Promotional material of The International Museum Day in China Photo: Courtesy of China's National Cultural Heritage Administration

China's National Cultural Heritage Administration turned to 5G technology to host a livestream from the Nanjing Museum on Monday to celebrate International Museum Day. The livestream was one of a number of online and offline events held by the administration as China's museums have started to recover from the COVID-19 epidemic.

The theme of the "May 18 International Museum Day China Main Venue" was "Museums for Equality: Diversity and Inclusion." 

Events including forums for young elites in the museum industry, an award ceremony for the top 10 exhibitions and fine works at the National Museum and a donation ceremony for items related to the epidemic were held as part of the celebrations.

The day was a big hit on Chinese social media. The hashtag for International Museum Day had earned 960 million views on China's Twitter-like Sina Weibo as of Monday afternoon.

Promotional material of The International Museum Day in China Photo: Courtesy of China's National Cultural Heritage Administration

In a press release on Monday, the administration said that PPE gear used by frontline medical staff, silk banners used by medical rescue teams in Jinyintan Hospital in Wuhan, Central China's Hubei Province and East China's Jiangsu Province, and paintings and calligraphy works from some Chinese artists were donated to the Nanjing Museum's collection.

Donated PPE suits were decorated with the signatures of frontline medical workers,a move meant to commemorate their hard work and effort. The colorful PPE lifeted the spirits of thousands of medical staff who fought on the frontlines.

Liu Yuzhu, head of China's National Cultural Heritage Administration, said in a speech on Monday that Chinese museums are showing multicultural characteristics. 

"With the establishment and opening up of some museums including the Tibet Museum, Erlitou Relic Museum and National Marine Museum of China, China's museum system will become richer and more complete," Liu said.

According to Liu, a total of 5,535 museums, including 1,710 non-state-owned museums, were registered nationwide in 2019. 

Chinese museums held 28,600 exhibitions, while visitors reached 1.2 billion visitors in 2019, an increase of 100 million visitors compared to the previous year.

"During the novel coronavirus period, the national museum industry paid close attention to prevention and control measures in museums, and we launched more than 2,000 online exhibitions, which had attracted more than 5 billion views." 

Suay Aksoy, president of the International Council of Museums, also gave a speech in a video played at the event. She noted that Chinese museums have been setting a good example for communication and interaction with the public amid the pandemic.

Leaders from the China National Silk Museum, Victoria and Albert Museum and National Museum of Korea also joined an online forum to discuss and share views about the future development of museums, according to the press release.