Macau Ricci Newsletter 7

No. 7 － August 2006

Acta Pekinensia

On February 14th and 15th the MRI held its first working meetings with the members of the AP project team to evaluate one third of the work and to boost the coordination for a better progress of the common work on Kilian Stumpf’s manuscript . The meeting was presided by Yves Camus and Luís Sequeira and gathered Prof. Paul Rule from Australia, Prof. Antonio de Saldanha from Portugal, Prof. Claudia von Collani from Germany.

Forums

From February till middle July the MRI held five monthly Fora on various topics related to the Chinese present and history. The first one focused on actuality and Qigong movement and China’s religious question. It was given by a specialist on this question, Dr David A. Palmer, who is an expert on the history of religion, society and politics in Chinese contemporary society. The MRI Forum for March was dedicated to the Fine Arts, especially to Giuseppe Castiglione, S. J. ― An Italian Master Painter in the Court of Three Emperors, by Robert Brothers, from the Peabody Essex Museum, Salem Massachusetts, and the Royal Asiatic Society, Hong Kong. He is also an enthusiastic amateur historian specializing in the activities of the Jesuit Missionaries in Japan and China and a frequent visitor to the Macau Ricci Institute. April’s Forum was  dedicated to the question of living in Macau and China today– living with the Border, presented by Werner Breitung, professor of Geography currently teaching at the Sun Yatsen University in Guangzhou. The Forum was chaired by Eric Sautedé, CCC Chief Editor. The well illustrated and well researched topic was of concern for many of us living between HK and Mainland China’s Gongbei and Zhuhai border cities. The last two Fora of May and July were dedicated consecutively to the Chinese past and present. The one which focused on China’s glorious history of discovery and expansion dealt with Zheng He’s Fleet ― The Pinnacle of Ancient Chinese Shipbuilding, presented by two speakers, Vong Kit Han and Ana Brito, both from Maritime History Unit of the Macau Maritime Museum. The last before summer holidays Forum dealt with the economic and socio- political matters for today’s China and was a reflection on China and Capitalism presented by Dr. Christopher A. McNally, who is a Research Fellow in Politics, Governance and Security Studies at the East-West Center in Honolulu, Hawaii. He has authored numerous publications, including most recently in The China Quarterly, Business and Politics and Comparative Social Research. He is now editing the volume, Capitalism in the Dragon's Lair — China's Emergent Political Economy.

神州交流― Chinese Cross Currents (CCC)

The spring issue 3.1 came with the rather unusual title-dossier “Tourism and Culture” and brought a scope of essays related to China’s past discoveries and adventure, as well to the question about China’s tourism nowadays, traveling and mass sightseeing and Chinese tourists’ “cultural shock” . The reader can enjoy the story of Admiral Zheng He’s maritime expedition to South East Asia in the literary account of Prof. Roderick Ptak. He might browse through the reflections of Prof. Zhang Liang, who as an urban specialist, initiates the reader with contemporary forms of Chinese tourism, artificially focused on consumerism and passe-temps. At the other extreme of the spectrum, Prof. Michael Saso recalls what he has learned in his “traveling to the Sacred Mountains of China”, and his conversations with Daoist Masters. Getting closer to Macau, Prof. Mao Sihui warns about the “new challenges for Macao in the age of simulation.” And then two special features follow: the first in memory of Ba Jin who recently passed away (2005), by Prof. Xu Youyu and Françoise Le Corre’s “planet of the birds” on migration without boundaries. The end of volume contains Book Reviews, with contributions by Yves Camus (on Chinese-Western Exchanges), Dominique Tyl (on The Qing Conquest and on Chinese colonial writing on Taiwan) and Artur Wardega (on Chinese Literary Theory and Yu Hua’s recent novel).

The second, green jacketed CCC volume 3.2 contains a palette of the proceedings of the MRI International Symposium related to its theme of History and Memory.  Zhao Shiyu’s article on ancestral symbols and clan history shows how legendary stories shape and frame clan identification during Ming Dynasty’s migration from Shanxi. The following article reflects on narrative ethics while examining the role of individual as a historical subject or as constructed subject or even as a member of a later audience. The other  focus is on the objectivity of historical memory and gives a panorama of ideas. Then there is a photos memory on Chinese history and two articles which continue the investigation of memory and question its duty and ability of preservation for future generations. The issue ends with the book reviews section, with contribution of MRI members and collaborators.  The variety of subjects is well represented throughout this section.

Researcher’s activities

During the spring semester Yves Camus has attended three conferences; the first one on April 21st at the Baptist University of Hong Kong, organized by Department of Governement and International Studies, “East-West Talks”. Together with Eric Sautedé he was invited by Prof. Richard Balme to present MRI activities and Jesuits involved in Chinese Studies.  The second one took place in Macau on May 24th -25th and was organized by the Macao Polytechnic Institute. The two days symposium was dedicated to Francis Xavier and was entitled: Interaction of Cultures and Religions: the 500th Anniversary of St. Francis Xavier’s Birth. The MRI director,  Luís Sequeira as well as our MRI researchers were present at that conference.  Later on he was invited to Shanghai, to Fudan University and its conference organized on June 7th – 8th entitled “Hermeneutics of the Classics” where he delivered paper on Christian Anthropology in Paul’s Letters. Earlier in the year, at the end of February, he went together with Artur Wardega to Beijing for visits to Publishing Houses and for discussing the possibility of the distribution of CCC in China. Their second exploration trip to Beijing in the end of June was focused on the possibility of publication of Artur Wardega’s literary study on “Mise en Abîme” at the Central Compilation & Translation Press. Following this trip to Beijing he made also a short visit to Xi’an Normal University where he was introduced by his friend, Prof. You Xilin to his recently opened Institute of Christian-Cultural Studies, and to Urumuqi’s Book Fair, in capacity of the CCC Book Review Editor. Coming back to Macau he immediately went to Taiwan (Kaohsiung – Tainan), where he visited Zhong Lihe’s House Museum and attended Jesuit gathering in Changhua. Meanwhile, among the special events, we might note the opening of the Grand Ricci Dictionary Exhibition at the Commercial Press of Beijing held on February 24th in Beijing.

