China Guide
Guangxi and Guizhou
The Provincial Museum
Opening time: Daily 8.30am–5pm
Price: ¥8
Address: Gucheng Lu (bus #6 from Chaoyang Lu)
Essential viewing for anyone heading southwest to the Zuo River, the Provincial Museum provides an insight into the enigmatic Dongson culture. Sophisticated metalworkers, the Dongson flourished over two thousand years ago in the Guangxi– Yunnan– Vietnam border area, and their works were ultimately traded as far afield as Burma, Thailand and Indonesia. The characteristic Dongson artefact is a squat, narrow-waisted bronze drum, finely chased with lively designs of birds, mythical animals, cattle, dancers and stars, sometimes incorporating dioramas on the lid or human and frog figurines sitting on the rim (suitably for a drum, frogs are associated with the thunder god in Zhuang mythology). They seem to have originated as storage vessels, though according to a Ming historian, the drums became a symbol of power: "Those who possess bronze drums are chieftains, and the masses obey them; those who have two or three drums can style themselves king." Drums appeared during the Warring States period and were cast locally right up until the late Qing dynasty; their ceremonial use survives among groups of Zhao, Yi, Miao and Yao in China, and on the eastern Indonesian island of Alor.
The museum has dozens of well-preserved varieties excavated in Guangxi and elsewhere across the region, including a rather gruesome example from Yunnan whose lid sports a diorama of crowds attending what appears to be a human sacrifice – note the "king" up on the platform, surrounded by drums. Check out the museum grounds too, with bamboo and palms growing between full-sized wooden buildings in regional architectural styles: a Zhuang rural theatre, Dong bridge and Miao houses, which are all put to use by Nanning's various communities during festivals.