Palace Museum to promote culture through popular products

The Palace Museum in Beijing, also known as the Forbidden City, announced on Dec 9 it has launched the three-year program Chinese Festivals in the Forbidden City to display traditional cultural elements through creative products.

According to the plan, for every major Chinese festival in the upcoming years, the museum will cooperate with enterprises to develop typical elements, which are collected from cultural relics in the museum, into popular products and thus better integrate fine traditional culture into people's daily lives.

The first achievement of the program saw its release on Dec 9 for the upcoming Chinese New Year. Jianlibao, China's first domestic brand producing canned beverages, released new products with cans featuring auspicious patterns from Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) emperors' robes. The new design includes dragons, clouds, fires and bats (which symbolize good luck in China because their name is a homonym for the Chinese word "fortune").

According to Du Haijiang, deputy director of the Palace Museum, more such crossovers with strengths from different social sectors will emerge in the future to adopt an open attitude toward revitalizing traditional culture and promoting patriotism.