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Symbol of fecundity, renewal, and the perenniality of nature, recognized by many cultures as avatars of the gods, plants lie at the foundation of myths and legends through which primordial human groups explained the return of life. They attributed to them symbolisms that endure to this day; however, when it comes to the

The Inner Harbor of Macau, located in the estuary of the Pearl River downstream from its many tributaries, other waterways, rice paddies, and waste from human settlements, experienced persistent siltation throughout the period of Portuguese presence, a phenomenon that threatened to turn its waters into a sand and mudbank. For much of that time, the authorities in charge of the matter watched impassively as the phenomenon unfolded, occasionally taking only weak measures to remedy it, which proved entirely futile given the true magnitude of the phenomenon.

How is it that calligraphy has assumed such an important position among the Fine Arts in certain countries? There are contingent and instrumental reasons for this, such as the fact that bureaucracy plays a central role as a cultural agent, or the element that certain classical works hold a status of sacrality (or semi-sacrality). The present essay, moreover, concerns itself with a more structural reason, namely the disproportionate influence of the written word in relation to the spoken one, a situation more or less widespread across the high cultures of the world. In this context, an important difference between the Western Canon and, for example, that of China lies in the different values attributed to orality, that is, to the contribution made by the oral transmission of stories, knowledge, and wisdom. In the case of the West, considering the process of creation and re-creation of the Canon, there is a constant tension between new linguistic contributions and tradition, represented by the "life cycle" of its classical languages. In the case of China, on the other hand, the absolute authority of the classical language, and its relative stability over millennia, has served as a barrier to the entry of innovative (and heterogeneous) elements. Against this backdrop, it becomes understandable why, under contemporary linguistic change theory, the works of the Western Canon may be subject to revision.

More than one of the masterpieces of Chinese calligraphy, Wang Xizhi's "Preface to the Anthology of the Orchid Pavilion" offers a privileged view of the intellectual and artistic microcosm of the

From an early stage, gastronomy gradually became an identity marker of societies, establishing itself as an important contribution to their history.

Taking into account the rare but significant mentions of Lao Tse in the speculative thought of José Marinho, the essay seeks to demonstrate the similar theoretical and hermeneutical difficulties that Tao and the "insubstantial substance" pose to interpreters.

We propose to address the theme of negative or apophatic theologies, referring first and foremost to Daoism, Hinduism (Eternal Dharma), and Buddhism (Dharma of the Buddha)—major spiritualities of the East that interrelate and cross-pollinate each other in a broad sense within India, Thailand, Japan, China, etc. We will also take into account, however, spiritual or philosophical expressions that have emerged in other contexts, further to the west.

This essay reviews Alan Richard Sweeten’s latest book, entitled

Este artigo examina as artes visuais em Macau a partir de uma perspetiva temática apresentada cronologicamente. O seu objetivo é servir como texto introdutório para um desenvolvimento mais aprofundado de cada período histórico ou tema. Este texto centra-se na variedade artística de Macau, incluindo a pintura e a caligrafia tradicionais chinesas, as expressões artísticas modernas de tradição ocidental e os novos meios de comunicação, e analisa a sua internacionalização através de estratégias de coleção, abordando a representação no estrangeiro em exposições internacionais, ao mesmo tempo que avança as principais tendências inter(nacionais) que caracterizaram as artes em Macau ao longo do tempo.

This essay suggests that Mio Pang Fei is a visual artist imbued with a strong intellectual agency. His artistic life and practice have been devoted to originating a model for a cultural encounter between East and West, which he names Neo-Orientalism. To perform his intended project, he produced a substantial body of work and wrote various essays. Through these outputs, he exemplifies and communicates his cultural mission of opening new paths for a Chinese art which he considers to be in need for reformulation.

Macanese cuisine is based on history, social events, cultural perceptions and ethnic influences of people from different regions in the orient and beyond.

For many years, the Silk Road acted as a powerful vehicle for cultural and religious diffusion, in parallel with the trade that underpinned its very existence. The purpose of this article is to analyse Portugal's role in the construction of the sea routes and the way Macao fits into this context. The starting point is the history of the Silk Road, which shows that the various networks built up over time by monks, priests, soldiers, nomads and pilgrims, with their emphasis on religion and trade, also served as channels for the inter-civilizational dissemination of culture and knowledge. From the 15th century onwards, sea routes became an integral part of the existing networks. This was particularly the case for the routes developed by Portugal and Spain, who led the very first wave of globalisation. The later emergence of the great global empires of the 19

The paper focuses on the early modern imagination of China in Europe and its contribution to the Early Enlightenment. It sets out by recalling the precarious condition of the Early Modern missionary understood as a complex medium of intercultural exchange. In the second step, the article engages with the Jesuit mission from a media philosophical perspective and investigates the specific form of subjectivity it fostered to then focus on the intracatholic quarrels and the central figure of the missionary Domingo Navarrete who contributed to a mission-critical Enlightenment discourse that culminated in a politics of tolerance and the rise of European secularism.

