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This Special Issue of Religions highlights the vital role museums play in mediating cultural values and educating the public about them [...]

Sacrifice to mountain and water spirits was already a state ritual in the earliest dynasties of China, which later gradually formed a system of five sacred peaks, five strongholds, four seas, and four waterways, which was mainly constructed by the Confucian ritual culture. A number of modern scholars have studied the five sacred peaks from different perspectives, yielding fruitful results, but major issues are still being debated or need to be plumbed more broadly and deeply, and the whole sacrificial system has not yet drawn sufficient attention. Applying a combined approach of religious, historical, geographical, and political studies, I provide here, with new discoveries and conclusions, the first comprehensive study of the formational process of this sacrificial system and its embodied religious-political conceptions, showing how these geographical landmarks were gradually integrated with religious beliefs and ritual-political institutions to become symbols of territorial, sacred, and political legitimacy that helped to maintain the unification and government of the traditional Chinese imperium for two thousand years. A historical map of the locations of the sacrificial temples for the eighteen mountain and water spirits is appended.

Cheng 誠 (sincerity) is one of the primary concepts in the Confucian tradition as well as Chinese intellectual history. Its rich implications involve dimensions of religion, ritual, folk belief, ethics, psychology, cosmology, metaphysics, aesthetics, and literature. In the Confucian classics, cheng is described as the “Dao of heaven”; humans through cultivation can reach the mysterious state of “the utmost sincerity functioning as spirits” and thus can “assist the transforming and generating power of heaven and earth.” Because of cheng’s rich, sacred, and mysterious implications, it has been regarded as the most difficult and perplexing of Chinese concepts. Scholars have long studied cheng mainly from the perspective of philosophy to analyze its ideological conceptions in the Confucian classics, resulting in fruitful and inspiring interpretations. However, because they have not traced the origin of cheng to its rich religious, ritual, and literary sources, their interpretations have been unable to answer the question: why is cheng covered with such a mysterious veil? In recent decades, some scholars have started exploring cheng’s relationship with ancient religious beliefs and rituals, but so far a comprehensive examination of the religious-ritual origin of this significant concept remains lacking. To discover cheng’s mysterious origins, we must apply a synthetic approach of etymological, religious, philosophical, and literary studies. Drawing upon both transmitted and excavated texts, this essay first analyzes the graphic-phonetic structure and semantic implications of the character cheng 成 (completion), which was the character cheng’s 誠 early form. It then examines the rich meanings implied in both characters related to sacrificial-divinatory rituals, including invoking the spirits with sincere writings, emotions, and oblations, in order to seduce them to descend and enjoy the offerings, as well as perfectively completing the human-spirit communication. Finally, the essay discusses how those religious beliefs and ritual ceremonies evolved into Confucian ethical values and aesthetic concepts, thus lifting the mysterious veil from cheng.

The authors would like to make the following corrections about the published paper [...]

Piracy is a phenomenon that remained present, almost continuously, in the history of Macau between the 16th and 20th centuries, assuming specific political, economic, and social contours according to the different conjunctures it underwent. Within a temporal framework extending from the mid-19th to the mid-20th century, and in a geographical context centered on the Pearl River Delta region, we attempt an approach to pirate activity as a social phenomenon, based on content analysis of news published in the Macau press between 1864 and 1933. To this end, in that spatiotemporal context, piracy practices are considered in terms of the (re)constructed identities within the group and in relation to other groups; the social space they occupied within the economic-social formation in which they were embedded; and the power relations they established with movements of complicity and of political and social repression.

During the period of Portuguese maritime expansion, it was common for sailors and navigators to attribute Portuguese toponyms to territories unknown to them, partly due to ignorance of the native language of the region and to facilitate the location and identification of the places reached. This was particularly true in Asian territory and more specifically in the South China Sea region.

During the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, an imperialist advance by the Western powers took place, which called into question Portugal's capacity for territorial maintenance. Among the spaces it dominated, Macau also became involved in the claims of other countries. France was especially interested in this territory, in the continuation of its expansion of interests in China and Indochina.

自十九世纪末起便背负财政负担，包括为支持帝汶而支付巨额年度补贴，澳门历任总督不得不寻求创造性的解决方案来满足政府收入需求。最受青睐的方案是将垄断制度包给本地财团，包括竞投鸦片专营权。这一制度也令“承充商”致富——他们是二十世纪初澳门最早的买办资本家——其中不少人将商业帝国拓展至银行业及其他服务领域。尽管最具持久性、也为澳门赢得区域及国际声誉的垄断行业是博彩业，但在战前时期成为政府库房主要支柱的“专营”却与鸦片相关。即使1927年总督巴博萨（Tamagnini Barbosa）按照国际联盟的压力，将鸦片专营权收归政府，也未能终结这一制度（鸦片收入直至1946年终止前，仍占政府收入的10%）。由于现有文献对博彩业的关注使其略显边缘化，本文旨在梳理这一今日被视为高度不道德且极具争议的行业的理据与辩护逻辑——尽管它在支撑本地经济方面曾获利丰厚。

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In Sino-Russian relations, the presence of the Guangdong–Hong Kong−Macao Greater Bay Area (GBA) plays a crucial role. Historically, exchange and co-operation between Russia and the GBA date back to 400 years ago, and can be divided into three phases: Qing–Tsarist Period, Revolutionary Period, and China–Soviet Period. While currently, new exchanges between Russia and the GBA are also developing, ranging from politics, military, economy, culture, aspects like education, religion, and media are also important. Under the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and the post-pandemic era, co-operation between the GBA and Russia is expected to be further developed.

