Silk road exhibition opens in Shanghai's Pudong

To celebrate the CICA summit in Shanghai, the China Art Museum is exhibiting thousands of artifacts, pictures and documents all relating to the historic Silk Road. All of the exhibits are being presented by a diligent local photographer who spent much of the last 15 years on a journey along the old trade route.

From Persian carpets to musical instruments and the daily food of Central Asian nations, this exhbition includes nearly 10,000 artifcats in four separate halls at the China Art Museum -- which is located in the former China Pavilion at the city's Expo Park in Pudong. One of the exhibition halls showcases more than 200 large-format pictures featuring landscapes and people. Two early visitors say they were impressed.

All of the exhibits were put together by photographer Er Dongqiang who has travelled by car from China to Europe along the old Silk Road dozens of times since 1999. His trips have covered nearly 200,000 kilometers in total. The traditional Silk Road stretched more than 6,000 kilometers linking merchants from China's ancient capital Xi'an with central Asia and Europe. Er hopes his experience will inspire more people, both children and adults, to take an interest in exploration.

Museum officials say this is the first time they have held such a comprehensive exhibition on the Silk Road, which they hope will help the public better understand the country's revitalization plans for the old route.

The China Art Museum says more than 13,000 people visited the Silk Road exhbition and ten others at the museum yesterday. That's about 70 percent more than on a normal day. And the museum expects thousands more will see the Silk Road exhibition before it ends on July 6th.