Something quirky was happening in the usually rarefied, straight-laced confines of Prince Kung's Mansion in Beijing.

A show was being staged whose star was a red fox, dressed in the blue and white long suit of a prince, and hundreds of people, mostly youngsters, had flocked to see it.

More red foxes, with round hats, held placards showing the Chinese character fu, meaning good luck, inspired by Emperor Kangxi's representation of fu which he gave as a birthday gift to his grandmother in 1673.

A show featuring a cartoon image of Ali, the red fox dressed in the traditional costume of a prince was staged in Prince Kung's Mansion in Beijing in July. Photos Provided to China Daily

The original is part of the collection of artefacts at Prince Kung's Palace Museum, as the mansion is officially known, and reproductions are the most popular products sold by the museum's store.

In July, the museum welcomed to its promotional team a cartoon image that will help it develop its merchandise. Ali, the red fox, was designed by the company Dream Castle Culture of Beijing, which in conjunction with the museum has produced other merchandise such as chopsticks, dolls, fans, key rings and lanterns.

"We hope to attract young people and develop more interesting products in a market for museum merchandise that is booming," says Chen Xiaowen, deputy director of Prince Kung's Palace Museum.

The museum shop sells more than 100,000 scrolls a year, inscribed with the character fu, and it took 70 million yuan ($10.5 million; 9.3 million euros; 8 million) last year. Chen says most of the buyers are middle-aged tourists.

However, the museum's ambitions extend far beyond hawking good-luck symbols to the masses.

This year, it set up a department whose task is to look at how it can draw on its huge collections to develop more products, especially those of interest to young people, and thus set the museum's cash registers ringing.

In so doing, Prince Kung's Palace Museum is following the example of thousands of other museums throughout the country that over the past few years have begun to cast aside their stuffy image to become switched-on business operations that know how to turn a dollar.

In July, Suzhou Museum in Jiangsu province linked up with fashionable clothes brands on Tmall, a large e-commerce platform, to use elements from the its ink paintings and calligraphy in designs for T-shirts and dresses. Not only that, but for a brief time the museum became the venue for a fashion show - perhaps a first in China.

Motifs from works by the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) scholar and calligrapher Tang Bohu and even from the museum's architecture, designed by I.M. Pei, found their way onto chic articles of clothing.

In just one three-day period, the platform attracted about 60,000 buyers.

Jiang Han, who is responsible for product development at Suzhou Museum, says the fashion initiative has set the standard for other institutions across the country that need to get in touch with the public and reshape young people's attitudes toward museums.

Chen Ruijin, director of the museum, says: "Online shopping platforms are perfect for helping sales of museum products grow. We ought to use the era of the internet to spread our traditional culture in new ways."

The country's top museums, the China National Museum and the Palace Museum (also known as the Forbidden City), both in Beijing, are showing the way on e-commerce, having set up separate operations on Tmall.

They have sold thousands of artistic items, many inspired by exhibits in their collections, priced from 20 yuan to more than 10,000 yuan.

China National Museum announced in March that it would work with the e-commerce giant Alibaba Group on a project called Cultural and Creative China, which aims to bring together more than 100 museums in the country to develop and sell merchandise. In June, the Shanghai free trade zone gave the museum approval to develop some products there. This covers about 400 items based on antiques from museums that are participants in Cultural and Creative China.

"The project is akin to an aircraft carrier for museums," says Hu Huanzhong, general manager of Shanghai Free Trade Zone International Culture Investment and Development.

"China National Museum alone has 1.3 million collections. Now many foreign design companies are looking to work with us."

The free trade zone is being used to link design companies, designers and overseas markets with museums.

Hu says the customers of the future are largely those born after the 1990s, which explains why the designs on many museum products have a decidedly offbeat edge, veering toward the style of Japanese anime, such as items with prints of emperors in scissor-hand poses or with chubby imperial bodyguards.

"We are also keen for our museum products to attract people overseas," Hu says.

There are about 4,500 museums in China and last year more and more of them jumped on the bandwagon to develop products, with the enthusiastic encouragement of the central government as it promotes free-market ideals.

In March, regulatory shackles that had prevented state-owned museums from engaging in commercial activities were removed, and they are now encouraged to make and sell artistic items. Numerous State Council and Ministry of Culture regulations have been put forward this year to give support to this push, and cultural institutions have been swift in taking advantage.

In June, a series of animations exquisitely painted in traditional style made a big splash on social network platforms. What is so eye-catching about them is that they depict emperors' concubines in 21st century settings.

In one short animation, a concubine wears a virtual reality headset to chat with the emperor. In another she chats with friends through social networking, and in another she idly plays games on a smartphone.

The animations had the full blessing of the Palace Museum in Beijing, and private business also got in on the act. Internet giant Tencent put out a call for young people to design emoticons and games based on the Palace Museum's treasures.

Before the collaboration with Tencent, the museum had built up a reputation for developing funny and attractive products and apps based on its collection.

Designer Fang Yimin, who has created jewelry for the museum, says the young do appreciate traditional culture. However, the institutions need to capture their imagination in a way that is readily acceptable to them. The Palace Museum sets an example in appealing to the young in terms of both products and promotions, Fang says.

For Su Yi, deputy director of the information department of the museum, its efforts to promote the design of games and emojis transcend financial considerations; the museum is keen to promote a love of traditional culture among the young, she says.

The museum has developed more than 8,000 products, including clothes, bags, porcelain, paintings, accessories and jewelry. Revenue from products sold online and in stores exceeded 1 billion yuan ($150 million) last year.

The museum put a mobile phone holder on sale last year and within an hour of it going on the market about 1,500 had been sold. Apart from merchandise, the museum is also becoming involved in producing films, animations and literature.

Ye Chen, 28, who works for a bank in Shanghai, and who is a self-avowed aficionado of cultural merchandise, says products she has bought from the Palace Museum's online shop have been creative and attractive. Many of her friends and colleagues have followed suit after seeing her purchases.

"I don't like tourist products that simply have a picture from a museum's collection on them or that are poorly-done reproductions. I want something that doesn't just appeal to the eye but is useful, too."

What she has bought from nationalmuseums has been reasonably priced, but the merchandise many other museums sell is overpriced, she says.

Yu Renguo, founder of Dream Castle Culture Company of Beijing, which designed the red fox Ali for Prince Kung's Palace Museum, says: "China is becoming a lucrative market for cultural and creative products. Many foreign companies are also interested in it."

This year he was invited to give speeches on the subject in Las Vegas and Seoul, he says.

When he set up his company seven years ago it was difficult to sell cultural and creative products. But, with the growing middle class and the young generation, the demand for high-quality museum products has soared, he says.

His collaboration with Prince Kung's Palace Museum in creating Ali was a first for his company, he says, and he is confident work with other museums is in the pipeline.

"Yes, people are excited about the industry, but we still need to make a greater effort in developing products, ones that cover a wide range of areas and that are truly unique. We should not limit ourselves to fridge magnets, scarves, bookmarks and cups."

dengzhangyu@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily European Weekly 09/30/2016 page1)