Glimpses of Toronto (Visit the Royal Ontario Museum)

The Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) is Canada's leading international museum and the fifth largest museum in North America. It is located on Bloor Street, north of Queen's Park.

After passing by it several times, the museum's new annex building, the "Lee-Chin Crystal Palace", attracted everyone's attention. In early November, I purchased a combined visit ticket online.

The "Lee-Chin Crystal Palace" is another masterpiece of Daniel Libeskind, the designer of the Jewish Museum in Berlin and the "Freedom Tower" in New York after 9/11, and the master of deconstruction. It has iconic edges and corners. The aesthetics and crystal shape, it is said that Daniel completed it on a napkin.

The 175,000-square-foot building, with its aluminum and glass roof, houses seven exhibition halls and two special exhibition areas as well as a new dining area and a new two-story main structure. main entrance hall.

Like other museums, there are staff at the entrance handing out "Map Guides" in various languages. We asked for Chinese ones.

When we walked into the museum, we were greeted by a huge dinosaur skeleton from ancient times. It should be called Diplodocus. Its long neck allows it to reach the leaves on the trees and fill its huge stomach.

In the museum hall, the murals on both sides of the walls introduce history.

In the middle, there is a dinosaur skeleton.

Entering the long corridor on the right side of the hall is the China and Asia exhibition area. It is also known as the Bishop Huai Luguang Memorial Exhibition Hall.

In early 1897, a 24-year-old Canadian came to China in the name of the Anglican Church. He preached in Fujian and Henan, provided medical treatment, and detoxified himself from drugs. He also purchased Chinese cultural relics and transported them back to the royal family. Ontario Museum.

The following three large, lifelike and brightly colored wooden Buddhist sculptures come from Daning, Shanxi, and are works from the Yuan Dynasty (about 1300 AD).

The sculpture of Guanyin sitting on a chair with her knees bent comes from Linfen, Shanxi. It was a work of the Jin Dynasty (about 1195 AD) and was invited to Hongdong County in Pingyang Prefecture. The Samantabhadra Bodhisattva accompanying him is a Ming Dynasty wood carving from Yongji, Shanxi.

Below is a Buddhist mural from the Yuan Dynasty in the 13th century, which occupies an entire wall.

Later I learned that it was the "Maitreya's Discourse Picture", 11.6 meters wide and 5.8 meters high. It was the work of Zhu Haogu and Zhang Boyuan, the famous painters of southern Shanxi in the Yuan Dynasty. It is also the best mural in ancient Chinese temples after the Tang Dynasty. One of the works.

It adopts a symmetrical composition, with Maitreya Buddha and saints in the middle, one Buddha, four Bodhisattvas and two disciples, with figures of female and male tonsures on the left and right sides.

The "Maitreya Buddha Teaching Picture" was cut into more than 60 pieces by antique dealers in 1925 and stripped from Xinghua Temple.

In 1928, Huai Luguang, the bishop of the Henan Diocese of the Chinese Anglican Church and a Canadian, learned about it and urgently called Guleri, the director of the Royal Ontario Museum, suggesting that he quickly raise funds to buy the mural. With Huai Luguang's mediation, the mural was sold to the museum for 5,000 yuan in silver. It was exported from Tianjin in January of the following year, packed into 63 boxes, and shipped to Toronto via Boston.

After careful splicing by local artists and careful restoration by Stout of the Fogg Art Museum at Harvard University, the top expert in cultural relic restoration in the United States, this masterpiece of Chinese Yuan Dynasty temple murals settled in a foreign country. In 1933, it was The Royal Ontario Museum is open and has become a treasure of the town.

The upper and lower Yuan Dynasty-style murals are called "Chaoyuan Pictures", and they also had a rough fate. Japanese businessmen smuggled it out of China and resold it to Canada. It originally belonged to a temple and the time of theft is unknown. After the Royal Ontario Museum purchased this mural in 1936, it was repaired many times and basically restored to its original appearance.

These two pictures depict the gorgeous scenes of worship of the gods in Taoism. The gods are mostly in half profile, facing the central altar in an east-west direction. They are very similar in style and image to the murals in the Sanqing Hall of Yongle Palace. .

The Taoist gods are arranged in a line and marching in the cloud and mist fairyland, standing on top of the clouds, with the fairy mist lingering behind them. There are 31 gods painted on the west wall, and 28 gods painted on the east wall, including civil and military officials, men and women, masters and slaves, all dressed in luxurious clothes and looking graceful.

There are three main deities painted on both walls. On the west wall are Laozi, Donghua Emperor and Jin Mu; on the east wall are Arctic Emperor, Jade Emperor and Houtu. They are tall and stand out among the gods. The murals are rich in color, smooth in line drawing, and the overall effect is grand and magnificent.

