Heritage | ‘Chapas Sínicas’ exhibition kicks off

The exhibition “Chapas Sínicas – Stories of Macau in Torre do Tombo,” kicked off last Friday at the Handover Gifts Museum.

The opening ceremony was officiated, among others, by the Minister of Culture and Tourism of the People’s Republic of China, Luo Shugang and the Minister of Culture of Portugal, Luís Filipe de Castro Mendes.

The event is part of the first “Encounter in Macau – Arts and Cultural Festival between China and Portuguese-speaking Countries,” organized by the Cultural Affairs Bureau.

The collection of “Chapas Sínicas,” which was known as “Official Records of Macau During the Qing Dynasty (1693-1886),” is composed of official correspondence between the Chinese and Portuguese authorities mainly from the early reign of Emperor Qianlong to the late reign of Emperor Daoguang in the Qing dynasty.
The collection is comprised of a total of 3,600 documents, including over 1,500 official letters written in Chinese and five books of Portuguese-translated copies of the letters kept by the Leal Senado of Macau, among other relevant documents that are part of the early history of Macau and were inscribed on the Memory of the World Register in October 2017.

The exhibition will be held in two phases: the first will be held until August 7 at the Handover Gifts Museum of Macao, and the second from August 21 until December 7 at the Archives of Macau.

Additionally, there will be a series of lectures focusing on the documental significance of “Chapas Sínicas” as well as on the preservation and digitization of records delivered by Zhang Wenqin, professor of History of Sino-Foreign Relations at Sun Yat-sen University; Professor Jin Guoping, researcher at the Macau Research Institute of Jinan University; and Silvestre de Almeida Lacerda, General Director of the General Directorate for Book, Archives and Libraries of Portugal.