"Now that it's free, I'm bringing all my friends," former soldier Zhang Xiaozhuang, 50, said in Beijing on Friday as he got ready to enter the city's military museum.

It was Zhang's second visit. This time around, Zhang, who hails from Beijing's neighboring Hebei Province, brought along five fellow veterans.

They're now in a different kind of army: that of the visitors who've flocked to Chinese museums since most of them became free early in 2008. Admission fees were abolished at national and provincial-level museums, except for a few cultural relics such as the Forbidden City and the Summer Palace, both in Beijing.

But now, museums are complaining of the financial pinch caused by a combination of increasing visitor traffic and decreasing revenue.

Lin Dan, spokeswoman for the Fujian Provincial Museum in southern China, said: "We need more money to hire security staff to protect the new visitors and the exhibits."

Only a few hundred people showed up each day when they had to pay 30 yuan (about US$4.5) to get in. But after admission became free during the Spring Festival (Lunar New Year), daily visitor numbers soared to more than 10,000.

Facilities began to show the strain. "Doors were broken, and somebody even tore off the trunk of an elephant specimen," said Lin.

"We need more financial support to keep things going," she said.

Fujian Museum isn't alone in its plight. On September 25, two-thirds of the country's provincial museum curators met in Fuzhou, the capital of Fujian Province, and issued a call for financial support from the government.

Liu Chaoying, an official with the Beijing Municipal Administration of Cultural Heritage, said they had received a petition calling for financial help from museums in the capital city.

"But more assessment needs to be done and there's no way to determine how to compensate museums fairly," he said. He estimated that 100 million yuan a year would be needed to subsidize Beijing's museums.

How are local museums coping?

They use many tactics to reduce the security pressure and make their exhibitions attractive. Some limit admissions by issuing only a certain number of tickets, or by requiring visitors to make online or telephone reservations. Others share or exchange exhibits so that no single museum gets too many visitors.

For example, on September 25, provincial museums in neighboring Fujian and Zhejiang held a joint exhibit by exchanging the contents of the show. Both said they intend to continue this practice.

The public, however, is mostly unaware of museums' financial plight. They're just happy to see the shows for free.

"We are glad to see taxpayers' money being spent to promote people's cultural awareness," said retired teacher Wang Shurong, who visited an art exhibit in downtown Beijing with her husband on Friday.

"Free entry would certainly encourage people to frequent such places and sooner or later, they'll have the awareness to respect museum facilities and teach their children to do so," she said.

No encouragement is needed for veteran Zhang. He plans to make a third visit to get a better look at the Beijing military museum's gun exhibits.

(Xinhua News Agency November 21, 2008)