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On July 26, Dr. Shan Jixiang, dean of the Palace Museum Academy and former director of the Palace Museum, delivered a keynote speech entitled "the Power of Culture: Keeping Cultural Heritage Living in the Present". The Sirui lecture hall, which can only accommodate 200 people attracted more than 300 audiences. Pro. Shang Gang, secretary of Hubei University Party Committee, was the lecture moderator.

During the two and half hours of speech, Shan demonstrated how he brought the cultural relics lying in the warehouse alive through environmental regulation, cultural relics restoration and digital museum building when he was director of the Palace Museum. More exhibition halls were open wider to divert visitor flow. The opening area raised from 31% in 2005 to 76% in 2016. In his point of view, the best protection for cultural relics is to allow them to be displayed to the public with dignity and to get out of the warehouses.

“As President Xi Jinping has stressed, we need to systematically sort out traditional cultural resources and spare no efforts in keeping the cultural relics in the forbidden places, monuments displayed in the vast land and written text in the books alive.” said Shan Jixiang. “The Palace Museum has a history of 600 years. Our mission is to hand over the magnificent Forbidden City to the next 600 years.”

Shang Gang extended his gratitude after the lecture.“Just as Mr. Shen Congwen once said, some road looks short but is very long indeed. One will never arrive at the end if you are lack of patience. Dr. Shan Jixiang carried out a series of reform and turn the Museum to people’s Palace Museum. Wider areas are open, splendid exhibitions are held, cultural and creative products are displayed and cultural relics hidden in the Forbidden City have come out of the Palace Museum and into people’s everyday life. It is the ingenuity of cultural heritage protectors that has bringing new life to the 600-year-old Palace Museum, making it a national cultural card.”

Before the lecture began, Shan Jixiang, accompanied by Shang Gang, visited the museum of Hubei University and cheerfully signed on the autograph book.