The increased speed of communication, spatial compression, and the growing possibilities of new high-speed technologies, are among the major features of rapid changes leading the present-day highly interconnected and 'shrinking' world. In this context, social practices can benefit from newly emerged spaces of social interaction, which deeply modified the contours of social space, cultural communities, and — last but not least — scholarly activities. In this paper, I engage in a reflection on some of the shifts and innovations brought about by the process globalisation in philosophical practices. Doing philosophy in times of globalization comes with a plethora of new opportunities, yet it also gives rise to novel issues which call for further assessment. More specifically, I will focus on two features of current philosophical practices, namely, collaboration and pluralism: while doing philosophy has always involved forms of collaboration and pluralism, the process of globalisation widely contributed an unprecedented increase in collaborative research works, as well as a dramatic increase of philosophical pluralism. Lastly, I will suggest that the current status of philosophical practices, characterised with high degrees of diversity and increased levels of both intra-disciplinary and cross-disciplinary collaboration, encourages and urges metaphilosophical reflection: questions about the disciplinary identity, as well as about the philosophical method, have now become more salient than ever.

Pinqua’s example is one of the few we have of an outside merchant working for many years as a successful porcelain dealer and then becoming a Hong merchant. At the time of his appointment in 1782, Pinqua had thirty-five years of experience dealing with foreigners and had earned a good reputation as a dependable and trustworthy merchant. However, despite that past experience, it proved to be insufficient to overcome the challenges he faced as a Hong merchant. Not only did that new position require him to trade in a much wider variety of goods, but Pinqua also had to assume the debts of failed men, which meant he needed to trade in much larger volumes in order to generate enough income to service those payments. As a Hong merchant, he was called upon by Chinese officials — including the emperor — to supplement administrative budgets when they failed to meet the needs at hand. Even though Pinqua was said to be ‘rich’ when he began his appointment, within five years he was having serious cash flow problems. Pinqua’s demise is testimony to the negative influences that surrounded the Hong merchants and led to most of their businesses ending in failure.

The theoretical-practical thought of the Hindu philosophical systems of Sāmkhya and Yoga interprets the human relationship with Nature from the perspective of an interconnectivity that demands the abolition of egoic, territorial, and ontological boundaries, proposing a

Our aim is to revisit some of the defining themes of Fernando Pessoa's poetic thought, such as the experience of insubstantiality, emptiness, vagueness, and indeterminacy, in light of the current of Chinese thought in which they are most relevant: Taoism. Without claiming that Fernando Pessoa was directly influenced by Taoist thought, we believe that it offers a fruitful hermeneutic key for understanding various aspects of the Pessoa experience that clearly contrast with the dominant Western culture. Here we continue our attempt to read and rethink Pessoa from heterotopic, namely Eastern, perspectives that allow us to illuminate aspects of the Pessoa experience and thought that are less visible without this expatriation from the contours of his most immediate cultural tradition and horizon. Inspired by the work of François Jullien, who through "dépaysement" seeks in the Chinese language-thought the "alterity" and the contrast that allow him to better understand the unthought of European-Western culture from its Greek matrix, we intuit the fruitfulness of interpreting Pessoa's thought from that "heterotopia" par excellence which, as Foucault noted, is China—in this case, in its Taoist dimension—given the thematic affinities we shall demonstrate. It should be noted that viewing Pessoa from a radical cultural alterity is not without correspondence to the impulse of self-evasion and othering that is the essence of his heteronymic experience.

The introduction presents the reader with a justification for the need for developing a constructive dialogue between different philosophical and religious traditions emanating from Asia and Europe. More specifically, it recounts the legacy and emphasises the potentials of intercultural encounter that has symbolically connected the port cities Lisbon and Macao for more than 450 years. The contributions originate in the 2019 Lisbon−Macao Philosophy Symposium and are dedicated to the theme “Philosophical Encounters between the Lusophone- and the Chinese-speaking World as a Bridge between East and West”.

Chinese martial arts had a significant influence on the emergence of martial arts in culturally tributary nations of China, such as Korea, Vietnam, and particularly Japan. Of this Chinese legacy in Japan, Karate 空手, or Karate-dō 空手道, is arguably the most expressive, both in terms of its direct origins from Chinese martial arts and its global visibility, having become the most popular combat sport in the world today. The author traces the trajectory of the Chinese origins of Japanese karate through the triangular historical relations among the island of Okinawa, China, and Japan.

Through a dialogue between Christian and Buddhist philosophers, this article seeks to present the spirituality of these two cultures. The Judeo-Christian tradition emphasizes the aspect of transcendence in the relationship between the human and the divine. The Buddhist tradition privileges the immanent presence of God, which identifies with the world. An indeterminate reality that negates particularity, the divine in Buddhist culture is described as the "nothing that is everything." In a distinct manner, Christianity conceives the divine in personal terms and affirms that the relationship with it entails the safeguarding of alterity and individual identity.