By Louise Watt,Associated Press
BEIJING (AP).- A plan to bring an Albert Einstein exhibition to Shanghai was shelved after the Chinese museum suggested merging it with one on Confucius, a Swiss museum director said Tuesday. The odd coupling was the idea of the Shanghai Science and Technology Museum, part of a recent revival of interest in the Chinese philosopher, whose teachings were at the center of Chinese civilization for nearly two millennia but were widely denigrated in the 20th century. It would have brought to Shanghai the Swiss government-financed “Albert Einstein (1879-1955)” exhibition, which is on display at the Hong Kong Science Museum until August and consists of more than 200 objects illustrating Einstein’s life and times. Jakob Messerli, director of the Historical Museum Bern, which owns the exhibition, said the Shanghai museum wanted to add a Confucius