"As Laufer says, the Chinese collections of other museums in Europe or North America at that time were random curiographies from here or there. Before Laufer, there was no real ethnographic collection of China in Europe or America."

The American Museum of Natural History is a popular destination for visitors from all over the world to punch their time in New York. However, few visitors specifically visit the anthropology gallery on the south side of the museum, near 77th Street, despite being one of the most famous anthropology museums in the United States.

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, a series of expeditions led by the American Museum of Natural History brought back a rich anthropological collection to the United States. More than 100 years later, these collections are like "time capsules", with irreplaceable historical value, but also under the harsh scrutiny of modern anthropology's "decolonization" and "de-Occidentalism".

The newly published Shrine on 77th Street is both an introduction to these little-known collections and an exploration of their fate and the role of anthropological museums in modern society. The following excerpted (with abridgations) from The Shrine on 77th Street, authorized by the publisher, tells the little-known story behind the museum's Beijing shadow play collection.

"But he had four teachers and disciples, and realized the truth as if, without breaking the dust lock, he jumped out of the quicksand of the sexual sea, and was not hindered, and threw the great road west." Through the green mountains and green waters, we can not see the weeds and flowers."

This is the beginning of the 23rd cycle of Journey to the West, when the Tang monk receives the sand Wujing and crosses the quicksand River, the four masters and disciples head west. This is probably the most ordinary moment in the journey of tens of thousands of miles. Such a scene is frozen in the Chinese display case in the Hall of Asian Peoples on the second floor of the museum. Under the title "Chinese Drama," there is a framed screen with shadow puppets silhouetted by lights: The Monkey King leaps from the forest to the front of the road, the Tang Monk leads a white horse, followed by Zhu Bajie and Sha Wujing.

In 1902, Berthold Laufer sent a shadow play assistant he had collected from Beijing to New York, addressed to Franz Boas, the architect of the China expedition and an anthropologist whom Laufer considered a brother. Now in the exhibition hall of the American Museum of Natural History, these are the shadow puppets of Laufer's collection.

"[Shadow puppets] will soon be a thing of the past in northern China, and I think I saved them at the last minute," Laufer wrote to Boas.

On December 10, 1898, Spain signed the Treaty of Paris, ceding the Philippine Islands to the United States. This has greatly increased US interest in Asia, especially East Asia. Before that, many businessmen in New York had invested and developed in East Asia and conducted frequent trade activities. With the spread of American power, more capitalists, missionaries, collectors, and explorers were on the move in East Asia.

While Jessop's North Pacific Expedition (1897-1902) was underway, Boas sensed the complexity of the situation. At the time, the American Museum of Natural History had little in the way of Asian collections.

Jessop's expedition in Siberia brought back only the collections of the native peoples of the North. Because Boas had always wanted to include East Asian cultures in his anthropological framework, he saw America's interest in Asia as an opportunity for him. But at the same time, he felt pressed for time - the "traditional" culture of East Asia, he saw, was rapidly being encroached upon by rail tracks, factories and churches brought in by Westerners. Even before Jessop's expedition was over, Boas began to scour the museum for East Asian collections.

In the fall of 1899, Boas found what he was looking for at a church propaganda exhibition in New York - a miscellany of objects that missionaries had brought back from China. Boas immediately suggested that the Natural History Museum buy the church's entire collection. Mr. Jessop, the museum's director, gladly put up the money to make the sale, because the museum didn't have to go on its own expedition to Asia. After the church's exhibition, the collection was moved to the American Museum of Natural History in the spring of 1900.

Different from the way of collection that was curious or with orientalism complex at that time, "respect" was one of the tenor of Boas's planning of Chinese collection, which was also the inevitable development of his anthropological thought.

In a letter to curator Jessop, Boas explained the significance of his China expedition and collection this way: "... To show the complexity of Chinese culture, the highly developed technology of the Chinese people, their lifelong love of art, and the strong social bonds that bind people together... We also want to make the [western] public more respectful of the achievements of Chinese civilisation."

But Boas is clear that his cultural relativism alone will never touch the wallets of New York's plutocrats. Boas tacitly pointed out to the East Asia Committee that as more and more businessmen went to China for trade and development activities, it was in the commercial and diplomatic interests of the United States in Asia to have a deeper understanding of Chinese culture, and that his expedition to China could fill the gap in the knowledge of New York capitalists.

Boas also loses no time in suggesting that the United States should catch up with Europe, which has established a strong tradition of Asian studies; His work on Asia could also put other American cultural institutions, such as Chicago's Field Museum, traditionally a arch-rival of New York's Museum of Natural History, in a tough spot.

Boas did not have to spend much time to identify the "bible" to go to China. Laufer had already shown his tenacity of character and excellent field ability while on the Jessup expedition. If it seemed far-fetched that Boas used Laufer's "knowledge of Tibetan" to prove that he was competent to investigate the indigenous peoples of the Amur Valley, this Chinese expedition was thoroughly to Laufer's liking. As an undergraduate at the University of Berlin, Laufer was introduced to Eastern languages.

By the time he received his doctorate from the University of Leipzig at 23, Laufer had learned Persian, Sanskrit, Pali, Dravidian, Malay, Chinese, Japanese, Tibetan, Manchu and Mongolian. Although Laufer was not an anthropologist by training, his remarkable linguistic abilities made up for what he lacked in ethnography. With his unique vision, Laufer brought the collection back from Siberia for the Natural History Museum, which also pleased Boas.

Laufer himself has always been fascinated by China, especially its ancient books and paintings. "Collecting China" may not sound like a task to Laufer, but more like helping him realize his dream. With $3,000 and Boas' instructions, Laufer set out from New York alone.