James Kynge

And it has over a thousand exhibits, including erotic paintings and ancient sex toys and Ming Dynasty sexual furniture.

I also heard that there's a paper aeroplane museum.

I mean, of all the things to have a museum about, this is in Wuhan, and it shows off about 200 plastic paper planes, those that can fly a long way, those that spin around, stunt gliders, etc.

And of course, because we're in the digital age, there's a Chinese meme museum as well.

But I just think this is a fascinating topic.

partly because I kind of get the feeling that there is a cultural aspect to this.

Chinese are big collectors, and I think this is a culture that goes back millennia.

If you look at the use of grave goods in graves across the centuries in China, there's all kinds of collections.

Of course, the most famous is the Terracotta Army, which was built for the first emperor of China, Qin Shi Huang,

which has about 8,000 life-size clay warriors and countless bronze weapons.

And of course, it hasn't even been fully excavated yet.

So, you know, there is this sense that, you know, collecting things, it's very deeply in Chinese culture.

What would you say about that, Alice?

Have you noticed that?

Yes, I mean, you know, there are...

endless numbers of expressions that you could cite.

There's a traditional Chinese expression, examine the past to understand the present.

Then there's the more foreboding non-Chinese phrase from, I think it was 1984, the George Orwell novel, he who controls the past controls the future.

I think there are two overtones there that both are valid actually.

And we've spoken about the cultural interest that Chinese people have in the past, and we've spoken about the number of collections and museums there are throughout China.