Macau Ricci Newsletter 9

No. 9 － June 2007

New Comer

On January 18, Sandy Lei started working as secretary of the Macau Ricci Institute.

Forums

From January through May of 2007 the MRI held four forums.

On February 7, José Maneiras and Carlos Marreiros, two well-known and respected architects of Macao responsible for many of its landmarks, discuss the future of urban development in the SAR in the monthly forum entitled "Heritage and Urban Development in Macao".

On March 20, Fr. Louis Ha from the Diocese of Hong Kong presented "Evolution of the Diocese of Hong Kong from 1949 to 1997", with its focus on the relationship between the Catholic Church and society and the theological reflection from specific incidents.

On May 28, Jean-François Huchet, Director of the French Centre for Research on Contemporary China, shares his view on the relationship between China and India. Although there is competition in spite of closer relations, as the two countries are going to weight in the coming future a significant part of the Asian and the world trade and investment, the evolution of their economic and political relationship will have a great impact in the region.

For the details of the forum on May 8, see the “Publications” section.

Reform in Chinese Cross Currents (CCC)

The Chinese Cross Currents (CCC) celebrated its third anniversary on January 27, 2007, and the journal has undergone sea change since its first issue in 2007, 4.1. Yves Camus, Editor of the CCC, reviewed that in the past issues a special theme has been selected to “span some of the more pressing issues in our societies”. He then explained in the Editorial, “but some of our readers, the Editorial Committee felt that the advantages of focusing on one main theme in each issue would be increased by offering some broader and contrasting perspectives on the expression of present day cultural life, particularly as far as cultural life in China is concerned. In doing so, the various expectations of the readers, who live in very diverse cultural milieus, would be better fulfilled. At the same time, the specificity and the research orientations of the Macau Ricci Institute would also, naturally, be enhanced.”

Some of the tenets of the change in the editorial policy are, namely:

First of all, the main objective of Chinese Cross Currents is, as before, to give a platform to the expression of present Chinese cultural trends. That is why each issue will have one or two contributions that give a voice to some of these trends, no matter if they are related directly or indirectly to present day Chinese studies.

To broaden the platform just mentioned, each issue will comprise several sections relevant to various concerns of which the following categories have been selected: world, society, arts and letters, history and culture, thought and spirituality, debates and features, and reviews (books, films, plays, exhibitions, etc.). The content of some sections will vary, on an irregular basis, in order to widen or deepen the relevance of Chinese Cross Currents' offerings. These sections are meant to debate or reflect contrasting views, ideally having one contribution by a Chinese author and a second by a foreigner or vice versa. As before, both will appear in Chinese and in English.

Contributions that emphasize the humanities will have priority. Finally the reviews section at the end of each issue will solicit scholarly and academic publications and will be open to the expression of literary, dramatic, musical or visual arts, early or modern, as they are presented to the general public.

Contents of Chinese Cross Currents (CCC), 4.1 and 4.2

The opening text of the first reformed issue of the CCC discusses the enlargement of the Security Council of the United Nations (China is one of the five permanent members). Novosseloff pointed out that the original design was mean to ensure prompt and effective action, but now representativeness has become a greater concern, in particular between the developed and the developing countries. This was exactly what the author tried to attack. He further warned that with low efficiency some nations would rather go around the mechanism. An article published in Xinhua’s International Herald Leader analyses the reason for the Chinese misjudge of the world. In the new Thought & Spirituality section two texts, one by Thomas Moore and Yves Camus, Editor of the CCC, discuss spiritual formation: the former argues that care of the soul needs observance, which requires cooperation of reason and imagination by every bit of learning, every scrap of sense, and all kinds of reading; the latter advises that “religious studies” in universities needs practice, and education about morality cannot be economical by ignoring the importance of this personal cultivation through self engagement into a spiritual quest.

The Society section second issue of 2007 deals with smoking. Hedley compares the success in America and Europe in tobacco control with Hong Kong’s failure through an evidence-based approach. Mao Zhengzhong and Hu The-wei, by using the figures in 2003, prove that smoking has placed an enormous economic burden on the society in terms of medical expenses. The Thought & Spirituality section covers a speech of His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI delivered at Regensburg in September last year, whose values had been unfortunately drowned by anger in the Islamic community, with commentaries of Fang Zhirong, arguing that we must admit the fact that ancient Greek language and culture were used as tools for God’s revelation. The encounter and amalgamation of the Hebrew and Greek cultures have provided us a mirror for the encounter between Chinese culture and Christianity, the former being God-sown “sees of the Word” yet to be discovered. The Pope’s lecture can serve a reference to relive the faith from New Confucianism. Through this Chinese culture can be connected to the Hebrew and Greek cultures.

Publications

On February 7, the trilingual book “The Technique of the Mise en Abyme as employed in André Gide's The Counterfeiters”, by Artur Wardega, came out of the Central Compilation and Translation Press (CCTP) in Beijing. The book was formally launched in Macau on May 8 by Eugene Eoyang, Chair Professor of Humanities, Head of the English Department, and Director of General Education at Lingnan University in Hong Kong, Liu Dong, Professor of Comparative Literature at Beijing University, Fr Wardega and Patrick Li Feng, Associate Chief Editor of Chinese Cross Currents.

Symposium

Our annual Symposium, entitled “The Individual and Society in Modern Chinese Literature”, has been scheduled on November 29-30 and December 1. We are now inviting scholars from Macau, Hong Kong, and China and abroad to present their papers.

Researchers' Activities

On March 15, Artur Wardega went to Singapore for the opening of the “Conversation at Cana” in Singapore’s Catholic Centre and for giving a talk related to the launching of his book “The Technique of the Mise en Abyme as employed in André Gide's The Counterfeiters” at the Center on the following day.

On March 26 with Yves Camus he went to Beijing on the invitation of the Remin University to attend the World Conference on Sinology on March 26-28 in which he presided a session “Changes of the ’Chinese Image’ in the Study of Sinology”. Fr. Camus delivered a paper on “Jesuits’ Journeys in Chinese Studies” and met Prof. Yang Huilin.

Tereza Sena gave a public lecture on “Macau’s Cemeteries: The Public Cemetery of S. Miguel Arcanjo” on March 27, at the Centre for Catholic Studies, Chinese University of Hong Kong. She made a presentation on May 28 to a group of students of Political Studies, University of New York on “Macau’s Historical Background”.

Visits

On February 1, Prof. Janusz Wisniewski, pro-rector of Adam Mickiewicz Poznań University of Poland, together with Prof. Aleksander Mikołajczak and his wife Prof. dr hab. Mariola Mikołajczak from the same university (Collegium Maius), paid a courtesy visit to the MRI.

On April 25, Mr. Zeng Yuan, independent writer and literary critic based in Yichang (Hubei, China) and co-organizer of the MRI International Symposium 2007, paid a visit to the Institute.

From April 25 till May 20, Miss Sheila Zandonai, PhD candidate from the Paris EPHE prepared her thesis under the guidance of Tereza Sena, César Guillén Nuñez and the help of our Librarian, Jerónimo Hung.

On May 25-26, a delegation from the Sun Yatsen University, led by Prof. Theirry Meynard, S.J., came from Guangzhou, to invite the MRI to co-organize a conference on the Polish Jesuit Missionaries in Chinese History.

On May 28, the Fulbright Foundation from New York paid a visit to the MRI.