“我宣布，现在开始倒计时：5、4、3、2、1，请观众进入紫禁城！”2月19日晚6时30分，中国农历元宵夜，北京室外温度1摄氏度，故宫博物院院长单霁翔出现在故宫博物院午门广场，开门迎客。

        2月19日和2月20日，故宫博物院连创三个首次：建院94年来首次举办“灯会”；紫禁城古建筑群首次在晚间被较大规模点亮；首次在晚间免费对预约公众开放。

        灯光点亮红墙的一瞬间，站在午门的我们竟然不约而同发出一阵“WOW”的声音。我身边都是没预约到夜场票的观众，但大家依然愿意站在宫墙外，感受这一中国传统节日的热闹，因为这是故宫，因为从前百姓不能进入这座城，关于紫禁城的元宵记忆只属于皇帝。

        但如今，一场元宵灯会，改变了我们与故宫的距离，也拉近了我们与历史的距离。如今，宫墙内外，共呼吸，共欢度。

        2月19日进宫赏灯的，除了受特邀的各国大使，其余全是普通老百姓，有劳动模范、快递小哥，还有500位抢到票的幸运儿。

94岁的故宫博物院，青春快乐

        这些年，博物馆热是个现象，很多博物馆都在做着接地气、人情化的历史文化表达，但故宫的热，成了现象级文化，它已经突破了原本专业的博物馆圈，成为大众文化的追逐点。如果从2013年故宫文创火起来算起，只不过6年时间。在此之前，比如2010年10月，故宫淘宝就已经上线售卖周边产品。但这些周边产品与旅游景点的纪念品无异，价格高，质量一般，没有多大新意。

        让文物“活”起来，这句话，我们说了很多年。现在故宫600年的历史文化，在“互联网+时代”越活越好，甚至逆生长了。

        温州小伙子池浚现在在故宫博物院做博士后，他的本职工作是国家京剧院创作中心副主任，梅葆玖作品《梅兰霓裳》的编剧。前几年，他突然告诉我，自己要“入宫”了，为宫廷做戏曲研究。

        “我的研究工作就是‘我在故宫修文物（戏曲）’，做宫廷戏曲剧目的挖掘、整理、修复，激活文化基因，让沉睡的传统戏剧文物、文献真正生动地活起来。”

        他说，当下故宫人和戏曲研究者们共同面对的问题，就是“活起来”三个字——让收藏在博物馆里的文物、陈列在广阔大地上的遗产、书写在古籍里的文字都活起来，在“全媒体时代”和日益频繁的跨文化交流中讲好“故事”。

院长自带流量，金句段子不断

        故宫博物院资料信息部数字传媒组，就是负责故宫的官方网站、微博、微信、APP等新媒体的策划、发布与运营，大多是80、90后。一位新媒体负责人曾在一次采访中表示：“故宫这两年最大的改变就是心态更开放了，希望通过社交平台传递出一个有温度的紫禁城，所以故宫的官方微信、微博发布的大量内容，都是带着感情和色彩的。”

        故宫的微信端其实在开设公号之初，也是走严肃路线的：正儿八经地卖卖手串，科普下历史文化知识什么的。但是这几年，故宫很少耍萌贱了，而是回到了自己的内容本身。

        故宫发生逆袭的起点，可以说是从2012年单霁翔当院长开始的。

        “单院长愿意出镜，表达能力强，”这是很多人对他的共同认识，在新媒体时代，单院长自带流量，金句段子不要太多。比如最新的，说到故宫下雪，2月17日他在论坛这么说：“前年紫禁城一场初雪，一组照片放上去，1425万的访问量。这两年不下雪我们着急啊。”

        “但是天无绝人之路，去年来了红月亮，晚上9点到11点我们拍的一组红月亮放上去后，第二天早上我一看有2000万点击率。今年来雪了，我们放了一组故宫下雪的照片，5000多万访问量。不断把美景告诉大家，请人们来实地看。”

        故宫的工作人员经常能在院里见到他，他天天在院子里跑，而不是在办公室里坐着，不是在开会。单霁翔上任的第一件事，就是花5个月的时间老老实实地把故宫走了一遍，9371间古建筑，1807558件文物一样不落，磨破20多双老布鞋。“布鞋院长”，萌萌哒的“看门人”，并不是人设打造，是实打实地走出来的。

文创与历史的联姻

        然而，文创商品的创新，新媒体运营的接地气，如何与历史这个“旧东西”结合？那么多年，故宫一直在那，600年历史一直在那儿，为什么过去并不那么红？

        以上这些“新”与故宫的“旧”，发生着几组微妙的关系。

        一是“高”与“低”的关系。

        故宫不是一般的博物馆，它的建筑是历史发生的场所，是24位皇帝的工作区和生活区，也是皇帝的女人们真正宫斗的地方，而且还带有废墟的性质。

        “600年的故宫，不停地修缮、传承，这个地方本身就有文气。”池浚说。哪怕一个展品都不看，就是去故宫逛一圈，也觉得我是到了故宫博物院。“虽然‘博物院’说的是物，实际上人们心里想的是故宫，未必是‘博物’。这就是故宫本身的崇高。”

