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In my four years here in Shanghai, I had never once remembered the celebration of International Museum Day. Either because I was busy, not in town, or simply just gaming till I passed that day. And days later, after reading old newspaper of previous days, I will sulk really bad alone at how I can actually I can actually missed it.

You all might be wondering why would someone give a damn about Museum Day. In 2004, I came to Shanghai to grab a degree in Museum Management here in Fudan University, Shanghai. After 4 years, when I missed many classes, failed countless modules, I somehow might get to graduate after all. I am not proud of receiving the certificate at all, because these four years, I had balanced my criterias on livelihood here in Shanghai, rather than really focusing on my studies.

You all might find it weird that why would a Singaporean come all the way to China to study something so uncommon. But seriously, when I wanted to study after getting out from National Service, the notion of a future working in a museum was really what I wanted. Plus the fact that I took a diploma with Knowledge Management background, a museum industry career just seem to attract me. Even now, it still does. But sadly, it’s all about balancing on whether I have enough bread at the end of the day to feed myself.

Disregarding my sulkings and grumblings, this year International Museum Day theme is “Museums as agents of social change and development”. I think the theme is a very interesting topic in which many the general has disregard for. Why would I say that?

I will take Singapore and China as two countries as an example. When you see such a big topic or theme, you will easily understand that Museums should be actually, functioning in their possible areas to help the society in changing and developing. How these are done usually depends on the publicity and aims of the museum in enrolling the public to use its utilities.

In Singapore, although lots of attention and efforts has been put in by MICA to enrich the cultural state of Singaporeans, many remain unclear of the actualy going-ons of what museums offer to the general public. People are not willing to spend too much time to connect with the museum. And hence, a huge amount of efforts has to be drawn from the staffs working in the various museums in order to reach out to the public. It is rather a south and north magnet factor: Singapore Museums offer seriously good quality tools for the general public to tap upon, unfortunately, the crowed is still not big enough to actually fully utilize what can be offered. Most will take the museum as a storage place, once in a while when something big comes along, it will be remembered again. As for most days, it has lost its function to the society.

In China, most museums faces these problem even more seriously. Not all museums are financially operational on their own. And the upkeeping of museums are very dependent of the funds be allocated by the central government annually. Still, every provinces continue to build huge and major and provincial level museums in order to raise the provincial image and tourism. But the problem is not how big or how small museums are here, or whether their collections are good or bad, but rather how much people actually uses them. Without people visiting them, any educational, social purposes to connect and interact with the people will be futile.

Even when collections are massive, most of the collections are like skeletons in a closet collected and not publicly available. Take the forbidden palance museum for example, most of its collections are not readily available to the public. Either that, or many museums have their exhibitions set in a permanent fixture in which there are no new exhibitions available to make interaction between museums and the public.

Let’s talk about art. In these fews years since 2000, Chinese Contemporary Art has be on a raise globally as a collector’s item. Last year, Christie’s and Sotheby’s have set a new high record in the auctioning world of Asia & Chinese Contemporary Art. And because of this, the factor in which art form as a meaning to the Chinese people as a symbol is no longer art itself. The money factor as a collection meant more as a symbol that the art itself to most Chinese. Art appreciation in general to the general population is minimal. With the massive amount of art students graduating annually, it is not because there are not enough artists to produce great works of art that is a problem, but rather that too many works of art are being produce at such a fast rate for such a small group of people who will actually linked themselves to the art available. I call this syndrome the “slow one beat” syndrome. Everyone here needs to be taught everything from 1,2,3 and up down left right.

But still, the theme “Museums as agents of social change and development” does make sense. One may think that Museums are boring and they only get interesting if they have something new to show in their exhibition. But rather, that is not always the case. Sometimes, it is always using the same materials that a museum can offer to look at different periods of life at different times that matter, and it is the interaction and connection that matters that can help in making developments and social change matters.

It should be viewed that Museums can work hand in hand in every country to help in creating a national identity, finding a cultural existence that makes themselves unique globally. This becomes an issues that is even more important as our world becomes flatter as globalization takes place, rather than becoming a transparent and a cultural desert, making not differences from one another. It’s not about how many museums we need, but rather how the people and museums functions together as a growth from every nation in its development to secure its voice around the world. And because of that, museums now a days need to have more transparency in their work to prevent duplication of exhibitions, especially in a huge nation like China. And even so, an empty closet or one that acts as an attic storage can never be an agent too in serving to link the bridge between policies and the general public.