Caroline L. Tung and Dr. Michael Murdock, History
In January 1995 after a national controversy that was sprawled upon the pages of USA Today and the Washington Post, the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum reluctantly announced the abandonment of its Enola Gay exhibition. The cause of this cancellation was the divisive exhibit script that had questioned the necessity to drop the atomic bomb on Hiroshima—a perspective that satisfied historians but that alarmed veterans and conservatives. A fervent culture war quickly embroiled America, splitting the nation into those who supported the curators’ vision of an exhibition that reflected current historical scholarship against those who supported the veterans’ view that the Smithsonian was guilty of rewriting history.
The Enola Gay debacle showed that even in the United States—a country founded upon the freedom of speech and intellectual pursuits—it remains difficult to examine hotly-debated events. Furthermore, this controversy demonstrated how museums face the challenging task of defining history and specifically, how federally-funded museums confront limitations in fully investigating its national past.
After writing a research paper about the failed Enola Gay exhibition, I became intrigued by the role of museums in narrating national histories. I was particularly interested to learn more about foreign museums—especially ones in non-democratic countries. And so my eyes quickly set on China, a nation with more than four-thousand years of history but currently under a communist government that employs educational censorship. I wondered how would the National Museum of Chinese History (NMCH) in Beijing address troublesome events in its communist past, like the Great Leap Forward where millions died of starvation to fulfill Chairman Mao’s proletariat dreams? Would the curators be forced to manipulate art and artifacts to strictly celebrate the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)? And how would they do so?
My initial goal was to examine the art and architecture of Tiananmen Square and the four buildings that flanked it—the NMCH, the Great Hall of the People, the Forbidden City, and Mao’s Mausoleum. The Square is the equivalent of the National Mall in Washington, DC because both sites function as the patriotic heart of their respective countries. I planned to study the art displayed in these buildings and consequently examine how nationalism is produced at Tiananmen Square; a research paper of my findings would later be submitted to an academic journal. Originally, I hypothesized that the four buildings would exhibit art with blatant communist propaganda, such as beaming portraits of communist leaders or heroic depictions of the CCP driving out Chiang Kai Shek.
But upon my arrival in China in May 2005, I faced various challenges to my hypothesis. In the Great Hall of the People (Beijing’s equivalent of the U.S. Capitol), I had expected to find grand paintings of Mao, Lenin, and Marx, but instead I found traditional Chinese calligraphy and landscape watercolors. Interestingly, the art displayed in the Great Hall paid homage to the dynasties of China’s past rather than the current communist leadership. At the NMCH, my puzzlement only grew. I had anticipated finding propagandist CCP relics, such as Mao’s personal belongings, but instead I found a surprisingly empty museum. There were only four exhibitions and the largest one was dedicated to Chinese artifacts from the pre-communist era. The newest exhibition, a wax-figure display of prominent Chinese figures, was kitschy at best. It displayed wax models of communist leaders as well as important emperors of China’s past; also thrown into the mix was a blend of Chinese artists and poets standing alongside western icons like Michael Jordan and Marilyn Monroe. This pseudo “Madame Tussaud” exhibit failed to explore—or even narrate—the history of China. Instead, the exhibition was a photo-op for visitors to stand alongside likenesses of their favorite historical figure or movie star.
After I discussed my findings with my mentor Dr. Michael Murdock, we theorized that the Chinese government is at a crossroads in defining its communist history. Since Deng Xiao-Ping’s administration in the 1980s, the Chinese government has assimilated Western capitalist attributes, causing the CCP to gradually dislocate from its Marxist foundation. This so-called “loosening” has allowed China to rapidly modernize its economy and to some extent its education system. Professors and scholars now have the academic freedom—albeit limited—to scrutinize twentieth-century Chinese history, yet such intellectual liberty makes government leaders uncomfortable. There are many aspects of CCP history that reflect negatively on the party, such as the Cultural Revolution in the 1960s where artists and scholars were publicly humiliated for their western ideas and where a “Cult of Mao” was created to propel the Chairman into demigod status. Such events are occluded from Tiananmen Square—an act that shows the government is not ready to assess its mistakes. But what is interesting is how the CCP does not swing in the opposite direction—the Square is not the epitome of communist propaganda that I had expected to find. At the NMCH especially, the museum is almost devoid of historical commentary. Thus, the government is in a quandary because it refuses to acknowledge controversial portions of its past, but it will not condone a museum that attempts to recreate a Cult of Mao. As the government separates from its Marxist roots, it will continually face the challenge of melding its new capitalist features with its original communist identity.
As I worked on my first draft, I realized that my original scope for the project would be too broad to fit within the space constraints of a journal article. Thus, I decided to focus solely on the National Museum of Chinese History because of my interest in history museums. Furthermore, I decided to structure the paper as a comparison between the NMCH and the National Museum of American History (NMAH) in Washington, DC. At first glance, these two institutions may seem worlds apart because they are located in two very different countries. Yet the two museums share much in common—both have the duty to narrate national histories, both are federally funded and thus are dependent upon government support, and both face the dilemma of how to address controversial historical events within politically-conservative atmospheres.
Although I am still working to complete my paper, I am excited to tackle this project from a new angle. I currently work at the Smithsonian and will have ready access to materials concerning the NMAH; my paper should be finished within a year. I am incredibly grateful to have received the opportunity to explore a topic that I find both fascinating and pertinent to Chinese and American societies. This grant has not only provided me with deeper experience as a historian, but has also allowed me to visit the land of my ancestors. Additionally, I would like to research the changing purpose of the museum institution in my doctoral dissertation.