See Table of Contents in the publication

This issue is dedicated to Macao, which has been elected as the Culture City of East Asia 2025, celebrating its rich cultural heritage and the role it plays as a hub for cultural exchange and cooperation in the East Asian region.

See Table of Contents in the publication

See Table of Contents in the publication

The exhibition Reflections of Maritime Connections: 16th–19th Century Sino-Portuguese Cultural Exchange offers a glimpse into the reciprocal gift exchanges between the Qing court and the Portuguese royal family, the Sino-Portuguese trade routes, and the cultural exchanges along the Maritime Silk Road. It examines Macao’s pivotal role as a vital transit hub during this significant period in world history. The show features 177 items from the Palace Museum, Portuguese cultural institutions such as the National Museum of Ancient Art, the Museum of the Orient, and the Ajuda Library, as well as departments of Macao’s Cultural Affairs Bureau. The exhibits cover export porcelain, Portuguese and Chinese porcelain pieces, and royal vessels and wares, showcasing the integration of Chinese and Western science and culture. This exhibition catalogue features images of all exhibits, valuable records, research papers, and captions. It is a vivid documentation of the mutual appreciation between Chinese and Portuguese civilisations.

See Table of Contents in the publication

The four dynasties of Zhou, Qin, Han, and Tang in the long history of ancient China not only created enormous material wealth, but also witnessed spectacular cultural prosperity. As glorious pinnacles of China’s cultural attainments, these four epochs contributed greatly to the development of human civilisation in general, and their economic, political, cultural, and social legacies can still be felt in China today. The system of rites and music of the Western Zhou dynasty constitutes the core of traditional Chinese thought and culture; The various systems established by the Qin dynasty after it unified ancient China form the foundation of China’s political civilisation for the next two thousand years; The opening of the Silk Road in the Han dynasty has made China known to the outside world as an advanced civilisation for the first time; The golden era of the Tang dynasty has been and will always be remembered by the Chinese people as a source of national pride and inspiration to move forward. These four dynasties represent the apogee of ancient Chinese civilisation and have left to posterity a large number of historical relics of tremendous cultural value, archaeological sites holding the keys to questions that have baffled later generations for thousands of years, and an intellectual legacy that one feels obliged to pass on to future generations.