A: Welcome back to "Listeners' Garden." I'm LPC.

B: And I'm DS. China's ancient civilization has left an abundant amount of historical sites and cultural relics. One of the best-known places of historical interest is the Forbidden City, also known as the Palace Museum, located in the heart of Beijing.

A: The museum is one of the top tourist attractions in the Chinese capital, attracting tens of millions of visitors from all over the world each year. Many visiting foreign government leaders also try to spare some time from their busy schedules to take a tour of it, including U.S. President Barack Obama.

B: Obama was the fourth U.S. president to visit the Palace Museum. "Beautiful, majestic, magnificent and spectacular" are some of the words he used to describe the Forbidden City.

A: The gorgeous Forbidden City is one of the largest ancient architectural complexes in the world. It covers a total area of 720 thousand square meters and has some 10 thousand rooms. It was listed as a UNESCO World Cultural Heritage Site in 1987.

B: Built in the early 15th century, the Forbidden City was the imperial palace of the Ming and Qing dynasties, the last two feudal dynasties in Chinese history. For five centuries, the palace served as the royal residence of 24 emperors as well as the political center of the Chinese government.

A: The complex is a typical representation of ancient Chinese palaces where the finest traditional Chinese architectural art can be found. 

B: As a masterpiece of classical Chinese architecture, the Forbidden City also houses a huge number of rare artifacts and art treasures collected by the imperial families of the Ming and Qing dynasties. 

A: After the Qing Dynasty was overthrown in 1911, the feudal autocratic monarchy system was abolished in China. The Forbidden City was converted into the Palace Museum and opened to the public in 1925.
 
B: Today the museum houses a collection of 1.5 million cultural relics from different historical periods. Nearly 20 percent of the items are listed as Chinese top-class relics under state protection.

A: The Palace Museum in Beijing is the largest and best preserved imperial palace complex in China. In the city of Shenyang in northeastern China, there is another well-preserved imperial palace called the Shenyang Palace Museum.

B: In 2004, it was included on the World Cultural Heritage List as an extension of the Beijing Palace Museum.

A: This imperial palace was the former residence of the first three emperors of the Qing Dynasty, which was established by the Manchu ethnic group in the mid-17th century.

B: Before the Manchus came to dominate the whole country, they lived mainly in the northeastern part of the country.

A: In the late 16th century, a tribal leader of the Manchus named Nurhachi united all the tribes of this nomadic ethnic group and founded the Houjin Kingdom, the predecessor of the Qing Dynasty.

B: The king designated Shenyang as his capital and had a magnificent palace built to rival the Forbidden City in Beijing, where the Ming Dynasty emperors resided at the time.

A: After the Qing Dynasty moved its capital to Beijing, the palace in Shenyang became the temporary residence of the emperors when they paid inspection tours to the northeast.

B: The palace was turned into the Shenyang Palace Museum in 1955. It houses a large collection of ancient art works and Manchu artifacts.

A: The relics supplement those at the Forbidden City in Beijing to offer a more comprehensive view of the history and culture of the Qing Dynasty.

B: The two palace museums we have just been talking about are both on the Chinese mainland. They are closely linked with each other and often have exchange programs.

A: There is a third palace museum in Taipei, which has been built in a similar fashion to the one at the Forbidden City. It also has a large and exquisite collection of imperial treasures.

B: Most of the collections in the Taipei Palace Museums come from the Forbidden City. During the Second World War, the Kuomintang government transferred some of the most valuable artifacts in the Forbidden City to cities in southern China, in order to protect them from being damaged in the war.

A: By the end of the civil war in the late 1940s, the Kuomintang shipped about 600,000 valuable items to Taiwan when it retreated from the mainland. Then in 1965, the magnificent Taipei Palace Museum was built to house these cultural treasures.

B: The museum is a major tourist attraction on the island. Although the collection amounts to just half of that of the Beijing Palace Museum, it has equal historical, cultural and artistic values.

A: The three palace museums in China are closely related, and they should be viewed as a whole for people to gain a more comprehensive understanding of ancient Chinese history and culture.

B: But prior to this year, no formal exchange or cooperation had ever been made between the museums on the mainland and the one in Taiwan.

A: Now the Beijing and Taipei palace museums have made a great step forward in working together. After 60 years of separation across the Straits, some of their royal collections have been reunited.

B: As of October 7th, the two museums have been jointly holding a three-month exhibition of cultural relics in Taipei.

A: On display are some 250 sets of royal treasures from the collections of both museums. The exhibits are all related to the life and reign of famous Qing Dynasty Emperor Yongzheng, who ruled in the early 18th century.

B: Thirty-seven artifacts have been borrowed from the Beijing Palace Museum. They were carefully selected by the museum to add depth to the show in Taipei. Most of them have rarely been put on public display on the mainland.
 
A: From the exhibition visitors can gain an insight into Emperor Yongzheng's everyday life, his administration, as well as his refined taste and achievements in culture and art. 

B: The milestone exhibition has been a great hit in Taiwan, receiving thousands of visitors every day. Many of them have applauded the idea of the two museums sharing their treasures to put on such a high-caliber exhibition.

A: The show will run through January 10th. It marks the first formal cooperative project between the Beijing and Taipei Palace Museums. And it's considered a great breakthrough in cultural exchanges between the Chinese mainland and Taiwan. 

B: The joint exhibition is the fruit of the first high-level exchange between the curators of the two sides after they met earlier this year.

A: In February, a delegation from the Taipei Palace Museum headed by Chou Kung-shin made the first-ever official visit to the Beijing Palace Museum to seek cooperative opportunities.

B: And then in March, Zheng Xinmiao, Curator of the Beijing Palace Museum, paid a visit to Taipei.

A: The two sides signed an agreement for cross-strait exchanges, including joint research projects, academic seminars, copyrighted videos, web links, relics restoration, and exchanges of exhibits, publications and personnel.

B: Several new exchange programs between the two museums are being planned. In the meantime, the Taipei and Shenyang palace museums have also worked out an exchange agreement for sharing their collections.

A: The Shenyang Palace Museum will also lend some of its treasures to Taiwan for joint exhibitions in the coming years. It is a further step in expanding cultural exchanges across the Straits.

B: Although each of the three palace museums has its own features, they share the same roots and together constitute an important part of Chinese history and culture.

A: So we hope they can carry out more exchanges and cooperation in the future, so as to further promote Chinese culture throughout the world.