From the very beginning, Chinese people have highly attached importance to marriage which was not simply an agreement between 2 people but a matter related to the whole family. Comparing to commoners, emperor’s wedding has become the ceremony of the country. The rituals were complicated and grand, and there were a lot of symbolic meanings about good wishes embedded in the decorations and manners of the ceremony. Recently, the education team has visited the exhibition “Ceremony and Celebration – The Grand Weddings of the Qing Emperors” held at Hong Kong Heritage Museum exploring more of the hidden meanings behind in the practices and objects used in the emperor’s wedding ceremony.

On the theme of grand weddings, the exhibition included an interactive education zone and two exhibiting areas displaying the wedding related artefacts of imperial family and commoners respectively. The exhibits of the Qing emperors’ weddings including various kinds of dowry and wedding ritual object were selected from the rare and unique collections of The Palace Museum.

As the leader of the country, the Qing emperors often expressed their thoughts and wishes about cultural integration between Manchu and Han Chinese in their weddings. In the exhibition, one can see that their ritual objects were still embedded with the traditional symbolic patterns such as “Double Happiness”, “Butterfly” and “Bat” which were commonly used in the previous dynasties governed by Han people; moreover, their wedding robes also came with the imperial symbols - “Dragon” and “Phoenix”, showing not only the highest authority but also the quest on getting themselves into the culture of Han Chinese. Nevertheless, they still looked for retaining the traditional culture of Manchu. One can find that the wedding gifts of empress also included a certain military equipment, for example, one of the exhibits called “Iron helmet with gold filigree” which was only for ritual use in the wedding strongly revealed the spirit of military of Manchu.

Besides emperors, commoners also looked for being blessed. The exhibition displayed a series of wedding artefacts from different collections of local museums including bridal sedan, embroidered suits, décor of wedding banquet, etc. Without expensive materials and delicate crafts, all of these wedding objects were filled with different symbolic patterns showing not only the spirit of wedding traditions but also different characteristics of the local culture.

To enhance audiences’ understanding on the traditional weddings, an interactive zone was designed for different age groups of the public experiencing the process of “Qing Emperors’ wedding ceremony” and learning the common symbolic patterns used in commoners’ weddings. Meanwhile, an activity called “Come on! Let’s weave happiness!” encouraged children and parents to enjoy the delights of the traditional culture through making crafts together.

For both imperial family and local families, the traditional patterns and objects used in the weddings have been retained or altered in accordance to different circumstances and time. However, people’s belief in well-being has never changed.  It would become different forms of wish sharing to the ones we care of.

Education team took part in “Living with Bamboo: Museum of Art is Here” Workshop in Saint Louis School (Primary Section). Based on the theme of bamboo, the workshop allows people to think more about how bamboo connects with art and daily lives, digging the indefinite possibilities of ordinary things through the implication of bamboo in traditional Chinese art and culture.

This workshop was a part of the education programme“Living with Bamboo: Museum of Art is Here”, in which the exhibition was already launched at the Exhibition Gallery of the Hong Kong Central Library from September to October. Meanwhile, the outreach workshops have been being held in local primary and secondary schools for four months. This education programme was presented by the Leisure and Cultural Services Department, and organized by the Hong Kong Museum of Art in partnership with the Academy of Visual Arts of Hong Kong Baptist University and the Design and Cultural Studies Workshop.

There were over a hundred students as participants of the workshop, which was different from the small-class workshops. By this opportunity, the education team has also learned how to interact with a big class of audience. 

During the workshop, the tutors showed consideration for students in different classes via plenty of interactive activities such as  inviting students to join, instructing the whole class to think and even walking to the audience seats in order to raise the interests and excitements about bamboo.

Bamboo is a material being easy to modify. It can become many useful daily objects like chopsticks, sleeping mats, toys…… and more. In fact, people can solve problems once using their imagination and creativity. Via diverse tangible teaching materials, students could experience and feel the connection between bamboo and our daily lives immediately.

In the workshop, the tutors invited students to guess the functions of various bamboo-made products seeing how people put their imagination and creativity into practice through bamboo for satisfying the necessity of living.

In order to share the delight of the traditional culture with students in the future, education team looks forwards to intergrating the experience from this activity into the workshops.  

For preparing “Primary School Learning Kit”, the team is currently exploring different traditional patterns and their related stories. To investigate the subject, Chinese ornamentation, our tutors has visited the exhibition – “Legend of Hong Kong Ware: Yuet Tung China Works” at Sun Museum learning more about the local ware's historical background and decorative painting style.

