Museum Blog Reflection:)

On Tuesday, my grade went to Ueno zoo and the Tokyo national museum. Before going to the museum, we went to the Ueno zoo for our science project. During science right now, we were looking at animals, and each one of us was supposed to choose one animal to look at. I chose the polar bear, because they were my favorite animal. After staying in the zoo for about two hours, we ate lunch and moved on to the Tokyo national museum for Humanities. At first I didn’t know that we were going to the museum in same day as we were going to the zoo, but I  figured that out when we reached the zoo. I had a lot of fun, and I enjoyed both the museum and the zoo.

In the museum, after I got away from my group and I started to go around the museum with Mimi, Eddie, and Daiki. We left the main museum, and we went to the building next to it where it had more of the whole entire Asia things in there. We looked mainly around the first floor, where we looked at the Qilin. The first floor had one part especially for the Qilin, which I found very interesting. The Qilin is a mythical creature originally from China. It can be mistaken for the Japanese “Kirin”, but it is different.

  I took this picture in Tokyo national museum, and on the card next to it which was explaining what the picture was, it said, “A picture copied from a Chinese book with the note: “A cow gave birth to this animal in 1739 (Qianlong 4) and the emperor has also seen it”. I found this Qilin very interesting because I first didn’t understand what a Qilin was until I read the description, and I found that it looked different from other mythical animals.

I also found lots of Haniwa, which are terracotta figures made out of clay. Haniwa was created during the Kofun period, and they were used for ritual use, and with the deads. I found the Haniwa interesting because I first saw one when I was in fourth grade when we our grade went to a museum near Bashamichi station. It was a Japanese history museum, and when I went there, I found a small clay figurine shaped as a horse. And since then, I always liked Haniwa’s so I found the ones at the museum interesting. Haniwa’s were usually placed on top of tombs of leaders of a clan, but it became more developed and Haniwa’s were placed outside of grave area to guard the tomb. The haniwas that are shown wearing armors were containers for souls. The armor and weapons also showed driving away evil spirits and also protecting rulers from calamity.

A haniwa shaped as a horse, and there were many more.

A haniwa of people dancing. I like this because the faces were interesting.