National Palace Museum

It is often described as the world’s most important collection of Chinese art, and after a three-hour visit I am in no better position to confirm the claim, though it is a serious, civilized place worth the visitor’s time.

The National Palace Museum is tucked away in the green hills north of Taipei, a rolling wilderness filled with place names like the LiRen Twin Waterfall, FenHuang Spring and the Valley of Hell.

Get on the No. 304 bus outside Exit 1 of the Shilin Night Market MRT station. Inside the bus, the only sign in English says “Pay on alighting.” But where to alight? Not to worry. There’s no question when you’ve arrived. The bus driver tells a joke as we pull up. Everybody laughs.

Seems like everyone on the island has decided to visit today. I dive in with them. An extensive calligraphy exhibit leads us into the weeds: “Small seal” and “large seal” scripts. “Cursive,” “running” and “standard” styles. One of the most beautiful things I’ve seen here is people on the subway fingertip-writing on their smartphones. A few graceful strokes produce the shape of a house or a man, and up pops the website they’re looking for. It seems like magic.

The museum's English descriptions of the Qing and Han dynasty writings are sophisticated, skeptical even. Of Zhang Ruitu’s “Six Character Couplet in Running Script,” the sign says: “The lines appear stiff and not quite connected, the ‘flying white’ especially unnatural and suggesting an imitation.” Don’t know what it means, but I trust it.

Picture-taking is strictly forbidden. The flash photographers have ruined it for the rest of us. Guards prowl the galleries carrying “no photography signs.” One girl was asked to delete a photo she’d taken on her phone.

At a special exhibit of paintings featuring fish, enlarged details are broken out on back-lit screens. Very handy. I like knowing what's important.

I can’t take pictures, but I can use my words. In the collection of Chinese bronzes, a snake-hilted spear with a cloud and thunder pattern. An enormous caldron-shaped wine vessel with sheep’s-head reliefs and leopard-spotted shell inlays. A latticed incense burner in the shape of a goose.

In the ceramics section, a double-handled jar with moon-white glaze and purple splashes. A small 15th-century ewer incised with green dragons playing in blue waves. A yellow Qing Dynasty dish with sprays of gardenia, fruits and a hollyhock scroll pattern. A vase, glazed tea-green, with beast-shaped handles. I learned more about Jingdezhen imperial kilns than I ever wanted to know and, eventually, you know, you’ve just had it. “The Splendors of Qing Furniture” will have to wait for another day.

The Taiwanese are a circumspect people, so I’ll say it: The mainland Chinese visitors have a hard time fitting in here. They try to haggle in department stores, loudly barge their way through museum quiet zones, and think nothing of pushing me out of the way to get to that Neolithic jade pitcher. Maybe they were just excited; it is their art after all. But even the guards seemed exasperated.

OK, I can’t resist resisting, and snapped this shot on my way out. Sorry, museum dudes, but you practically make us do it.

Even the gift shop is no-nonsense, almost meditative: spendy reproductions and academic tomes — no refrigerator magnets or oversized novelty pencils.

Ah, back in the fresh air. The grounds are beautiful.

Rather than stand on a crowded bus, I opted to walk back to Shilin, a pleasant 35-minute downhill stroll. Not so pleasant for this moped rider, who got wiped out by a carhead on FuLin Road. He was able to limp back to the sidewalk, thank god. The driver stopped and called an ambulance.

National Palace Museum

Address: No. 221, Sec. 2, Zhishan Road

Hours: 8:30 a.m.-6:30 p.m. every day

Admission: $250NTD