Nice is one of the hippest photo-sharing social networking apps in China. (Photo : www.english.sina.com)
Monopods, more popularly known as “selfie sticks,” have become a safety concern in some museums in China and some have actually prohibited its use inside museum premises for fear of damaging the artifacts inside.
According to English.Sina.com, two museum incidents involving selfie sticks have been enough for Chinese museums such as the one in Nanjing to ban the use of these accessorial devices inside their museum.
The management of the Nanjing Museum deemed the use of these 1.5-meter-long sticks, as well as tripods, as a danger to the rare artifacts and other museum objects housed in the establishment.
Other museums in Wuhan, the capital of central China's Hubei Province, have made it a point to require museum-goers to surrender their selfie sticks to the museum security before entering the premises. Should they refuse to do so, visitors are immediately stopped at the security check.
This was also true at the Hubei Museum of Art where, aside from selfie sticks, liquid, inflammable materials, explosives and lighters are also banned.
Meanwhile, similar institutions abroad have already understood well with the dangers of selfie sticks and expressed their opposition with the use of such gadgets inside their establishments.
Among these include Rome's Colosseum, which had already prohibited its 16,000 daily visitors from using these sticks when inside the 2,000-year-old monument to ensure the safety of objects on exhibit inside as well as the tourists who view them.
In related news, Washington's Smithsonian had just banned selfie sticks last week, thereby emphasizing that though taking photos are still permitted, the use of camera extenders are not.
On the other hand, U.K.'s National Portrait Gallery still allows the use of selfie sticks provided that they do not "prove disruptive." The gallery management also revealed that this is still "reviewed on an ongoing basis." The British Museum is doing the same.
This move received praise from several art lovers, with one noting that people who go into an exhibition should maintain their purpose to see those in exhibit and "not to take umpteen photographs" of themselves.
