Now, it's slightly less of a happy place for me these days, since it started doing bag checks in its forecourt. I understand that London's a bit tense these days, thanks to various terrorist attacks in the last couple of years, and I understand that as a free museum it has to control the ever-increasing number of tourists that flock to it. But there's something about the way it's implemented the bag checks, where it causes long lines to get in on weekends, and the unfriendliness of the people doing the searches, that makes it less fun.
And the new entry requirements mean that the museum no longer does the garden exhibitions it used to do - one of my favorites was a replica Chinese garden, right there in the forecourt, with small recreations of a bunch of different Chinese ecosystems laid out next to each other. They later did one for Indian plants and one for African plants, and I remember enjoying those a whole lot too, so it's a shame that they won't be providing that anymore.
On the other hand, the inside is still great. Just today, among the temporary free exhibits, I had a look at a gallery on Toussaint Louverture, the hero of Haitian independence, and one on the friendship between artists Niko Ghika and John Craxton, and author Patrick Leigh Fermor, all centered around their time on various Greek islands in the 1950s and 1960s.
I also had a closer look at the redone Chinese gallery, which I got to check out back in January when I first arrived, having missed out on it and the adjoining Indian gallery after their refurbishments of the past year or so. Disappointingly, the Japanese gallery is closed for refurbishment until September, but at least I got to see my other happy place within the museum, which is the Korean gallery's sarangbang.
I don't know why I'm so obsessed with the place, but for the past ten or so years, I've always felt the need to stop by and have a look. I think on one hand it's because it's so cozy and perfect, with a bed and stuff for writing and stuff for reading and stuff for tea. Somehow I'm just drawn to these well-designed, self-contained little living spaces.
On the other hand, it occurred to me today that I think I'd have taken well to being a Confucian scholar-gentleman. From what I've been able to understand, they basically took their examinations, figured out what level they'd occupy and then just hung around for the rest of their lives writing poetry, painting landscapes and playing music.
None of those things is completely in my wheelhouse, but the lure of being able to sit around all day doing whatever intellectual thing takes my fancy, without worrying about, y'know, supporting myself, is pretty attractive. Though to be honest I'd probably spend a significant part of each day playing video games (I'm assuming I'd get to be a gentleman-scholar in modern times).
It's kind of too bad there's no scholar class like that anymore. The people who might be interested in writing treatises on random stuff don't really have the money to do that, while the people who have the money for it seem to be interested more in subverting democracy and corrupting political processes. Or, at the very least, in accumulating more money, which, again, leaves precious little time for important things like calligraphy or vertical landscape paintings.
My aim is to become so filthy rich that I can afford a sarangbang myself (along with a tea room like they have or had in the British Museum's Japanese gallery), and then to actually spend time in it. Probably playing video games, sure, but also likely learning languages and working on my latest disquisition on proper orchid-growing techniques.
Or this blog, who knows?
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