Taiwan Museum opens train station exhibit for kids

TAIPEI (TVBS News) — The National Taiwan Museum (國立台灣博物館), Taiwan's oldest museum dating back to the Japanese colonial era, unveiled an interactive train station exhibition Monday (June 2) that drew enthusiastic participation from Minister of Culture Li Yuan (李遠) and dozens of elementary school children. The minister, surrounded by curious youngsters, explored miniature railway platforms and architectural models designed to make transportation heritage accessible to Taiwan's youngest citizens.

Minister Li announced during the event that the highly anticipated National Railway Museum (國家鐵道博物館), a comprehensive preservation project celebrating Taiwan's rich railway heritage, will open its doors to the public by late July. The minister emphasized the crucial role museums serve in children's cultural education, describing them as "living classrooms" where young people can connect with Taiwan's transportation history through hands-on experiences rather than textbooks alone.

Students from Taipei's Fuxing Elementary School (福星國小), wearing matching yellow caps and excitedly clutching notebooks, engaged directly with Minister Li during the exhibition's opening ceremony. The children participated in an architectural workshop where they experienced the complex process of designing a functional train station, from initial sketches to considering passenger flow patterns and structural requirements—activities designed to spark interest in both transportation systems and architectural principles.

Chen Teng-chin (陳登欽), the museum's director, explained that the exhibition deliberately combines themes of architecture and childhood exploration, strategically using Taiwan's beloved train stations as entry points to introduce complex architectural concepts to young minds. The interactive displays feature scaled models, tactile building materials, and historical photographs that trace the evolution of Taiwan's distinctive railway architecture from the Japanese colonial period through modern high-speed rail developments.

The culture minister highlighted several other museum branches within the National Taiwan Museum system that feature child-friendly exhibitions and programming, specifically mentioning the Natural History Branch with its dinosaur fossils and ecological displays, and the recently renovated Nanmen (南門) Branch located near Taipei's historic south gate. These venues, Li noted, have been specifically designed with interactive elements that appeal to younger visitors while still preserving scholarly standards.

The minister expressed his hope that these carefully designed museum spaces will create joyful learning environments where children can develop genuine happiness through cultural discovery. This sentiment reflects a broader educational philosophy gaining traction across Taiwan's cultural institutions, which increasingly emphasizes emotional engagement and positive experiences as foundational elements for effective learning about national heritage and scientific concepts.

The train station exhibition will remain open to visitors on the first floor of the museum's Railway Department Park — a restored colonial-era railway administration complex that now serves as a cultural landmark in central Taipei — until March 1, 2026. This extended exhibition timeline reflects the museum's commitment to providing sustained educational opportunities about Taiwan's transportation heritage to multiple generations of school children and families ◼