Two and a half hours bus ride was rather a long trip for me who
suffer from bus-sickness sometimes. I almost felt like vomiting when the bus
arrived in the downtown area of New York at 11:30. We got off the bus in front
of the Metropolitan Museum, a
grand and world famous museum on
the fifth Avenue.
We planned to spend the rest of the day visiting the museum, but
the museum is so big that we could hardly fulfill the task, so we decided to
search some sections we are more interested in first. We were completely surrounded by the world-famous artworks of the European and Egyptian sections so much so that
we got lost sometimes. Everything seemed to be amazing till we got to the section
of China’s exhibition. We were shocked by the darkness of this part
and felt uneasy and uncomfortable when we were walking around in this section. The
Chinese elements presented here include some artworks of the blue
and white porcelain, cheongsam, which are really a part of Chinese art, but there are also some
things such as opium and other obscenity in the noisy TV show which have long been
discarded into the dustbin of history. We wondered why these elements are still
presented in the museum, so we went to seek for answers from one of the clerks
in the museum. A black lady explained that they know what is shown here is not
what China is, and it is only what the designers thought China might be. The
darkness might suggest the mystery of China. Anyhow, no matter what the reasons might be, we just do not like the atmosphere in the section about China. We
felt very disappointed because we cannot find in the museum the best part of
China such as the wisdom of Chinese people in the long
history of our country. It is really a great pity.