Palace Museum rejects links to erroneous guidebook

The Palace Museum denied Tuesday that it was responsible for publishing or selling a Forbidden City guidebook riddled with mistakes after a man from East China's Shandong Province claimed his son-in-law bought the bilingual book at the museum.

Liu Qingfang, 60, a former magazine editor from Ji'nan, found more than 100 mistakes including incorrect Chinese characters, punctuation and names of emperors in the 26-page guidebook allegedly bought by his son-in-law at one of the museum's ticket booths.

According to Shandong-based news portal dzwww.com, Liu provided corrections for all the mistakes that included names and courtesy names of seven emperors who reigned during the Ming (1368-1644) and Qing (1644-1911) dynasties.

Many of the mistakes also appear in English in the book, with page 17 referring to gold and silver coins as "gold and silver threads."

"This book might not have been published by the Palace Museum, but it tarnishes the museum's image by portraying a culturally-rich landmark as one void of any culture," he was quoted as saying by dzwww.com.

The Palace Museum slammed claims it had sold the guidebook, suggesting it was probably sold by an unlicensed peddler.

"We have never sold or distributed this guidebook, but we provide free maps for visitors at our customer service and information centers at the museum," a media officer from the Palace Museum, surnamed Zhang, told the Global Times.

"We have noticed that some vendors are selling unauthorized maps and guidebooks near the museum. We remind visitors here to avoid being cheated and we also hope authorities will crack down on such peddlers to maintain order at the museum," Zhang noted.

The Global Times found some peddlers selling souvenirs at the south gate of the museum on Tuesday afternoon, but did not find any selling maps or guidebooks.