Macau Ricci Newsletter 13

No. 13 － June 2009

Former Portuguese Governor Visits MRI

On June 14 General Vasco Rocha Vieira, the former Portuguese Governor of Macau, and his spouse visited the Macau Ricci Institute. Led by Fr. Artur Wardega and Fr. Luís Sequeira, the whole team of our Institute was present to give a warm reception to the couple. A brief introduction of the MRI, in terms of our activities and publications during the past ten years, was enlightened to Mr.  & Mrs. Rocha Vieira who were delighted with the development and progress achieved by our Institute.

Forums

On the January 21, our Institute held our first Forum of the year with the topic of “The three historical encounters between East and West as reflected in St. Paul College, Macao” and the speaker was Arqtº Francisco Vizeu Pinheiro, to mark the book launching of “Macao’s Church of Saint Paul: A glimmer of the baroque in China” by Dr. César Guillén Nuñez. The presentation of both Arqtº Pinheiro and Dr. Guillén-Nuñez was attractive and has pleased all the audience who attended the event.

On February 18, the Institute held the Forum entitled “Cultures of survival, 1958-1962” with Prof. Frank Dikötter as the speaker. Around 20 participants from different academic institutions and religious communities attended the event and enjoyed the presentation of the speaker.

On March 25, our Institute held our monthly Forum entitled “The Chinese Century (c.1740 to c. 1840): Its historical and contemporary significance”. We were pleased to have invited Prof. George Bryan Souza as the speaker who has addressed a good and detailed presentation of the topic to the audience.

On May 11th, our Institute held another Forum entitled “Matteo Ricci’s Ascent to Beijing (1583-1610)” in commemoration of the death’s anniversary of Fr. Matteo Ricci. The speaker was Fr. Gianni Criveller who talked about the second part of Fr. Ricci’s biography in China. The Electronic News Service SJ Vo.XIII, N.11, dated June 9, 2009, covered the forum.

On May 26, our Forum was entitled “The Jesuits Le Cheron d’Incarville (1706-1757) and João de Loureiro (1717-1791) and the Plants of China”. The invited speaker was Prof. Manuel Serrano Pinto who is a Professor Emeritus at the University of Aveiro, Portugal.

On June 11, our Institute held another Forum entitled “China Trade!” We had invited Mr. Konstantin Bessmertny, one of the most distinguished artists working in Asia today, as the speaker of the Forum. He made a power-point presentation of images coming from his painting exhibition held in Hong Kong, and related to China Trade from the beginning of the 19th century to China’s 21st century emergence as an economic superpower.

神州交流― Chinese Cross Currents (CCC)

In the first issue of the Chinese Cross Currents of 2009 (January, 6.1) Editor Yves Camus made an allegory of the current financial crisis to Goethe’s Sorcerer in Der Zauberlehrling, who had lost control of the power unleashed from the French Revolution. He criticized financial and economic globalization, induced by new information technologies, causing the disconnection of the virtual economy of trade with the real economy of goods. The former, which capitalism generates by itself, should not boast to be solely rational. Its relation to the real economy of goods in the global market is essential for it to remain responsible for the common good of many in the world and so ethically reasonable. Zhang Xianyong reviewed the International Symposium on the “Eastward Spread of Western Learning and Cultural Awareness” held in April 2008 in “Debates & Features” of this issue, while Dra. Tereza Sena remembered the late Carl Smith (1918-2008), 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.

The second issue (April 2009, 6.2) covered three texts trying to see into the transition between the education received at the university or professional school level and the entry into the job market, one of the questions having been approached in the special dossier entitled “Education and Society” (Chinese Cross Currents, Vol. 2, No. 3, 2005), once again taken a more dramatic aspect. In Thought & Humanism Georges De Schrijver presented his comments on the Christian origin of Liberation Theology, as it is lived in South America. This original context is so different from the Chinese context that the encounter with Marxism in both continents implies very important differences. An academic lecture by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, was followed, on the encounter between “Market Economy and Ethics”. Already at that time the requisites of ethics in the market economy, as it is conceived by extreme liberal capitalism, were thought by the speaker to be philosophically grounded. Editor Yves Camus reminded us in the Editorial, however, that by taking into account the ethical dimensions of the global problem would greatly benefit a comprehensive view and understanding of it. “To sort out the meaning of what is going on, a deeper synthetic view seems to be required that would go beyond what intuition or logic provide.”

Staff activities

On February 2, Dra. Tereza Sena presented a paper on “Macau as a Center and Support for Linguistic Training: Some Notes on a Comparative Overview on Missionary Work” at the workshop “Early Modern Mission in a Global Perspective”, organized by Prof. Antonella Romano, Department of History and Civilization, European University Institute, Florence, Italy. She presented the same topic on at the “2nd International Conference on English, Discourse and Intercultural Communication” organized by the Macau Polytechnic Institute on June 21.

On March 11, a Workshop was held in our Institute entitled “Macau’s Cemeteries”. Our research fellow Dra. Tereza Sena made a power-point presentation to around 12 students from the Heritage Management Program of the Institute for Tourism Studies, who were delighted and had a good lesson about the interesting topic.

