Regional relics tell of daily living in SE Asia

From intricate Thai shadow puppets and finely crafted ceramics to Myanmar's colorfully painted marionettes in ornate costumes and elegant red lacquerware boxes, accompanied by Southeast Asian music, visitors to an exhibition are as captivated as if they were on a tour through the region.

The ongoing exhibition, Peacock and White Elephant: People and Their Lives between the Ayeyarwaddy and the Mekong, runs until Sept 6 at the Hubei Provincial Museum in Wuhan, Central China's Hubei province.

It features a careful selection of 86 pieces or sets of cultural relics originating from Thailand and Myanmar, owned by the Linden Museum in Stuttgart, Germany. Ranging from Buddhist sculptures, ceramics, lacquerware, and silverware to musical instruments and shadow puppets, the exhibition offers a full panorama of daily life and the region's cultural shifts from the 8th to the 21st century.

This exhibition is part of the two museums' partnership, first established with a memorandum of understanding in 2017 and renewed in 2024.

Adopting a social-history perspective, the exhibition follows the natural rhythm of a full day and is structured around three core themes — familial routines, monastic life and communal festivals.

The first chapter on familial life begins with household Buddhist shrines used for morning prayers and moves to utensils and objects tied to food and dining culture.

"This temporal, everyday approach helps ordinary visitors feel a genuine connection, because nothing bridges the distance better than the everyday moments we all share," says Wei Mian, the exhibition's co-curator from the Hubei Provincial Museum.

She compares the curatorial process to a film director casting actors. The selected pieces determine the exhibition's narrative logic and visual language.

To maintain coherence, she and fellow co-curator Georg Noack, from the East, Southeast and South Asia Department at the Linden Museum, insist, from the outset, on jointly approving every artifact in the exhibition.

"My co-curator has extensive experience in Southeast Asian culture and artifacts, while I have a better sense of what Chinese audiences expect from an exhibition on foreign artifacts," Wei says. She notes that, despite the distance, they worked closely through frequent calls and emails to finalize the exhibition's many details.

Their selection followed two guidelines: objects that demonstrate cultural exchanges between China, Southeast Asia and India while retaining distinctive local features, and everyday items that reflect regional history, folk customs and religious beliefs.

Porcelain and lacquerware receive particular attention, given their deep cultural ties to China and their role in illustrating cross-cultural exchanges.

Wei says that when visitors see a 15th-century Thai ceramic bowl with a carp decoration, its white base and black motifs resemble wares from the Cizhou kilns in Hebei province, a major folk kiln complex in northern China.

"The carp depicted here is a major freshwater food source in the region. However, the painting style and the carp's form differ from those found on Chinese Cizhou ceramics," Wei adds.

In the 18th and 19th centuries, the royal family and nobility of Siam (now Thailand) cherished the exquisitely decorated Benjarong porcelain, which features traditional Thai motifs and polychrome enamels.

"It's said that many such pieces were made in Jingdezhen, Jiangxi province, and Guangzhou, Guangdong province. By that time, many Chinese merchants in Southeast Asia were already conducting import trade," Wei says.

"Yet the exact decoration process remains unclear. It's uncertain whether Thai artisans traveled to China to paint the patterns, if Thai designs were sent to Chinese craftsmen, or whether plain porcelain pieces were first fired in China and later decorated in the region."

She points out that visitors will recognize that some of the ceramic bowls, plates and vases on display are decorated with popular Chinese motifs, such as lotus flowers and peonies, all showcasing cultural exchange in action.

Another must-see is a set of instruments for the traditional Hsaing Ensemble from 20th-century Myanmar, comprising ornately decorated percussion instruments such as drums and gongs set on elaborate frames and stands. Its principal instrument is a circular set of tuned drums, played by the ensemble's leader, who sits at its center.

Such music is not confined to the past. It remains an integral part of community life today, performed at festive occasions, such as weddings, temple celebrations, coming-of-age ceremonies, funerals, and mourning rites. It also accompanies traditional dances, theatrical performances and martial arts competitions.

"Far more than just a set of musical instruments, it accompanies local people, and ensemble players are deeply integrated into every aspect of local people's lives," Wei says.

By placing a 20th-century artifact at the end of the exhibition, she aims to show that tradition is not a relic of the past — it is a living, breathing force that still shapes how people live today.

As visitors walk through the exhibition hall, they are accompanied by various genres of Southeast Asian music, including those created by the instruments on display, alongside a soft jasmine fragrance. Multiple jasmine diffusers are discreetly hidden among artificial grove installations in the exhibition hall to create an immersive sensory experience.

"People in Myanmar and Thailand adore jasmine. Local women wear jasmine flowers in their hair, and the fragrance is widely used as car air fresheners. Chinese people also have a deep fondness for jasmine," Wei says. "I specifically chose a jasmine aroma with Southeast Asian notes, offering Chinese audiences a scent that feels familiar yet intriguingly exotic."