2014-01-02

【Aiden in English】

        When I was little, I used to love natural history museums. But never in my life had I seen something like this. The Natural History Museum in Maputo, the capital of Mozambique was like none other. 

        The whole first floor was collected by literally a manmade 4-D of a typical African ecosystem. It had the African big five- the lion, leopard, cape buffalo, elephant, and rhino. The 4-D picture had them set around a small pool of water with desert and some little patches of grass. The scene also had giraffes munching on a tree with lush green and plentiful leaves. Warthogs scurried under the legs of the bigger animals as they searched for the shade. A few of leopards chased the warthogs while the rhinos were trying to escape a pride of lions. It fascinated me to see how the artists could capture it all and combined it into a 4-D picture. The detail about how the wild worked was all explained in one exhibition hall. I guess what people say is true. A picture is really worth a thousand, no, even a million words.

        Next, we proceeded to the back, where we saw what this museum was famous for. It had a time line of fetus or an immature elephant that was still in the mother's belly. The process of giving birth to a quarter ton baby began with a tiny ball. Then it got bigger and bigger, and started taking shape! At a month, the fetus, or baby elephant already had the looks of his or her mother. It was white. By the time it reached 11 months, the skin had turned black. Finally, it took another 11 months for birth.

        In America, all of this illustration needed to exhibit real dead animals or specimens to actually be a museum. But in Maputo, everything presented man-made models except the foetal development. However, they both demonstrated the same things. Really, there wasn't a significant difference. As long as I got the message, it would be fine to me.

        小的時候，我喜愛自然歷史博物館，但從未想到會參觀象莫桑比克首都馬普托這樣別具風格的自然歷史博物館。

        整個一樓展出的非洲動物生態系統全部都是四維人工模型，包括非洲五霸﹕獅子、豹子、水牛、大象、黑犀牛，以莫桑比克草原特有的沙漠綠洲湖泊為背景來表現野生動物的自然環境。長頸鹿置身茂密的綠葉叢中享盡美味佳餚，疣豬為擺脫龐然大物的威脅而四處躲藏。幾隻豹子竭力追逐疣豬，犀牛面對一群獅子大舉進攻只好疲於奔命。藝術家們將野外捕捉的生動形象濃縮到室內精湛的四維作品之中，令我讚嘆不已。人們常說，一幅圖畫勝過千言萬語，對此我深有同感。

        隨後我們來到展廳背面參觀該博物館最著名的展品，那就是大象胚胎發育標本，涵括從胚囊到出生時250公斤個體的成長過程。頭一個月，胚胎初顯“象”態，周身呈白色﹔直到十一個月時，膚色才逐漸變黑﹔再有十一個月，小象行將誕生於世。

        在美國，只有動物屍體做成的標本才能資格拿到博物館展出。但在馬普托，除胎兒發育為實體標本外，其它一切均為人造模型。當然，無論動物標本還是人造模型都起到普教意義。說真格的，兩者確實沒有顯著差異，只要物盡其用，什麼材料的東西對我無大所謂。