The last time we visited the Muzium Negara was when Idlan was still a toddler. 2008 if I wasn't mistaken. We didn't enter the building. We just lingered outside and Idlan remembered the locomotive parked outside the museum.
We went to the museum last Sunday afternoon and this time we entered the building and looked at the exhibits. The boys were quite interested and on the particular afternoon the place was relatively empty.
At the central hallway in between the two wings
I remembered this stairs from my schooldaysExhibit-wise, the museum was divided into four compartments over the couple of floors. Imaginatively named Hall A to D of course. Going from memory, we had the natural history exhibit, Malacca and history of early Tanah Melayu, Kesultanan Melayu and the latest one being the Merdeka exhibit.
The other exhibits were pretty standard - what you'd expect from a National Museum, but the Merdeka exhibit was rather good I thought, although I would've curated it slightly differently. They should've emphasised the actual struggle against the Malayan Union and what the real Merdeka struggle was all about rather than shoehorning and streamlining the history as if we were reading a textbook, prepared by Kementerian Pelajaran. I didn't discover anything new. There was no critical analysis. For example, what were the roles of Sir Tan Cheng Lock and Tun Sambanthan? Were they just there to make up the numbers? We would appreciate some anecdotes. Like when they stopped the negotiations to watch a football match at Wembley. Some juicy bits like that.
After all, you had to pay to see these exhibits. Please not them be propaganda instead. I knew it was only RM2 to enter, but still we had to pay.
It was definitely worth the visit, but it would take more to make me come back anytime soon.
