ORGANIZED by the Archives Institute on the “Eastward Spread of Western Learning” of Sun Yat-Sen University (hereafter the Archives Institute), with the cooperation of Chang’an Township, Dongguan City, and co-presented by the Macau Ricci Institute and the Adam Mickiewicz University of Pozna, Poland, this International Symposium on the “Eastward Spread of Western Learning and Cultural Awareness” was held from 27 to 29 April 2008 in Chang’an town, Dongguan City, Guangdong. More than 20 scholars, coming from four various places on both sides of the Taiwan Strait (mainland China, Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan) and from Europe and North America, attended the Symposium. Addressing the opening ceremony were the Assistant Rector of the Sun Yat-sen University, the Chief Secretary of Changan town and the Vice President of the Adam Mickiewicz University, Pozna, Poland, and Polish Consul General in Guangzhou, presented their congratulations...
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CARL Smith, who passed away on April 7th 2008, is an indisputable and indispensable reference to those who aim to enter the study of the social history of South China’s metropolitan cities, and especially those of Hong Kong and Macau.(1)
Anthropological studies and social history have been greatly neglected in Macau’s studies, which, however, have registered a renewal in the last decades. There is, in fact, a lack of works networking family histories with economic, political, social, legal, cultural, associative, religious and other aspects. The situation is even worse if one intends to enter cross-communities studies aiming to:
• give a body to the common discourse on the pluri-secular interaction between Westerners, especially the Portuguese, and Chinese in Macau;
• evaluate the cultural and civilizational dialogue, including its successes, misunderstandings and failures...
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