The birth of “Yuet Tung China Works” factory was highly associated to the early industrial development of Hong Kong. The infamous Canton porcelain was originally produced in Guangzhou. During the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), the foreign merchants mostly gathered in Guangzhou for business and had demands on porcelains for overseas market. The local porcelain merchants especially ordered the plain white porcelain bodies from Jingdezhen in Jiangxi Province and finished with add-on decorative images and firing process in Guangzhou. This new polychrome porcelain was called “guangcai ware”. At the beginning of the 20^th century, due to the political instability in Guangzhou, the porcelain merchants relocated their business to Hong Kong, which was even more influenced by western culture, boosting the development of guangcai ware in Hong Kong.

Since the early Hong Kong guangcai ware was produced for foreign merchants, the decorative patterns on the ware highly represented the interest and social status of the end purchasers. In order to give an impression of elegance and prestige to the foreign buyers, the themes of the main visual on the ware were usually related to the traditional Chinese symbols such as floral, birds and butterflies, etc. and the decorative patterns were filled with different glaze in a range of vivid colours like pinkish rose, sky blue, grass green, metal gold, etc. The Hong Kong guangcai ware was treated as a status symbol at the time.

The production of guangcai ware was a complicated yet technical process. At first, similar to the idea of printmaking, the artisans would create a pattern layout on plates and then transfer those images on the porcelain body by printing technique. Furthermore, the artisans would play the role as a painter filling colours and creating thick and thin lines on the ware by using various sizes of paintbrush. The process demanded the artisans focusing on the work and handling every step with care in order to maintain the high quality of guangcai ware. The artisans’ serious and precise attitude toward the porcelain production reminded us to pay attention on the detail of what we encounter every day.

In the exhibition, besides learning something about porcelain painting techniques such as composition, colour tone and line drawing, our tutors also found that the traditional Chinese patterns were able to record people’s interest and background, and to tell stories about the patterns’ origin. One can imagine the past artisans painted the gorgeous ornamentation and have already helped in raising the popularity of our local culture. Today, the production of porcelain emphasizes on efficiency. “Guangcai ware” and other traditional crafts have hardly been seen; however, the cultural values behind them still remain just like the caring thought of artisans which becomes very precious today.

The education team has joined the guided tour  of "Living with Bamboo: Museum of Art is Here" exhibition at Hong Kong Central Library on September 12.

This exhibition is a groundbreaking education activity held by Hong Kong Museum of Art during the recent renovation period. Through the topic of bamboo, it displays a series of linkage between our daily lives and arts. The co-organizers include Design and Cultural Studies Workshop and Hong Kong Baptist University (Academy of Visual Arts).

Bamboo is strong, elastic and easy to modify. As a material for making daily utensils, it can be everything. From sweaters, brush holders, writing scripts, cooking food, houses to toothpicks, one can also find the use of bamboo.

Bamboo looks simple, hollow and straight. As a symbol of the traditional culture, it represents simplicity, humility and integrity. The literati appreciated these characters so much. Via the calligraphies, paintings and crafts, they often expressed their feeling and interest in bamboo.

On the other side, a huge display of Bamboo Theatre in the exhibition is also impressive. Indeed, scaffolding with local materials was once popular in China. The scaffolding masters in the northern China mainly used wood; however, the ones in the southern area preferred using bamboo. According to the historical record, on January 16, 1889, the Gate of Supreme Harmony in the Forbidden City was burned, but the marriage ceremony of Guangxu Emperor was coming. In accordance to the tradition of Qing Dynasty, the Emperor and Empress were required to walk through the gate during the ceremony. Since the repairment took time, the imperial officers immediately arranged a group of the scaffolding masters to build a decorated tent of the Gate of Supreme Harmony. It has been told the tent was strong and people were hard to identify if it was real.

Fortunately, the bamboo-scaffolding technique remains in Hong Kong. Every year during different festive and seasonal ceremonies, scaffolding masters will make use over 10 thousands of bamboo stick to create a theatre and disassemble it right after the ceremony.  Through such magical technique, one can see how brilliant and charming the Chinese crafts can be.

In the recent 100 years, transforming from fishing-port to metropolis, Hong Kong has undergone a rigid development. Today, even Hong Kong’s outlook is highly urbanized, we can still trace back many significant people and things in the past. Organized by CnC, Joint Publishing (H.K.) and City University of Hong Kong (CityU), an old photos related exhibition, called as “Envision Hong Kong”, has been launched at public libraries and bookstores to recall our collective memory of Hong Kong.

