According to Wang, that involves last-minute checks on the condition not just of the candidates for shipment to Hong Kong but climate control, the suitability of the display cases (made by Italian firm Goppion) and security arrangements.

Tale of two museums: How arts hub design could have been more inclusive

The political impetus behind the project has been clear from the start.

On the same trip, Xi attended the signing ceremony for long-term collaborations between the Beijing and Hong Kong Palace Museums.

Unlike other parts of the West Kowloon Cultural District that involved public consultation and architectural competitions, the HK$3.5 billion (US$450 million) Hong Kong Palace Museum was announced as a fait accompli – something that had already been decided.

Before Hong Kong, Wang was the curator of Chinese and East Asian Art at the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem in the US state of Massachusetts. You might think running a museum in Hong Kong would be a very different experience, but Wang says that is not the case at all.

“What I learned in the US is that everyone is the same,” she says. It doesn’t matter if it is a group of visitors from Chinatown or Americans who have no knowledge of China and its culture, “they want relevance, they want education for their kids”.

Museums are, Wang says, essentially educational institutions. This is why the Hong Kong Palace Museum is in the process of working with the city’s Education Bureau and local schools to help educate young people.

“Even in mainland China, where most people would probably know some basic historical facts from high school, if you ask them how many emperors there were in the Qing dynasty [1644-1912], most wouldn’t know.

“So here in Hong Kong, my approach is to look at the basic questions and look at shared humanity. We study past court exhibitions and look for new threads that resonate with everybody.”

Wang never imagined that she would get to work so closely with the Palace Museum, let alone help build a new one in Hong Kong.

The daughter of a photojournalist and raised in the historic city of Yueyang in Hunan province, Wang, who studied political science and English literature at university, had no interest in museum work at first. She left China to do a PhD in art history at Ohio University in the States.

“It was totally serendipitous,” says Wang. “The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston [in Massachusetts] gave me my first job. I loved it and it convinced me to be a museum professional. I loved all the art treasures – but also the fact a museum is a place to bring everybody together.”

“Empresses of China’s Forbidden City” was praised for bringing the roles of women in the royal household to the fore and for introducing the American public to 120 exquisite objects including imperial portraits, religious artefacts, jewellery and robes.

“A hundred and twenty is the usual cut-off number for loans,” she explains. “[In Hong Kong,] we are looking at multiples of that number. The Palace Museum has never allowed so many pieces to leave Beijing before, and there are a lot of logistics issues we have to conquer.”

Wang spent five years (the typical pace at which things are done in museums) preparing for the Peabody exhibition, staying for months in Beijing and working closely with Palace Museum experts.

One thing could certainly have made things better – the absence of a pandemic. Wang had planned to commute between Hong Kong and Beijing to visit the Forbidden City and its collection of 1.8 million items. Instead, the Hong Kong team had to rely on high-quality images sent from Beijing to make its selection for the exhibitions.

That takes us back to the exhibits and what we do – and don’t – know.

We know the themes of the opening exhibitions in the nine galleries. One will have about 100 paintings from the Palace Museum shown in several rotations, with a focus on the calligraphic inscriptions on the scrolls. Another will be dedicated to the artistic representation of horses.

There will also be a major focus on conservation.

Wang’s research for the Peabody exhibition in 2018 brought on a bout of filial guilt after she found out that the Emperor Qianlong (“the busiest man on the planet at that time”) visited his mother every single morning.

These days, despite the frenetic preparations for the opening, Wang sees her parents a lot more, as they moved to Hong Kong to be with her. This is partly because she plans to stay in her new home for a while.

“When I took the job, I basically signed a marriage certificate with the museum. I still cannot believe I’m here working at the Hong Kong Palace Museum. It’s not just a dream job. It is beyond my [wildest] dreams.”