by henry wood
atrip to the beijing police museum does leave one with fuzzy feelings towards the chinese police and their duties. the men in uniform allow a society to work and, for 10 yuan, this collection of cop memorabilia is certainly worth visiting to gain appreciation of their jobs.
"to treasure their brilliant achievements, create a glorious today and look forward to the resplendence of tomorrow is the sincere conviction and eternal goal of the beijing people's police." that's what an official plaque located at the entrance proclaims. it's with these words ringing in the mind that one enters the museum to be confronted with the history and development of china's public servants in uniform, as their duties evolved from preserving the new order to solving bizarre crimes, and their status wavered from heroes to victims of backlash and back again.
establishing law and order
the precursor to the nation's police began after the founding of the prc in 1949.
peace beckoned after three centuries of qing dynasty (1616-1911) governance, two decades of ceaseless civil conflict and a decade of japanese occupation. but peace does not automatically translate into law and order, and one of the first challenges presented to the new rulers was maintaining the stability of an enormous country - which, on local levels, meant the formation of an effective police force.
initially occupied with creating law and order, on august 25, 1949, 300 first-class policemen took up their positions outside the dongyue temple in chaoyangmen, beijing, where they were photographed to commemorate the occasion.
counter-revolutionaries were continuously discovered around beijing and beyond. on the one-year anniversary of national day (october 1), antonio riva and tarango yamaguchi were arrested for attempting to fire a mortar as the leaders gathered in tian'anmen square. secret radios transmitting information to the renegade kmt located in taiwan were discovered regularly and the new government remained on guard for further plots.
fifty-five years later, the original photograph of those first 300 remains documented and housed at the police museum - across from the very place that riva and yamaguchi hoped to let loose the mortar round, which is also on view.
the size of the mortar, small enough to sit among the documents and photographs, belies the destruction it could have brought to the prc in its infancy.
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missing donkey tails and murders
the rest of the first floor deals with the physical formation and development of the beijing police, providing an insight to the times by highlighting cases that dealt with the main issues of the day. lining the walls are glass cabinets that allow one to peer into the contents. evidence of the plots against the government are encased alongside the first weapons available to the police, as well as documents and letters pertaining to the structure of the force. these are laid out neatly, almost inhumanely, slabs of evidence ready for later inspection.
as the country settled into building "the resplendence of tomorrow," one is then moved onto some early criminal cases including a story which, if sherlock holmes were involved, would appear to be "the case of the missing donkey tail." graphic staged photos revealing the bandits as they hide along the roadside, awaiting their next equine victim, are perhaps reconstructions but do well to add an element of anticipation. unfortunately, unlike the denouements in holmes tales, the photo captions provide little in the way of clarification either in english or chinese - one is left a bit confused as to what actually occurred and why. 共2页: 1 [2] 下一页