According to the principle of bilingualism enshrined in the Basic Law of the MSAR and by virtue of Decree-Law No. 101/99/M of 13 December, normative acts must be published in the —

The influence of Japanese culture in Macao can be traced back to the arrival of the Portuguese in 1553. This influence permeated all levels of social life including words incorporated into the Macanese language (Patois), widespread use of Japanese garments (

Anqua was a prominent Chinese merchant who was active in Amoy in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. He supplied cargos to the ships of the East India companies as well as private vessels from India. In the early years of the eighteenth century, Anqua had a falling out with officials in Amoy which resulted in his business accumulating a substantial debt. He nonetheless continued to trade with foreigners and he owned a junk which sailed to Canton. In 1704, Anqua relocated to Ningbo and Chusan where he continued to supply cargos to foreign ships. He eventually gained the favour of an official in Beijing, who honoured him with a special licence to trade. In 1713, Anqua moved to Canton, but he was not able to gain a foothold in the trade there, as he had previously done in Amoy. In 1723, he returned to Amoy, and then disappears from the records.

A great upsurge in large-scale piracy between 1780 and 1810 had a tremendous impact on the Canton trade. Provincial officials, Hong merchants, and foreign traders repeatedly acknowledged that pirates, operating from bases scattered throughout the Pearl River Delta, greatly hindered commerce and communications. Several times pirates threatened Canton, each time triggering a great panic in the city. To help defray the high costs of defending the city and surrounding delta, officials called on the Hong merchants to “contribute” money. In fact, whenever the government’s coffers were insufficient, the government levied Hong merchants. Periodic exactions were a fact of life for Canton’s Hong merchants, who were assessed monetary quotas for famine and flood relief, construction and repairs of forts and bridges, and for extraordinary military campaigns, such as those against the Guangdong pirates. By the 1780s, contributions to the government were usually paid out in installments from the Hong merchants’ common chest, known as the Consoo Fund. This article, which is divided into three sections, examines first, the development of large-scale piracy in the Pearl River Delta in the context of increasingly strained Sino-Western relations; second, the development of a customary contribution system that Qing officials imposed on the Hong merchants and its repercussions on them and the Canton trade; and third, the important role of Hong merchants in the defence of Canton between 1804 and 1810, at the height of the pirate crisis.

Since the Late Antiquity that the study of Classical Languages, its authors and civilisations, has been a cornerstone for what we commonly call

This article reflects on the landscape of translation activities in Mainland China and Macao during the period between 1911 and 1949 of the twentieth century, with the primary objective of comparing translation activities between these two territories from the perspective of social and political contexts. This article is based on the linguistic theory of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA). Over the course of 38 years, translation activity in Mainland China entered a new period, with such activity undertaken by a new generation of intellectuals carrying the specific mission of reforming China. Western culture was introduced into China through the translation of literary works from other countries such as Japan, France, Russia, among others. In comparison, although Macao was a territory of China, its translation activity demonstrated a different procedure. Translation activity was based on the domains of administration and education.

The Great Navigation Age began in the early 15th century and concluded at the end of the 17th century, spanning nearly three centuries. This period is divided into four stages according to its characteristics and nature. The first stage encompasses the offshore oceanic voyages initiated by Zheng He (鄭和), Emperor Chengzu of the Ming dynasty (明成祖), and Prince Henrique of Portugal. The second stage comprises the transoceanic voyages undertaken by Christopher Columbus and others. The third stage is defined by circumnavigation, represented by Ferdinand Magellan, Del Cano, and Francis Drake, among others. The fourth stage involves voyages through the polar ice seas, predominantly led by navigators from England, France, and Holland, with Russia maintaining a persistent and dominant role in these expeditions. Russia's navigation in the polar ice seas is also categorized as offshore oceanic voyaging. The Great Navigation Age constitutes the most illustrious chapter in maritime history during the era of wooden sailing vessels.

Until now, we had not found definite records on ship physicians before the Ming dynasty. However, military physicians had existed for a long history in China, and they had some relationships with ship physicians. In order to guarantee the success of Zheng He’s voyages, the Chinese imperial court supported the medical preparations, and especially arranged ship physicians for the fleets. The jobs of Chinese physicians included: curing sailors, preventing diseases, keeping healthcare, gathering herbs, and buying medicines. When navigator Zheng He died, the official mechanism of ship physicians in China had disappeared. After the First Opium War, they just resurfaced again. However, Chinese doctors proved their value in ancient history. They perfected the theory of Chinese medicines, replenished knowledge about overseas medical herbs, explored nautical and tropical diseases, propagated traditional Chinese medical science to the world, and expanded the commercial roads of Chinese medicaments.

The mid-20th century represented a crucial period as a turning point in the development of female consciousness, with literary works written by women authors portraying the diversity of female figures of that era. What is important to note is that, despite their dissimilar origins and ages, or different cultural educations from various periods, their fates all point to similar ends, and it is within these similarities and differences that the transformations of female consciousness are concealed.