Celebrating your birthday like emperors used to do is now perfectly possible in Beijing.

Beijing Art Museum has just re-opened to the public after a year-long revamp.

Also called Wanshou, or the Temple of Longevity, this is the place where Empress Dowager Cixi would rest and powder her face on her way to the Summer Palace way from the Forbidden City.

It's also where some 1,000 monks would chant sutras to celebrate the birthday of emperors' mothers in the Ming(1368-1644) and Qing dynasties (1644-1911).

As well as offering visitors the chance to celebrate their own birthdays there, the museum boasts a cultural feast for the eyes.

In contrast to the cold, cement high-rises surrounding it on the Western Third Ring Road, the museum stands out serenely thanks to its ancient Chinese architecture.

There are four exhibitions and a total of 50,000 cultural relics stored there, according to Kong Xiangli, director of the facility's Reference Room.

The collection covers a dozen categories including ceramics, Chinese paintings and calligraphy, embroidery, bronze wear, jade, carving arts, coins and fans.

"We have exhibits dating back to the Warring States period (475-221 BC), yet most of our antiques are of the Ming and Qing dynasties," Kong said.

Just a small proportion of the museum's treasure trove of relics is actually on show.

Most are kept in the storage rooms at the rear of the temple.

The four exhibitions currently on display are themed around antiques made in the Ming and Qing period. They include an exhibition on ceramics, another on Buddha figurines, one on arts and crafts and another on China's unique culture of praying for happiness and longevity.

A close look at various types of Chinese ceramics, including bowls, jars and other vessels, allows visitors to master some tricks to tell fakes from genuine articles.

Some of the most eye-catching Buddha statues show men and women in various sexual postures.

Explained tour guide Xiao Sun: "In Tibetan Buddhism, it has been a belief that men represent wisdom, while women represent benevolence. If a Buddhist wants to get to a higher level of Buddhism, he/she has to obtain both characteristics, so by reaching a state of harmony with an opposite gender, they believe each could obtain both wisdom and benevolence, thus arriving at the higher level."

Such statues can also be found in Tibetan Buddhist temples. But it is rare to find them made of gold, wood, jade and other rare materials. No matter how small the statues are, they are carved with refined, exquisite skills.

The architecture of the temple itself is also a treasure worth a closer look.

The place was tagged a Beijing's "Key Cultural Heritage for Preservation" in 1979.

As well as serving as a temple for Buddhist monks after being built over 400 years ago, it has been used to store Chinese-language Buddhist sutras and scriptures.

Later on, emperors took to the temple so much that they began to regard it as an imperial place to celebrate the birthdays of their mothers. The popularity could be discerned in the auspicious name of the temple which means "a-ten-thousand-year longevity."

Admission: 20 yuan (US$2.4), free entrance for primary and middle school students, as well as aged people with certificates.

Location: Wanshousi, Suzhoujie Street, Western Third Ring Road

Tel: 86-10-68456997

(Beijing Weekend February 27, 2004)