The two embroidered screens separated by glass can only be viewed from a distance.

These are Japanese exhibits, right?

On the left side of the hall are two stairways, with a tall aboriginal totem pole standing on each side to accompany you from the first floor to the third floor.

Go up to the second floor, pass through the middle corridor of the domed hall, and arrive at the "Treasures of the Earth" museum. This museum is very large and has very rich exhibits.

Canada has a sparse population, but it has a vast land and abundant resources. It ranks third in the world in land and is rich in various natural resources, especially mineral resources, such as nickel, copper, zinc, aluminum, asbestos, diamonds, cadmium, titanium concentrate, and salt. The reserves rank among the top in the world.

Amethyst is the most expensive gemstone among crystals. It was regarded as a precious gemstone in ancient Greek and Roman times. It decorated the crown or the archbishop's ring in the Middle Ages. It was used by Princess Charlotte, wife of George III of the United Kingdom. I once paid a high price for an amethyst necklace.

Canada is not the world’s origin of amethyst, but near Thunder Bay in northern Ontario, there is a treasure land full of crystal stones, including the largest amethyst mine in North America. Amethyst Mine Panorama.

Initially, the crystals produced here were sent to various parts of North America for use in garden design. Later, they were opened to the public, allowing visitors to hunt for and pick up treasures in an 80-acre mining area. After purchasing, Can be taken away.

Canadian jasper is Canada’s national treasure. It is mainly produced in the mountains north of Vancouver. Its hardness is about 6.5 degrees on the Mohs scale and it is a type of nephrite.

Arctic jade is the top grade of Canadian jasper. It is a kind of jasper produced in the Arctic Circle and has the best texture among jaspers.

Large meteorite.

At the other end of the second floor is the "Biodiversity: Crisis of Life" pavilion

Various plants, flowers, birds, animals, insects and fish are indigenous to Canada. To this day, they still nurture the humans on this land and live in harmony with them.

Some of the creatures on display here are extinct and some are on the verge of life-threatening danger. They serve as a warning to mankind that protecting nature means protecting ourselves.

The main visitors to the biology museum are parents and children.

When you get tired of watching, you can spread out your own small carpet everywhere, sit or lie down, and have close contact with various creatures.

Fish suddenly swim in the air, it’s really science fiction!

On the touch screen, you can quickly browse various exhibits.

You can also sit and rest with your back against the animals by the window.

When you walk into the Bat Cave, the light is so dim that you can’t see anything clearly. The squeaking and electric sounds of hundreds of bats make the atmosphere really scary.

It is said that this bat cave was discovered in Jamaica and later collected.

In front of the Bat Cave is the "Biodiversity Physical Operation Area".

Children’s favorites are small insects and animals that can be touched at hand.

Place small insects or your own fingers under the instrument to see more clearly.

Overview of the living habits of birds

You can hold the exhibits in your hands and look at them carefully, and the guide will take the initiative to explain them to you.

This Chinese doll, which is still walking unsteadily, touches this and pats that. Everything is novel.

The maple leaf is the symbol of Canada. There is white paper and colored pens here. Children can lay paper on the maple leaf and draw as they please.

An ancient tree with a diameter of more than one meter

In one part of the corridor, there are some Chinese exhibits. The graceful left arm and left leg of Dunhuang Feitian were touched and brightened.

Bronze Buddha statues

Terracotta Warriors and Horses

Next to the Chinese Terracotta Warriors and Horses, there is a row of ancient Chinese clothes. Several little girls are excitedly trying on the clothes and taking pictures.

The entire small exhibition hall is filled with little soldiers of all ages. They are lifelike and vividly represent Canada's war history.

There is no glass, so you can reach out and play with it.

Further forward is the "Exploration Hall", where the protagonists are mammals and dinosaurs.

In the Mesozoic Era (Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceous) more than 230 million years ago, a large number of reptiles lived on land, so it is also called the "Age of Reptiles". At that time, the earth's climate was warm, forests were everywhere, and reptiles had enough food. They gradually prospered and differentiated into different types of reptiles, gradually becoming today's turtles, crocodiles, snakes, and lizards, and today's species throughout the world. mammals of the world.

Mammals

Tyrannosaurus rex is the most eye-catching

Dinosaurs are the largest of all reptiles and mainly inhabit lakeshore plains (or coasts) plains), where the air was warm and moist and food was easy to find, so dinosaurs ruled the earth for 160 million years.

But for unknown reasons, they suddenly became extinct in a short period of time 65 million years ago. Today, people only see a large number of dinosaur fossils left at that time.

Triceratops or Pentaceratops?

There are many reasons for the extinction of dinosaurs, and humans are still exploring them.