Overwhelmed by Art and Chinese Tourists

Our last full day in Taipei was rainy and cooler - a perfect day to go to the National Palace Museum!  So thought all the tourists in Taipei!  It started out lovely enough.  Fairly quiet.  We had not brought our cameras as their website said they were not allowed.  We decided to start on the 3rd floor where the Jade display was.  When we got there, everyone had out their phones and were snapping away.  It got a little difficult to see things as people would stand directly in front of an exhibit to frame their picture - then keep standing there to look at the picture on their screens to see if they needed to retake it.  Only then would they move on.  So I ended up reading over people's shoulders a lot.  It turns out that taking pictures must be OK - just no flash.  So of course when I took one picture on my phone -  it flashed!  But I had to take it for a friend - there was an entire room devoted to artwork of roosters!
Down to the first floor next to see the special exhibits and see something other than Jade.  I was innocently standing in front of an exhibit reading the description when I was suddenly surrounded by people shoving and pushing to get to the front.  The man next to me whips out his phone and rudely elbows me aside so he can stand center front to take a picture.  It is the dreaded Chinese tourist tour!  I realize there is no way I can win - so I attempt to get out of the crowd, but I keep getting pushed back by the eager crowd.  Finally I push and elbow my way out - otherwise who knows - I might have become of the Chinese tour group - just sucked along.  I try looking at another exhibit - and the same thing happens - another Chinese tourist group comes from the opposite direction.  I catch Mike's eye across the room and mouth, "Let's get out of here"!  We escaped to the second floor where it was relatively quiet.

Just a short explanation of what is in the National Palace Museum and why it is so important.  In the late 1940's, Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalist Government decided to move all of the national treasures to Taiwan before the Communists took over.  So a lot of Chinese nationalists visit Taiwan to see the treasures.  This is from Wikipedia:
" It has a permanent collection of nearly 700,000 pieces of ancient Chinese imperial artifacts and artworks, making it one of the largest of its type in the world. The collection encompasses 8,000 years of history of Chinese art from the Neolithic age to the modern.^[5] Most of the collection are high quality pieces collected by China's emperors."  

The jade collection itself was overwhelming - and they can display only a tiny portion at a time.  So you can imagine how many pieces they have!