China Guide
Fujian, Guangdong and Hainan Island
The Municipal Museum
Opening time: Daily 9am–5pm
Price: ¥10
Address: In the middle of Yuexiu Park
Roughly in the middle of Yuexiu Park atop a hill, paths converge at Zhenhai Lou, the "Gate Tower Facing the Sea", a wood and rendered-brick building that once formed part of the Ming city walls. Today it houses the Municipal Museum, three floors of locally found exhibits ranging from Stone Age pottery fragments and ivory from Africa found in a Han-dynasty tomb, to fifth-century coins from Persia, a copy of Good Words for Exhorting the World (the Christian tract which inspired the Taiping leader, Hong Xiuquan), and nineteenth-century cannons tumbled about in the courtyard (two made by the German company, Krupp). A statue of Lin Zexu and letters from him to the Qing emperor documenting his disposal of the British opium stocks always draws big crowds of tongue-clicking Chinese.