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RECREATION, SPORT AND THE ARTS
745 043 visitors in 2002. The museum has 12 galleries, six for permanent exhibitions and another six for thematic displays, featuring various topics of local history, arts and culture. The major programme in 2002 was the Women Festival, which featured a series of thematic exhibitions and related activities about the role of women in the community. In addition to the exhibitions, 821 educational, extension and theatre. programmes were staged during the year.
Sam Tung Uk Museum
This museum in Tsuen Wan was originally a Hakka walled village built in 1786. The village has a traditional layout with an entrance hall, an assembly hall and an ancestral hall along the central axis. The village, a declared monument, is furnished with traditional Hakka furniture and farming implements. Two thematic exhibitions, From Study Hall to Village School and Tsuen Wan Now & Then: A Kaleidoscope, were staged during the year. There were 306 479 visitors.
Hong Kong Railway Museum
The open-air Railway Museum is located in the town centre of Tai Po Market. It consists of the old Tai Po Market Railway Station building, a narrow-gauge steam locomotive and six historical coaches. The station building, in Chinese style, was built in 1913 and declared a monument in 1984. The museum attracted 338 680 visitors during the year.
Sheung Yiu Folk Museum
This museum is housed in a fortified Hakka village built in the late 19th century at a scenic spot near Pak Tam Chung in Sai Kung Country Park. It comprises eight domestic units, pig pens, an open courtyard and an entrance gate-tower. The village and a nearby lime kiln were gazetted as monuments in 1981. Despite its relative remoteness, the museum attracted 61 848 visitors in 2002.
Hong Kong Science Museum
Ancient Chinese Astronomy, an exhibition on loan from the Beijing Planetarium, the Beijing Ancient Observatory and the Suzhou Ancient Astronomical Chronograph Research Centre was presented from November 2001 until April. The exhibition featured astronomical instruments, two of which are Class One National Treasures and chronographs designed or built in the Ming and Qing dynasties, ancient star maps and meteorites discovered in the Mainland. The exhibition attracted 141 385 visitors, in total.
In May, Flowers in the Mirrors, an exhibition conceived, designed and fabricated within the museum was presented. This exhibition was inspired by a Chinese novel of the same title written in the Qing Dynasty. The exhibition concluded in August with a total attendance of 107 472.
A new gallery on science information, Science News Corner, was set up in mid-2002. With the aim of introducing scientific research currently conducted in local universities and disseminating knowledge of modern science, the 50-square-metre gallery has four zones of interest - SciTech Profile, Hot Talk, Science Windows and Science Web -- which keep the public in touch with the latest science news.
In June, the museum joined with the Chinese University of Hong Kong and the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology in presenting a series of lectures