block printing museum

rating:4/5

This building has both the Yangzhou Museum and the China Block Printing Museum under the same roof. We started with the China Woodblock Printing Museum. There were displays of the instruments used for Chinese block printing, the process of it and many others. The displays were well-presented and interesting as I had never seen those display before in Singapore. There is even a hands-on section where you can see demonstrations. I think it was a very good opportunity for us to see the process of Chinese block printing. When I asked them on the reason they are willing to stay in the museum, they said it was their hobby and it was to allow the future generation to know the culture of Chinese. I personally think that the people doing the demonstrations worth our respect as they are willing to take their time and spent it at the museum just to pass on the Chinese culture to the next generation so that they would know their root., instead of joining other more attractive jobs. Without them, the culture of block printing may be vanished forever in the future.
Next we went to the Yangzhou Museum. The Yangzhou museum paled in comparison as the collection on display was rather small. It exhibits Yangzhou's love for the skill of carving various materials into art. Intricately carved jade, bamboo, stone, porcelain and wood objects are on display, spanning around two thousand years. It also features a painting and calligraphy exhibit of the famous Yangzhou “Eight Eccentric” artists, and a huge Tang Dynasty dragon boat. What left me the deepest impression was a Yuan-dynasty glazed vase/bottle which has a blue background and a white dragon.

The exterior look of the block printing museum.

Entering the museum gate, we were welcomed by the Museum's standardFu Xi Nu Wa

A man carving out the words from a wooden block. The carving of the word is very small and he could easily cut wrongly or hurt himself. Not only that, if any character  is carved wrongly, he would have to dispose that whole block and recarve the characters. The man told us that he actually enjoyed carving out the characters even though it is very tiring.

A lady copying words from one paper to another. The handwriting of the words are very need and consistent throughout the whole process. Moreover, she just be very meticulous as there is no such thing as a correction tape to cover the mistake so if there is any mistake, she will have to rewrite the whole thing. 

A man applying ink to print out the words. He used a brush and apply ink on the block quite a few times so that every part of the block will be covered with ink. Moreover when he transfer the ink on the paper, he had to use the same force throughout the printing process so tat there will not be some parts which are darker, while some are lighter. 

Displays in the museum, related to block printing like the instruments used in the past for block printing.

Craig blue glaze vase with white dragon grain in the yangzhou museum. In that exhibit, it showcases pictures of vases in during different dynasties of china.