Having previously written briefly about Noah’s Ark in connection with the rise of Christian fundamentalism in Hong Kong, Palmerston thought it high time to see the Biblical attraction for himself (having co-opted friend and professional scribe Hana to participate in this madcap field trip). Palmerston’s impressions below.
John Scalzi, writing about the Creation Museum, described it as “the very best monument to an enormous load of horseshit that you could possibly ever hope to see”. At first blush, it’s tempting to say that this is an equally accurate indictment of Noah’s Ark.
On reflection, however, that isn’t entirely fair. At Noah’s Ark, the horseshit is draped with a scarf, mustache and top hat.
And that, really, is the crux of Noah’s Ark: it is a shrine to Biblical literalism (to adopt a more neutral term than “fundamentalism”) - thinly disguised with anodyne references in the tourist brochures to “love of life, family and the Earth” and “positive values”.
This cognitive dissonance is apparent from the very beginning of the Ark Expo, the theme park’s principal attraction. The first gallery contains a video and accompanying billboard illustrating the Genesis story and depicting Arks around the world. The board gives the Creation Museum equal billing with the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, a decision that will, no doubt, give the curators of both Arks fits. In another subtle attempt to buff out the harsher edges of Biblical fundamentalism, the exhibit notes that the Arks’ creators acted in the belief that “danger, crisis and turmoil are imminent” - without condescending to particulars of the nature of said calamity. Just in case anyone is alarmed, however, the video is keen to reassure visitors that the Arks are all about “Building a World of Harmony and Hope”.
Following an exhibition of “The Days of Noah” is “The Ark Research Station”, a juxtaposition of live wildlife in glass display cases and cringe-inducingly earnest discussion of the Ark and life inside. There is even a videogame set inside the Ark’s 3 levels where the goal is to find (and feed) the animals.
Exhibits include:
- “Talk to Noah”
- “The Diary of Noah” (in 3D, no less)
- “Noah’s Spirit Prevails over Pressures and Challenges”
- “Noah’s Storage Room - might it have looked like this?”
There is an entire section devoted to addressing the practical possibility of building the Ark. Naturally, it is crammed with leading questions and suggested answers, such as:
- “The wood of the Ark was super-strong; is it extinct?”
- “It may represent a specific kind of wood … “
- “It may be an extinct type of wood … “
- “It may be a specially treated wood … “
- “As designer of the Ark, God naturally took care of interior ventilation … “
According to “Engineering and Bible expert Dr Farid Abou-Rahme”:
The Ark’s volume was at least 39,530 cubic metres, enough to accommodate 125,000 sheep-sized animals inside.(“Not sheep,” Hana observes, “sheep-sized animals.”)
The next room, entitled “Search for Noah’s Ark: Confirming Faith”, documents such items as a supposed “Secret CIA File that Shook the World” and the travails of an astronaut who unsuccessfully attempted to climb Mount Ararat (concluding that the climb was harder than spacewalking). This being Hong Kong, reference is also made to the efforts of a Hong Kong research team in “creation science”.
Visitors’ faith having been confirmed by impressive-looking empirical research, they are herded into the Great Flood 180-degree Theatre to have their senses bombarded by a wide-screen rendering of the Genesis tale, set to the accompaniment of gusts of wind and rumbling benches. Central casting has, in its infinite wisdom, ensured that all the sinners are Chinese.
As is Noah. And his family.
The Theatre opens into a gallery exhibiting “Arks Around the World” and diverse accounts of the Genesis flood from various cultures, along with an exhortation to “Remember the Days of Noah”. Curiously, the Tower of Babel (listed as a “Post-Flood Event”) also makes an appearance.
The docent in this gallery is quick to point out the diversity of origins of the Ark models, and is equally quick to talk about the Tower of Babel as a reflection of human fallibility. However, she is careful not to take this sermon to its conclusion.
After a brief segue into the question of extraterrestrial life, the Ark Expo shifts gears again with the next gallery, “Wondrous Gallery of Life”. This gallery contains, among other exhibits, a reference to the Anthropic Principle, presumably (but not explicitly) as a justification for God’s existence. Further down the hall is “How Much Do You Cost?”, a display which promises to show the cost of visitors’ constituent elements (in terms of bottled water, chalk and nails), “minus a soul” - although evidently nobody thought to consult a life insurer.
There is also a Tamagotchi-shaped cabinet of eggs.
The penultimate room, “Threats to the Future of Mankind”, is appropriately decked out with a ceiling redolent of any number of volcano-diaster movies. Naturally, it is packed to the rafters with enough doomsday scenarios to impress Nostradamus.
Visitors, having been scared witless, are shunted into the final exhibit, “Future Ark” - a theatre showing a partly-in-3D film about the travails of an anthromoporphised globe named Earth Boy. (No, seriously.) The film ends by exhorting visitors to repent of their consumerist ways and gives a message of hope curiously devoid of references to the Almighty.
Naturally, the minute the film ends, staff members promise free swag to anyone who fills in a free questionnaire. And then everyone files out towards the gift shop.
The Ark Garden outside is a similarly bizarre mix of earnest Biblical exegesis and secular (or at least not overtly religious) educational value. A hippo and a platypus share the same landscaped pond, presumably in the same positions they were in shortly after leaving the Ark.
The explanatory signs boast subtitles of truly epic length, some of them hinting vaguely at “family values”.
A similar story plays out in the Ark Life Museum, upstairs from the Ark Expo. The Museum contains, amongst other exhibits, a short film challenging viewers to write down their last words in 30 seconds, and coffins into which one can enter. (No word on whether this allows you to run for President of the United States. Perhaps not surprisingly, the coffins were closed to visitors on the day of our visit.) Yet all of these exhibits merely ask visitors to value their lives, without straying into more overtly religious territory.
Even the gift shop bespeaks unusual restraint. Many of the goods are made by shelter workshops and other charities, but most of the items for sale have no religious overtones at all. Most of them are, in fact, miniature versions of Hong Kong dim sum and street food.
(Even if it is true that you get a free inflatable giraffe if you buy $100’s worth of swag. So much for that cri de coeur from Earth Boy.)
So what, ultimately, is Noah’s Ark? It is undoubtedly a big-budget production, and it is - by and large - slickly presented. It is also reasonably popular - on the day of our visit there were a number of tour groups present, including one from a Government-run primary school.
But the lofty production values fail to hide the essential problem with the attraction: it is trying to “sell” fundamentalist Biblical inerrancy while also seeking to attract (or, at least, not to repel) a broader audience by not spelling out the message too clearly. (Either that, or the religious overtones have been watered down in order to secure Government funding.) Where the Creation Museum nails its religious colours to the mast, Noah’s Ark tries to disguise them beneath generic, feel-good words like “harmony” and “hope”.
What the siblings Kwok have done, then, is liberally to apply cosmetics to a sow. It might be the finest cosmetic product money can buy - but there’s no escaping the fact that it’s still just putting lipstick on a pig.
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