        这个崇高，跟故宫文创产品的流行是有关的。

        文创人人可以买，而且故宫的文创很便宜，几十元钱，大多是生活用品，登机牌、扇子、手机壳、口红、月饼，是随时可用可带走的小东西。

        单霁翔在亚布力中国企业家论坛第十九届年会上的演讲，除了首次晒了自家文创账本——到2017年底，文创产品已经突破了1万种。2017年，故宫文创的销售收入已经达到15亿元，超过了故宫的门票收入。

        单霁翔还特意说到了自家的口红，并和另一种产品做了比较。“我们加快生产，90多万套（口红）卖出去后仍供不应求。其实我们同时还出了故宫面膜，但是卖得不好。后来我才知道，面膜是在家里晚上贴的，别人看不到，但口红可以在大庭广众之下来抹，多有身份！”

        还有 “固”和“活”的关系。

        故宫的开放面积，在这些年逐渐增大，过去只开放50%多，现在开放面积已经到80%。故宫的“活”化，重在让人深切感受帝后生活区的场景和状态，也就是说“你可以到别人家里去”，这个别人家，还是帝后的家。

        近年来，故宫越来越强调原状陈设和帝后宫廷生活再现。过去的太和殿是不能打光的，现在科技进步有了冷光源，可以把里面打亮，让人很清楚地看到龙椅是什么样子，后面的匾额、对联是什么样。

        “故宫所做的很多小事情，就是为了让人尽量融入进来。所以它虽然是一个固化的——即便仅仅是看外观，也能看得有温度、有内容、有人气、有人味，是一个活态的故宫。”

        就像今年春节参加“紫禁城里过大年”展览，第一届在宫里过年的普通人发现，有个盖章祈福的打卡点，章上的文字是这么写的：“盖了这个章，你就是朕的自家人了。”

Palace Museum: New Stardom

Over the past few years, the Palace Museum in Beijing has done a lot of things unusual. The latest was an evening tour on the Lantern Festival this year, which fell on February 19, 2019. At six thirty, Shan Jixiang, curator of the Palace Museum, started the countdown with a large group of visitors ready to go into the palace for an evening light show. It was the biggest cultural event for the Lantern Festival in China. For two consecutive nights, the palace museum opened its doors to the public in the history of its 94 years. When the countdown ended, the lights exploded in a spectacular show and visitors and spectators burst into loud cheering and wowing. In the past, the Lantern Festival in the Forbidden City was celebrated by the royal family. The festival in 2019 was the first time the royal compound opened to the public.

Among the 3,000 visitors in the first evening tour were honored guests such as ambassadors, model workers, express delivery service people and 500 who luckily booked their tickets through an online ticketing system.

The changes taking place in the 600-year-old Forbidden City started in 2013 after Shan Jixiang came to head the administration of the Palace Museum in 2012. Before then, the Forbidden City was just a tourist attraction and the Palace Museum was equivalent to an academic institution dedicated to the safeguarding of the state’s cultural treasures. Things about the Forbidden City and the Palace Museum began to look different as of 2012.

After he took to the position, the new curator spent five months checking out the Forbidden City. He took a look at all of the 9,371 buildings on the compound and looked at all of the 1,807,558 pieces of cultural treasures in the collection of the palace museum. The walk and look cost him over 20 pairs of cloth shoes.

Shan is different from his predecessors in that he goes all out to promote cultural charms of the Forbidden City to the general public. He is a man of creative ideas. In a speech he made at the 19th annual conference of Chinese Entrepreneurs Forum on February 17 this year, he revealed some numbers about the undertakings the Forbidden City had taken over the past few years. By the end of 2017, the Forbidden City had created more than 10,000 cultural product lines and in 2017 alone, the Forbidden City reaped 1.5 billion in sales from its cultural products. The latest bestselling product was a set of six lipsticks launched on December 12, 2018. The lipsticks went viral online and more than 900,000 sets were sold in no time.

Shan has made the Forbidden City new and available to the curious public. In exhibitions, some precious exhibits from the museum’s collection have been on display for the first time in history. New equipment and technologies are employed to attract the attention of the young. Masters in Forbidden City, a documentary released in 2016, went viral online and revealed the work and personalities of craftspeople working in back offices that had been little known to the public.

In the past, a big part of the Forbidden City was off limits for the public. It looked as if the palaces deliberately hid themselves from the people and didn’t mind being standoffish and arrogant. Nowadays, more than 80% of the imperial compound is open to the public. As the Forbidden City has made itself more available, people can more easily access the history and culture represented by the royal compound and its treasures. This makes the Forbidden City endearing to the public.

In 2017, the museum released a set of photos after the year’s first snow. The snowy images of the palaces received 14.25 million hits. In 2018, a group of photos of the red moon over the Forbidden City received 20 million hits. In the winter that spanned 2018 and 2019, the photos of the snow landscape of the Forbidden City attracted 50 million page views.

The Forbidden City is no longer its massive, stately, mysterious self. It is available to the public, it is alluring, and it offers an access to the culture and history of China of 5,000 years. The newness of the Forbidden City is partly attributed to Shan Jixiang who is willing to meet journalists and the public and talk about cultural significance of the 600-year-old palaces.