佛光山佛陀紀念館 Fo Guang Shan Buddha Museum

The Fo Guang Shan Buddha Museum (Chinese: 佛光山佛陀紀念館, is a Buddhist cultural, religious and educational museum located in Taiwan's Kaohsiung City, Dashu District. The museum is affiliated with Fo Guang Shan, one of Taiwan's largest Buddhist organizations. The museum houses one of the tooth relics of Sakyamuni Buddha, the founder of the Buddhist faith. Although only opened in 2011, the museum has won acclaim internationally, and was accepted as the youngest member of the International Council of Museums (ICOM) in 2014.

Check out some digital features of the museum on Google Arts & Culture:

ONLINE EXHIBIT Take a Tour of the Fo Guang Shan Buddha Museum

What is One-Stroke Calligraphy?

Walk around the Underground Palaces

When Buddha Meets the Gods

Do you know the Eighteen Arhats?

Chimei Museum 奇美博物館

Chimei Museum 奇美博物館

Cherish these timeless valuables and find your favorites among them.

Museum is a comprehensive museum with wide collections of Western art, musical instruments, weaponry and natural history. There are permanent exhibition galleries, one temporary exhibition gallery and sculpture halls in the main building.

Founder of the CHIMEI Group, Mr. Wen-Long Shi, was very fond of his childhood visits to a local museum that he was inspired to build a museum for everyone to enjoy. The museum was first established and housed in the administration building of the CHIMEI Corporation in 1992, relocated to the Tainan Metropolitan Park in 2014, and reopened in 2015. The museum is here so that people of all ages and social backgrounds can have easy access to Western culture and arts without having to travel abroad.

The collection at CHIMEI Museum consists mainly of Western art, musical instruments, arms and armour, animal taxidermy and fossils, exhibiting approximately 4000 items, which is about one-third of the complete CHIMEI collection. Founder Shi expressed that, “Good works of art are not to be kept just for oneself to enjoy, but to be shared with the public; and a good collection should not reflect just the collector’s personal tastes, but to tailor to common tastes and have enough varieties for everyone to find something to enjoy and appreciate.”

Taipei Fine Arts Museum 臺北市立美術館

Founded in 1983, Taipei Fine Arts Museum (TFAM) is Taiwan’s first museum of modern and contemporary art, and among one of the oldest in Asia. Venturing into its 35th year, TFAM has dedicated itself to the development of modern art in Taiwan while staying abreast of ongoing trends in contemporary arts.

It has pioneered the biennial trends for the region and overseen the operations of the Taipei Biennial since 1998 and the planning for the Taiwan Pavilion as a collateral event of Venice Biennale since 1995.

For the past two decades, the Taiwanese art scene has witnessed a paradigm shift of the geo-political power structures within the international contemporary art community, alongside the increased mobility of global art professionals and their influence on established international exhibitions around the world. Taking this changing atmosphere into consideration, the Taiwanese nomination committee seeks to make a unique intervention in the scene of ever-expanding national pavilions and their collateral events.

Jing-Mei White Terror Memorial Park 白色恐怖景美紀念園區

JING-MEI WHITE TERROR MEMORIAL PARK

白色恐怖景美紀念園區

A part of the National Human Rights Museum, the Jing-Mei White Terror Memorial Park in New Taipei City is the first institution in Asia which has transformed a historic location where rights abuses occurred into a site for human rights education.

Dedicated to the atrocities which occurred under Taiwan’s Martial Law Period, the building was actually a military school in 1957–1967. It later housed military courts and a detention center called the Jingmei Military Detention Centre for political dissidents.

The museum is a powerful and somber reminder of this dark period in Taiwan’s history. In the museum, visitors will find military courts and barracks, prisoner and guard rooms, exercise and work yards, and the room where family members would have had the chance for a brief talk to a prisoner via telephone on the other side of a glass wall.

It is primarily a facility for collecting and preserving historical documents and materials relating to human rights from the end of 50 years of Japanese colonial rule Aug. 15, 1945, to the lifting of martial law five years after Taiwan proper in outlying Kinmen and Matsu islands Nov. 7, 1992. It is also responsible for researching and revitalizing sites where significant rights violations occurred as well as managing the two memorial parks, located at former jails for political prisoners.

Shung Ye Museum of Formosan Aborigines / 順益台灣原住民博物館

The Shung Ye Museum of Formosan Aborigines was established in 1994 as a specialist museum founded on the collection and display of artifacts of Taiwan’s indigenous peoples. It is dedicated to promoting mutual understanding between different ethnic groups, through careful research, preservation and explanation of the essence of Aboriginal cultures. Achievement of these aims of mutual respect and appreciation will help to create a harmonious and gentle society.

Shung Ye Museum’s main displays introduce the natural environment of Taiwan’s indigenous peoples, their daily utensils, clothing and personal decoration, ritual objects and religious life. Films shown in the auditorium provide an understanding of the present conditions of Aboriginal life. The museum also has a special exhibition room where related exhibitions are held at regular intervals to broaden visitor’s field of concern, and to present the many faces of humankind’s culture. 

The Shung Ye Museum of Formosan Aborigines’ ideal is bring concerned people of all ethnicities together to devote themselves to these aims.

National Museum of History, Taipei (國立歷史博物館)

NATIONAL MUSEUM OF HISTORY, TAIPEI (國立歷史博物館)

The Taiwan National Museum of History was the first museum to be established in Taiwan in 1955 (at that time, it was known as the “National Museum of Historical Artifacts and Fine Arts”) until 1956 when the name was changed to what it is today. In that same year, the museum building received a massive refurbishment in the style of  five-floor traditional Chinese Ming and Qing palaces

Despite its relatively small size, the museum has an enviable collection built upon what was originally saved from the Henan Museum in China (河南博物院), and of relics recovered from the Japanese after the Sino-Japanese War. The collection included the bronzes unearthed in Xinzheng, Hui and Anyang (in Henan Province), Pre-Qin pottery unearthed in Loyang, Han green-glazed pottery, the dancer and musician figurines of the Six Dynasties, Tang tri-colored pottery and other treasures. 

As time went on, the museum developed a sizeable collection dedication to Taiwan history, alongside the continued procurement of treasures from China and other countries from around Asia. Now, it also hosts an impressive collection dating back to the Neolithic period and the ancient Chinese dynasties Shang, Zhou, Han, Tang, Song, Yuan, Ming, and Qing, up to the contemporary era. 

From July 2018, it will be undergoing serious renovation works which will leave it closed for three years, but will provide visitors to the museum with an elegant and multifaceted learning environment upon its reopening

Did you know that the Chinese calligraphy inscription of the name above the entrance was made by the famous scholar Yu You-ren ( 于右任)? He later became the first person to be awarded the Taiwan National Literary Award.

Fun fact: the museum even has a residency in Taoyuan's international airport! So the next time you are jetting to or from Taiwan, make sure to pay a visit!