Written by: Li Li
Posted on: October 24, 2018 | 
| 中文
Bookmarks in the store
Visitors entering the hall of the first floor of the Museum of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region are attracted by the "Xinbo Wenchuang," a cultural and creative souvenir store inside the museum.
On the wall behind the cashier, there are two eye-catching lines that say "Bring the culture home" and "Bring the museum home." Anyone entering the store sees the brilliant creative products, and what dazzles the visitors are Gaochang Wisdom Dolls Collection and bookmarks, Series of Notebooks of Bali Grassland Stone Figures, notepads, cell phone cases, mouse pads, ballpoint pens, storage bags and postcards, series of vacuum cups, power banks, umbrellas, canvas bags, and T-shirts, developed with inspiration from the national relics. In one corner is an armband, embroidered with Chinese characters, “Five stars rise in the east, benefiting China,” which was a treasure of two thousand years ago, unearthed in Niya Ruins of Southern Edge of Taklamankan Desert.
Hu Lan and Liu Fangfei, two tourists from Beijing, bought cloth shoes, cotton socks and scarves with Etles silk patterns. “The words on the shoes and socks have auspicious meanings. The salesperson told me that these words were on people's shoes in the Eastern Jin Dynasty. We also bought scarves, which will look good and special while blocking the wind and sunlight when we are travelling,” said Hu Lan.
Chen Chen, a girl from Shandong Province, who has been traveling in Xinjiang for a month and is about to return, chose a dozen hand-painted postcards of The Beautiful Xinjiang Series at the store. “These hand-painted postcards are lovely, and have Xinjiang features. They will remind me of what I have seen in this region. I want to take them back, to give them to my family and friends.” While saying this, she stamped the museum's commemorative stamp on the postcards.
In the store, there are also copies of clay sculpture relics, folk porcelain plates, and books such as Art of Xinjiang Ethnic Minorities Pattern Samples, and Art of Xinjiang Folk Decoration Paintings, which are also favored by the tourists.
Not long ago, the Museum made its debut at the China (Shenzhen) International Cultural Industry Fair with its cultural and creative products, and had great success. Their creative products were very popular, such as King Gaochang dolls and ornaments, creative power banks with inspiration from the aforementioned national treasure armband, Shanpula (name of ancient tombs in Hotan) wallets, and flowery embroidered antique cloth shoes.
“The museum has developed more than 200 kinds of cultural and creative products in five categories, including the Gaochang Wisdom Series, Grassland Stone Figure Series, Five Stars Rise in the East and Benefiting China Series and so on. Most of what we developed are stationery, toys and daily necessities that are colorful, compact and practical, with reasonable price and guaranteed quality,” said Chen Xinyong, director of the creative department of the museum.
In 2016, China issued a document, “The Opinions on Promoting Cultural and Creative Products Development of Cultural and Relic Units,” which encourages cultural and relic units such as museums, galleries and libraries at all levels, to develop cultural and creative products by relying on their collections and adopting cooperative, authorized and independent development in light of their own conditions on the premise of ensuring public welfare goals, protecting national cultural relics and making their main business stronger.
Cultural and creative stores not only sell goods, but also promote traditional Chinese culture. The staff of the store are all senior docents of the museum, who can tell the stories behind each creative product to the visitors.
Yurituz Yusuf has had 12 years of work experience, as a museum docent. “A lot of visitors are particularly interested in the relic symbols and cultural elements in our products. They love listening to the stories behind the cultural relics. Some of them wish to know more about them, so I also recommend different books to them.”
At present, the daily sales of cultural and creative products of Xinjiang Museum, amount to more than 3,000 yuan on the average, and reaches nearly 10,000 yuan in peak tourism season. In addition to the physical store, the museum has also opened an online WeChat store by the same name. In addition, it has produced WeChat emoji packages and posters based on the Gaochang Wisdom Doll collection, whose tiny and wise image has been recognized by many people.
At a corner of the store, there is a themed post office titled, "Silk Road Post Office" with a dark green mailbox. According to the staff, the museum has collaborated with the local post office and has customized a number of stamps, themed with Xinjiang's cultural relics, and visitors can send postcards directly from the museum.
“Xinjiang culture is fully embodied in the cultural relics of various historical periods. Our museum has collected more than 60,000 pieces of cultural relics, which are rich in resources, to be transformed into creative products. We will continue to explore and make more cultural relics “come alive,” so that more artifacts can come into people's lives,” said Shi Jun, Curator of Xinjiang Museum.
Translated by Xu Donglin
You may also like:
