About Exhibits

The Side Gate

The side gate is the ship's main entrance. When on deck, visitors can experience an amazing view and hear the sounds of the sea. In addition to immersive audio effects such as crashing waves and the seagull's cry, the air is filled with scent of sea spray.

The "Bon Voyage!" Projection Wall

Tong-an ships were originally used as merchant ships. However, as they were easy to operate, they gradually became fighting ships used by the navy during the late Qianlong Era. Because of the rise of pirates during the Jiaqing Reign and to maintain naval superiority, the Qing Court began using large Tong-an ships as its major fighting ships in the open sea. After William Pitt Amherst's arrival in China, the Tong-an ships were also used by Emperor Jiaqing to rebuild the naval base in Tianjin.

The exhibit "Bon Voyage!" uses animation elements styled on antique paintings to bring alive the historical development of the Tong-an ships.

Cross-over Dialogue: Holographic Projection

A holographic projection is one of today's most advanced methods for projection. It uses a fine silk screen or a high reflectance transparent film, enabling viewers to see the foreground projection more clearly.

"Cross-over Dialogue" lets virtualised moving images of Emperor Jiaqing, Commander General Li Changgeng, and the pirates Cai Qian and Cheung Po Tsai tell their stories and inform viewers about the "Cai Qian's Rebellion" and the role of Tong-an ships in this historical affair.

Deconstructing the Tong‑an Ship

This laser-detector-controlled interactive installation allows the viewer to disassemble and then reassemble the ship, letting viewers quickly discover the major working parts of Chinese warships.

Puppeteering with Your Magical Stylus

The "Puppeteering with Your Magical Stylus" is a brand new way to present an artifact. It brings back to life a long lost Tong-an Ship using the world's most advanced movement-sensing interactive system, allowing visitors to manipulate and observe the ship's parts in a very intuitive and precise manner. Visitors can hold the ship model's virtual parts in their hands and appreciate the details of the Tong-an Ship's construction at their leisure.

Tong-an Ship Scale Model

Produced by Zeng Shuming Tong-an Ship Ji, Model in 1 to 20 ratio

The Tong-an ships were a sea vessel that emerged during the middle part of the Qing Dynasty. Not only were they widely used by civilians, they were also used by pirates and the government. They eventually became the most important force in the Qing Navy. Prior to the arrival of steamships, Tong-an ships best represented traditional Chinese sailboats. The NPM's collection of the "Diagram of the Tong-an Ship Ji" and the "Diagram of the Tong-an Ship No. 1" are important pictorial records. Not only were the ships in the diagrams the biggest among the Tong-an ship family, they were also class 1 and class 2 warships, which were the most heavily armed. The highly detailed outline sketch and colouring of the two Tong-an ships and the corresponding official memorials attached make them not only a rare artifact in naval history, but also a product representing a field of study that is yet to be explored by Taiwanese and naval historians. After historical data were provided by NPM's project team, senior ship model craftsman Mr Zeng Shuming was hired to help build the Tong-an ship model.

Space and Time See‑Through

This 9-view stereographic animation explains the components of a Tong-an ship by using a 47" naked-eye 3D display. Viewers do not need to wear 3D glasses to see the show.

Linear Navigator of Chinese Maritime History

Using technology invented by Professor Jeffrey Shaw of the School of Creative Media at CityU, this interactive installation allows the viewer to physically move a TV screen along rails mounted on a wall to explore a 6-metre long chronological panorama of Chinese ships from early times.

(Images of the ships are kindly provided by the Hong Kong Maritime Museum)

The Sea Chart Interactive Tabletop

The "Coastal Defense Diagram of Zhejiang and Fujian Provinces" and the "Complete Map of Seven Coastal Provinces" are the two most typical coastal defense charts of their ages. However, over 10 metres in length each, they are too lengthy to be fully displayed in a museum room.

The NPM created interactive table uses digital technologies including multiple-resolution display and multi-touch control in order to highlight selected areas from any chart. The viewer can zoom in/out of any area of interest from the two charts for detailed viewing. The system may also explain the charts to the viewers.

The Augmented Reality Clothes Changing System

Qing officials used to wear uniforms with decorations assigned strictly according to their ranking. You can tell an officer's rank by seeing his chest and back patches. When a viewer enters the sensor area, an officer's decorated uniform will be randomly displayed and put on the viewer. The ranking of that uniform will be displayed on the panel and the viewer's picture wearing that virtual uniform will be uploaded to our Facebook page for download.

Paint and Sail Your Tong‑an Ship

Created by CityU's School of Creative Media, this interactive installation invites children to digitally paint and colour a Tong-an ship on a tablet. When finished, they can send their ships out to sail on a vast digital South China Sea.

Cloud Gallery

Thanks to cloud technology, we can see the NPM's current exhibits and certain rarely-seen masterpieces without actually visiting the target site. The Cloud Gallery displays the art using a massive screen, comprising six 46" monitors. To change items, the NPM can update the server remotely.

Pacifying the South China Sea

The Pacifying the South China Sea scroll was painted almost two hundred years ago and chronicles the story of how piracy, led by Cheung Po Tsai, was suppressed in the early 19th century by the forces of the Jiaqing Emperor. It depicts numerous sea battles aboard Tong-an ships.

This scroll is a precious possession of the Hong Kong Maritime Museum. In 2013 CityU Professors Sarah Kenderdine and Jeffrey Shaw began to digitise this scroll and create an immersive projection that brings to life by digitally animate the twenty key narrative events depicted in this scroll. Now a new version of this work has been specially created for this exhibition.

Breaking Waves

"Breaking Waves" is a fully immersive interactive Tong-an ship simulator based on the CAVE (CAVE Automatic Virtual Environment) architecture. It shows the viewers the main components of the Tong-an ship, and enables viewers to sail the ship, fire the guns, and chase the pirates in its interaction zone under the system's instructions.

Documentary Rebuilding the Tong-an Ships

The documentary "Rebuilding the Tong-an Ships" is an original video production created under the NPM's vision "Forming new vitality for the collection. Creating new value for the museum". Starting from the NPM's "Diagram of the Tong-an Ship Ji" and related Qing archives, the project team begins a journey to salvage a long forgotten history. It uses technologies such as building scale models, creating 3D models, and many other visualisation tools to restore the 19th century's East Asian oceanic glories and disclose the Tong-an ships’ multiple faces throughout their long history.

This film won the Gold Remi Award at the WorldFest Houston International Film & Video Festival.

Animation Adventures in NPM: The Formosa Odyssey

Here comes a puppy! A dog in a museum? Blackie, a Formosan Mountain Dog from the Qing era, mysteriously shows up in the NPM's Multimedia Display Room 210. Finding his way around the 21st century, Blackie meets Child Pillow, Jade Duck and Jade Pi-hsieh (Talisman), the NPM's adventurous trio. This time Blackie will bring them back in time to a Tong-an ship and ride the raging waves across the sea to long lost 18th-century Taiwan.

This animation has won the Platinum Remi Award at the WorldFest Houston International Film & Video Festival.