César Guillen-Nuñez was mostly busy with the research and writing of his book and scholarly articles. On January 13th he attended a colloquium organized by the Macau Inter-University Institute entitled : “200 Years of Smallpox Vaccines in Macau”.  His contributions to the CCC book review session are: Robert Bevan’s  The Destruction of Memory: Architecture at War, Reaktion Books Ltd., London, 2006, CCC 3.2., April-June, 2006, pp. 144-148., and Ralph Dekoninck’s  Ad Imaginem: Status, functions et usages de l’image dans la literature spirituelle jésuite du XVIIe siècle,  Librairie Droz S.A., Genève, 2005, CCC 3.3., July-September, 2006, pp. 105-110. He also attended the international symposium, Interaction of Cultures and Religions: the 500th Anniversary of St. Francis Xavier’s Birth, at the Macao Polytechnic , as well as the conference by Wang Yudong, Dept. of Art History, University of Chicago, presented at the History Seminar Series No. 4, Faculty of Social Sciences & Humanities, University of Macau, held on May 24th and 25th .

Tereza Sena made on 2nd of May a public presentation of the reprint of Ó-Yoné e Ko-Haru by Wenceslau de Moraes in the book’s public launching in Macau (Auditorium of the Consulate General of Portugal) and was interviewed by Tiago Azevedo from Jornal Tribuna de Macau who has published under the title: “História ‘Wenceslau de Moraes  deve ser mais reconhecido’“. The following day (May 3rd ) she was interviewed by Isabel Castro from Hoje Macau for the article: “Um Outro Wenceslau”. Still on this occasion she also published her introduction and edited the reprint of Wenceslau de Moraes, Ó-Yoné e Ko-Haru (1923) by the Portuguese National Priniting Press, Lisbon, Impresa Nacional-Casa da Moeda, in January 2006. Later on in June, she published in Macauan essay “Carl T. Smith – Uma instituição”,  Macau, IVª S., (3), pp. 41-46. She has presided the MRI Monthly Forum 20, on “Giuseppe Castiglione, S.J. : An Italian Painter in the Courts of Three Emperors”, by Prof. Robert Brothers, and the MRI Monthly Forum 22: on “Zheng He’s Fleet : The Pinnacle of Ancient Chinese Shipbuilding”, by Vong Kit Han and Ana Brito. She has attended Macau Polytechnic Institute International Symposium on “Interaction of Cultures and Religions” (see above), and Colóquio Lusofonia: “Os Caminhos da Escrita”, org. by Instituto Português de Oriente, Macau, June 19-20.

In February Artur Wardega, on the invitation of Macau Inter-University Institute, initiated its Public Seminar Series and delivered four lectures for the local academic community. The first two lectures were dedicated to “Romanticism in Literature and Music” (Europe and Middle East, Feb. 28th ) and the second one on (Orientalism and Sino-European encounters, March, 7th ). The last two were on : “Don Quixote de la Mancha or the Wisdom of Humanist Faith”  (Cervantes’ Novel and Three Spanish Mystics, March 21st ) and on “Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart – An Intimate Companion For Life” (Growing with Mozart’s Music, April 18th ). At the end of May he went together with Yves Camus to Beijing to meet Prof. Wang Haiyan from Beijing Foreign Languages Institute on the project of his academic dissertation related to André Gide and “la mise en abîme” to be published in China. He paid a visit to his friends, Prof. Zhang Xiping, director of Beijing Foreign Studies University and of the Research Center of Overseas Sinology, and to Prof. An Qingfu from Dep. of History and Culture of Renmin University. After that, on June 7th he went to Shanghai to attend the three days International Symposium on Translation and Hermeneutical Interpretation of Classical Works, held by Fudan University.

Conference on “Hermeneutics of the Classics”, then together with Yves Camus he went to Xi’an on a visit paid to Prof. You Xilin and his Institute of Christian-Cultural Studies. From Xi’an he went to Urumuqi (Xinjiang) for the China National Book Fair and he returned to Macau on June 18th. A day later, he went to Taiwan, Kaohsiung – Tainan where he paid a visit to Zhong Lihe’s House Museum in Pingdong’s Meinong and attended Jesuit gathering in Changhua.  On August the 1st he went to Beijing and than he spent two weeks in Shaanxi, Xi’an and Hanzhong working on his research.

Visits

On February 3rd there was a visit of the pipe organ maker Mr. Yves Koenig from Sarre Union, France and Fr. Philippe Charru, S.J., organ master (Organiste titulaire) de St Ignace de Paris, France for the project of making a new pipe organ to be installed in Macau Seminary Church of St Joseph.  Two French organists have chosen the appropriate place for the future pipe organ and start to work on the appropriate instrument for Bach and Baroque music to be played in Macau. Luís Sequeira has taken charge of this project while closely collaborating with Macau Diocese and Instituto Cultural.