Avian Flew

November 9, 2024

I got to make a flying visit to the “Bird” exhibition held at the National Museum of Nature and Science.

The exhibition traced birds’ roles in ecosystems, dating from their evolution from dinosaurs through to the important roles they play today.

There were over 600 bird specimins exhibited, divided into displays based on themes largely decided by avian type.

The exibition boasted of providing a new look at birds through a genetic analysis.

These were some of the aspects of the exhibition that were good to like. Other areas were not so great.

Despite being a weekday and the entrance fee being a fairly pricey 2,100 yen per adult, the exhibition was packed.

Moreover, despite the museum being located smack-bang in the middle of Ueno Park, which is a highlight for many foreign tourists in Tokyo, it was not a particularly accommodating event for those who don’t read Japanese.

Panel displays were exclusively in Japanese, and brimful of information. Many tourist areas in Japan are refraining from making their facilities accessible to foreigners by only providing Japanese-language services. With nothing but Japanese on the exhibition website, too, I wondered whether this was a deliberate ploy to keep down the crowds, too.

This ended up detracting from the show. People would take a long time to read the panels. This stopped the flow of traffic through the exhibition, and led to a build-up as people crowded to read.

With a large proportion of older visitors, this problem was exacerbated by many taking their time to get through reading panels and plaques.

Added to this congestion was the large group of photographers and fascinating photographic subjects, and the upshot was getting a close and enjoyable view of exhibits became next to impossible.

Moreover, exhibition staff were selectively officious, doing nothing to stop people clogging up views and traffic flow, but aggressively active when trying to stop snartphone use.