ANDThese are just two of the approximately 4,000 pieces on display in the museum space of the Scientific and Cultural Center of Macau (CCCM) and which aim to “give an idea of 5,000 years of Chinese history and art, ranging from the Neolithic period to the beginning of the 20th century. XX”, as explained by the director of the museum, Rui Dantas.
In this space, he told Lusa, visitors can understand “how Macau was created and the relationships that were established between Europe and Asia, from Macau”.
The collection has examples of the first Neolithic ceramics, even funerary terracotta, bronzes, song ceramics, objects for smoking opium, paintings, silverware and fans, among others.
One of the objects highlighted is a decorated bottle that was commissioned in 1522 by Jorge Álvares, a wealthy merchant from Freixo Espada à Cinta who had Fernão Mendes Pinto as a partner and was one of the Portuguese pioneers in the porcelain business.
The work marks the beginning of the porcelain trade, being one of the first commissioned pieces in the beginning of a vast journey of commercial exchanges, explained the director of the Museum of Macau.
Another outstanding piece is a Buddha signed by the ceramic artist Pun Yu Shu, disciple of the famous master of Shek Wan ceramics, and which was commissioned by the collector Silva Mendes, the first European to collect quality pieces with the characteristics of Shek Wan ceramics. .
The space has a note on the transfer (of the administration of the territory from Portugal to China), having exposed the last flag to be lowered in the official ceremonies of the transfer of the administration of Macau, in 1999.
That was precisely the year in which the CCCM was created, with the objective of “promoting knowledge of the relations between Europe and Asia”, purposes that are still maintained, with a strong component in training, according to the president of the Center, Cármen Mendes .
In this area, he highlighted the Chinese Culture and Language course, recalling that the Center was “the first institution to teach this course in Portugal”.
According to Cármen Mendes, this is a “live” center, with the passage of many researchers, doctoral students, scholarship holders and people interested in relations between Portugal and Asia, and others who simply cannot resist training offers such as, for example, on patuá (Macao Creole) or the guzheng (traditional Chinese music instrument), performed in this space.
“We have more and more visitors, not only in our library – which is the best library with works on Asia in Portugal, which brings together researchers and other people interested in Asia -, our museum and the training courses that we teach for specialists, academics and also civil society and the general public”, he told Lusa.
In terms of research, he underlined, “the center has played a pioneering role in connecting all academics working on Asia in Portugal, some Portuguese abroad and some foreigners with strong links to Portuguese academia”.
He also highlighted the Spring Conferences, which bring together around 180 speakers and the allocation of annual doctoral scholarships, financed by the Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT), which oversees the Centre, to doctoral students who carry out research on Asia.
The CCCM has 25 PhD fellows, volunteers who in this space achieve a great proximity to Asia.
“We have people here from the most diverse disciplines — from art, religion, language, culture, also history and economics, but there is something that unites them: A passion for Asia,” he said.
Cármen Mendes is excited about the creation of a scientific and academic incubator, which “will allow researchers, businessmen and even artists to have this connection to Macau, through the University of São José, the Catholic University of Macau”.
Regarding the library, the head of the CCCM’s Information and Documentation division, Helena Dias Coelho, presents it as primarily “aimed at the study of relations between Portugal and Macau” and, later, extended to the whole of Asia.
“We are mainly sought after by students of Asian studies, researchers, a lot by young higher education students, doctoral students and our documentation responds to this type of demand”, he told Lusa.
In this library, the most sought after works are the general ones on the history of Asia, but also the collections, namely of Monsignor Manuel Teixeira, a historian who lived in Macau, where he published more than a hundred books and hundreds of articles in the press.
It was he who donated his collection to the CCCM, which was duly treated and consulted, divided between books, photographs, texts and small notes.
In the archives of this library there is also a collection of microfilms consisting of around 7,000 microfilms, with more than 50,000 essential documents for the study of Macao and its institutions, between the beginning of the 17th century and the middle of the 20th century.
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