On June 25, 2019, the donation ceremony of the donations in kind by the Road to Gold Mountain readers team led by Zhao Sihong and her fellow colleague Mr. Lin Bangli at San Francisco Han Fen Library was held in the National Museum of China (NMC). At the ceremony, Ms. Zhao Sihong, residing in the United States, introduced on behalf of her team more than 100 pieces/sets of objects that were donated to the NMC. Wang Chunfa, Director of the NMC, presented Ms. Zhao Sihong with a certificate. Also present at the ceremony were Chen Chengjun, Executive Deputy Director of the NMC and the representatives of Zhao Sihong’s team.
The donations from Ms. Zhao Sihong include the material evidence witnessing lives and education of overseas Chinese, like the glass negative used by the Chinese during the “gold-digging” period, the drug bottles used by the Chinese who were struggling to start up business, and the textbooks on traditional Chinese culture. Included in the donation are also some precious objects reflecting the international politics, military and technology, like the Purple Heart Medal awarded to the Chinese hero?Ouyang?Jinhai?for his injury at the Normandy Landing, the vinyl record of March of the Volunteers sung by Paul Robeson, and the cylinder record invented by Edison.
Chen Chengjun expressed gratitude to Ms. Zhao Sihong for her deep attachment to the motherland and her steady contribution to the museum collection over the past decade. He said that the donation has enhanced the ten-year friendship between the museum and Ms Zhao. The NMC, on behalf of the country, solicits, collects, preserves, displays and illustrates the objects which best manifest the fine traditional Chinese culture, revolutionary culture and advanced socialist culture; it is an unparalleled palace of history, culture and art and a peerless cultural living room of China. The addition of more than 100 pieces/sets of objects from overseas Chinese will enrich the collection of the NMC. It holds unique realist significance in memorizing the important role played by the overseas Chinese who constantly exhibit attachment to the motherland while working hard overseas.
At the donation ceremony, Ms Zhao Sihong introduced some of the objects donated. She indicated it was merely by chance that she grew from an antique-enthusiast into a promotorof the donation of cultural heritage. He thanked the NMC for providing her and her team with a wonderful platform and an incentive to forge ahead. She will continue to mobilize even more overseas Chinese and foreign collectors to enrich the collections of the NMC.
At the donation ceremony, the "The March of the Volunteers" sung in Chinese by the black singer Paul Robertson was played.