Museum to launch ancient emperor emojis in cyberspace

In cyberspace, one emoji sometimes trumps all the words.

In another three months, China's emoji-loving young netizens will be able to use visual expressions based on the images of country's emperors and concubines to express their feelings, thanks to a project initiated by the Beijing's Palace Museum, or the Forbidden City.

The museum, China's former imperial palace from 1420 to 1911, reached an agreement with Tencent Holdings Ltd earlier this week to launch a long-term strategic cooperation to incubate creative ideas that will usher in the Forbidden City's cultural relics into peoples' daily entertainment and lives.

Under the agreement, the museum will open up the intellectual properties of some of its collections to Tencent for emoji designs, the development of mobile phone games, and for online literature and animation.

Highlighted collections - such as the Twelve Beauties of Prince Yong by the royal court painters of the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), the 10th century Chinese fine art triumph the Night Revels of Han Xizai, and portraits of Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) emperors - will be among the first items to be released.

The crossover brainstorm came from Next Idea, anannual competition organized by Tencent, to gather brilliant ideas from the younger generation on cultural creativity.

The event has already attracted the participation of more than 2,000 colleges in China.

In October the Palace Museum-themed emojis from these competitors will go online via Tencent social network apps like QQ and WeChat. The partners plan to co-launch a mobile phone game in 2017, said Palace Museum deputy director Feng Nai'en.

"The Palace Museum is a super source of IP (intellectual property) for adaptations and a social network can be a way to revitalize traditional cultures," said Tencent Chief Executive Officer Pony Ma.

Though the Palace Museum now has more than 15 million annual visitors, which tops all museums in the world, its director Shan Jixiang said he expected more involvement via internet resources will reach billions more netizens and help them "bring museum home". However, he also emphasized his institution will always "be a cultural institution giving priority to public interest".

Last week, the Palace Museum attracted attention with its announcement with another cyberspace player Alibaba Group Holding Ltd of an initiative involving digital publishing, online shopping of cultural derivative products, and the sale of its tickets.

Since 2013, the museum has become a star in the virtual world by creating a series of popular mobile device apps, including interactive games. Yu Zhuang, head of its new media team, attributed the change to a "more opened-up mind" at the cultural institution.

"We expect to keep developing more platforms, to show the breathtaking brilliance of the Forbidden City to the public," Yu said.