Page 29 - Sphere No.26 (Mar 2010)

27
Back to the Future
A museum at the Hutchison Baiyunshan site,
which traces the history of Traditional Chinese
Medicine (TCM) through the ages, is attracting
200,000 visitors a year.
The 3,600 square metre facility, known as the
Shennong Herbal Hall Chinese Medicine Museum,
is at the company’s headquarters in the southern
Chinese city of Guangzhou, just across the border
from Hong Kong. It sets out to educate the public
on the theories and culture of TCM which has a
history of thousands of years.
“It is a fascinating topic, and we want people to
learn more in a more relaxed atmosphere,” said
company General Manager Li Chuyuan. “It is a great
day out, and people will come away very satisfied
and enriched, discovering more about their own
cultural roots. Everyone knows that China has a
long history, and we have focused on one area, tra-
ditional medicine, to show just how it has evolved
over the years right through to the 21st century.”
Mr Li, who has a background in sales, operations
and management, also has a Bachelor of Science
degree in Chemistry from Zhongshan University.
He has overseen the company’s rapid growth in the
past five years – and introduced novel ideas such
as the company museum.
One of the most striking features is a huge emboss-
ment, some 99 metres long and 3.3 metres high, that
illustrates how Chinese medicines were developed
over the centuries through to the 21st century.
The museum’s garden, known as “The Eight
Diagrams in Chinese Mythology”, explains the
concept of yin and yang, so important to Chinese
medicine and its culture as a whole, where hot is
balanced with cold, sweet with sour.
A library has samples of rare herbs, while a
garden has rows of herbs that allow people to
recognise which plants are of beneficial use for
health and which are poisonous.
Visitors can relax in a tea house, while browsing
ancient books on remedies, or study a wall chart
that shows pictures of healthy exercises from
times gone by. A “water pond” feature tells the
story of Ge Hong and Bao Gu, two key characters
in the history of TCM in the south of China.
Issue 26