Requested by Prof. Xu Jie, Head of the Department of Chinese, Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities, of the University of Macau, Fr. A. Wardega went on June 25 to attend a meeting held at the University as an expert member of the Validation Panel. They were in the process of revising their MA programmes and establishing a new MA programme in Teaching of Chinese to non-native speakers.

On behalf of Fr. Wardega, Mr. Chris Choi went on May 7 to Guangzhou to attend the Conference entitled “East West Learnings and Confucianism” held on May 7-10 at the Sun Yat-Sen University in Guangzhou.  The paper of Fr. Wardega entitled “Chinese-Western Literary Relations and Humanistic Quest” was delivered by Mr. Choi on May 8.

Visits

On January 16, there came a delegation from Shanghai led by Prof. Li Tiangang, together with Mr. Song Haojie, the Deputy Director of Shanghai Xuhui Cultural Department, Mr. Feng Zhihao, the Assistant to Director of Shanghai Xuhui Administration Office of Cultural Relics, Mr. Chen Yao-Wang, the Director of Shanghai Jarsen Institute of Biochemical Technology and Mr. Wu Renhong, the Researcher of Shanghai Xuhui Administration Office. They were received by Fr. Artur Wardega, Fr. Yves Camus and Mr. Chris Choi and held a brief meeting for the discussion of eventual academic collaboration and an eventual build up of a Museum in Shanghai.

On January 19, two scholars, Mr. Ricardo Tavares Valério and Ms. Karine Pablos Callligaris came to visit our Library. The first one is from Portugal and is studying in Beijing Languages University whilst the latter is from Brazil and is studying in Beijing Chinese Medicine University. They were recommended to visit our Library and were looking for certain materials for their own researches, Chinese language and Chinese medicine materials edited by the Jesuits. They were also quite interested with the works of the late Fr. Manuel Teixeira as well as of Fr. Benjamin V. Pires and were delighted to find lots of material in our Institute.

On February 9, Prof. Gu Weiming from Shanghai Normal University, Shanghai visited our Institute. He was invited by the Cultural Institute of Macau to give an academic research lecture on the February 5 at their auditorium.

On February 10, the couple of Prof. Dr. Petr Skalník from the University of Hradec Králové, Faculty of Arts, Department of Politics, Czech Republic, came to visit our Institute. Fr. Wardega gave them a warm reception and showed them around the Library and other facilities of our Institute.

On February 20th of this month, Mr. Adrian Bradshaw, the chief-representative of China region of the European Pressphoto Agency b.v. (EPA) from Beijing visited our Institute.  He was well received by Fr. A. Wardega, as well as by Mr. J. Hung who showed him around our Library and Institute, by Dr. César Guillén-Nuñez and Dra. Tereza Sena. Some pictures taken by Mr. Bradshaw during his visit were uploaded on their website (https://webgate.epa.eu/) with a brief introduction of our Macau Ricci Institute as well as of the Grand Ricci Chinese-French Dictionary in our Library as per copies attached.

On May 12th of this month, there came, Dra. Maria de Deus Beites Manso from the University of Évora, Portugal paid a visit to the Library of our Institute. She was well received by Dra. Tereza Sena who has provided to her a good number of books from our Library for her own research. Her academic field is related to Religions and Jesuits history.

On June 22, Prof. Filippo Mignini, Director of the Philosophy Department of Università di Macerata and the coordinator of Matteo Ricci Exhibitions 2010, paid a visit to our Institute. He came to Macau upon his trips to the Museums of Beijing, Nanjing and Shanghai. Together with the members of the MRI Management Committee and Dr. César Guillén-Nuñez, Prof. Mignini had a meeting in order to discuss further details about the catalogue of the exhibitions and its members of the Scientific Committee membership.

On June 25, there came Fr. João J. Vila-Chã, S.J., professor of Philosophy at the Pontificia Università Gregoriana from Rome, Italy.

Publications

Our new book entitled “Belief, History and the Individual in Modern Chinese Literary Culture” was published in June by the Cambridge Scholars Publishing, United Kingdom. 10 papers out of 24 presented during the 2007 Symposium were selected and edited by Artur K. Wardega, S.J. Fr. Edward Thylstrup, the Chief Editor of Chinese Province News, wrote in the April 2009 issue a Congratulations notice to the Institute for the publication of the book, which was described as a book of academic and cultural stature which opens the MRI to the worldwide academic “market”.

Fr. Sequiera Turns 60!

The MRI celebrated the 60th birthday of our Vice-Director Fr. Luís Sequeira in April. A bottle of good French champagne and a nice birthday cake were served to all the staff. Several group photos were taken at the Conference room as a remembrance of this significant occasion. Besides representing his 60th birthday, this year coincides also with the 40th anniversary of Fr. Sequeira in joining the Society of Jesus, the 20th year of being the Director of the Jesuits Schools in Macau and also the 10th year of the establishment of the Macau Ricci Institute of whom he is one of the founding members.

New Staff

On February 2, Carol Chao came to our Institute and started working as the production editor.