Mao used to sit to explain the hardships of being a peasant to the masses”. Like Jesus. There are no plaques mentioning that Mao belonged to Guomingtang first, but later switched sides because he saw more potential in communism.

That place was packed.

I went to Sun’s museum in Guangzhou and also a ceramic one I dragged my relatives to -I am into that sort of thing. The Sun one had, as you mention, cpies of the stuff. I got myself transfixed and actually touched one of the chairs where they carried people, ther were no barriers nor glass like here between people and the exhibits. Not too many people, but I thought it was because it was New Year and you had to hike quite a mountain to get there.

The ceramic one was more crowded and I bought a bunch of stuff I still have at their shop.

But as to crowds, nothing compares crossing the Guandong/Hong Kong border after New Year! Have you ever stood in line 12 hours with one milion people? I hope you won’t.