The exhibition consists of 5 historical photos in various subject contents including: health, sport, transportation, livelihood and construction. Based on the subjects taken, a group of CityU students have further interpreted and studies the forgotten issues at the time. During the interview, the participated students mentioned the preparation was a difficult yet meaningful task to them. For example, in the session of “Construction”, the students made use of a historical photo taken in quarry, together with different newspaper clips related to mining industry, revealing the different aspects of the workers that moment. The special arrangement gave audience not only a deeper understanding of the declining industry but also an opportunity to think from different perspectives encouraging a mindset of inquiring.

At the beginning of the workshop, through using photos of Chai Wan landmark, the student tutors tended to lead audience being more concerned about their community. They especially designed a broad game, called “Picking Your Chai Wan Landmark” to enhance the interaction and discussion among the group. Since some of the participants have lived in the Chai Wan for long time, they ended up being an advising team and telling the others about the lifestyle and culture of Chai Wan district. The interactive discussion provided an opportunity for everyone in the workshops to know more about the functions and meanings of the landmarks in Chai Wan. Via this workshop, we found that this education activity is not like a traditional one-way teaching format; instead, to gear up more sharing and interpretation from the topic, tutors should alter the content and lesson flow for the needs of different participants.

In August, the education team visited the“Giuseppe Castiglione – Lang Shining New Media Art Exhibition” co-organized by City University of Hong Kong and National Palace Museum. The exhibition displayed a series of masterpieces from the Qing court Italian painter, Giuseppe Castiglione (1688-1766), with new digital technologies presenting a brand-new experience to audience.

It’s said that the traditional Chinese art emphasizes on “freehand” style in which a certain details of subject are often less emphasized. Instead, the western artists in the 17^th century rather pursued a realistic approach especially on depicting light and shadow, flesh tones, etc.

Milan, a leading city with strengths in the western arts, was the birthplace of Giuseppe Castiglione. When Castiglione was young, he studied painting in Milan; however, ended up contributing the most to the Chinese imperial court painting scene for the rest of his life. His experience in art reveals a unique blend of European and Chinese themes and techniques.

In the early Qing dynasty, as one of Jesuits, Castiglione initially failed to start missionary work due to Kangix’s prohibition on religion in China; however, through his talented painting skills, he became a court artist serving 3 generations of Chinese Emperor including: Kangxi, Yongzheng and Qianlong. At the beginning of work in the court, he faced a lot of difficulties. For example, he was requested by Kangxi Emperor to do portrait paintings in front view without shading effects; on the other side, the western oil-base painting medium he used to use didn't work well with the common painting surface, Chinese silk, in China. In order to cater for the needs, Castiglione developed his own style in painting via using front light instead of high side light to suggest the sense of three dimensions, white colours to highlight the shiny surfaces especially on animal hairs and focus perspective to enhance the effects of depth. As a result, his attempts finally geared up the new mix of Eastern and Western arts.

Extended from Castiglione’s innovative spirit, the exhibition highly utilized new media to re-interpret some of his masterpieces. For instance, one of his famous works One Hundred Horses was a long scroll in which depicted various kinds of horse in different lively postures. In the session of “Discover the Painting in Castiglione's Drawing”, through using interactive augmented-reality installation, the audience was able to compare the original draft of One Hundred Horses with the final artwork and see not only the development of the painting but also the precise craftsmanship of the artist. On the other side, in the session of “Everyone can paint One Hundred Horses”, just like working with Castiglione, the audience was able to participate in colouring the horses on the digital painting scroll via stylus pens.

From Castiglione’s interpretations on traditional Chinese art in the Qing period to the exhibition’s new presentation on Castiglione’s masterpieces today, we have learnt that a deep understanding on our current interpreting methods and core values, and a quest for the best solutions of work are the keys to help us revitalize the valuable matters.

During the hot summer days, would you find any different color in the cloudless sky? In fact, the nature is always with us. Once observing it carefully, not only can you feel something different but also draw something unique.

In early July, to learn more about the landscape paintings of the Impressionist master Claude Monet (1840-1926), the education team attended the exhibition, “Claude Monet: The Spirit of Place” at Hong Kong Heritage Museum.

In the exhibition, the team experienced different seasonal atmosphere via the presentation of color, light and shadow in Monet’s paintings. Monet used various warm tones of Spring sky to present the cheerful feeling and cool colors of Winter to depict the chilly impression. In his eyes, the sky was like a palette for mixing colors with time.

Monet was also an artist who was willing to break the rules. Different from the realistic painting style of the other artists in the same period, he projected his impression and feelings of different scenes on the canvas through using color tones and brushstrokes.  His artworks looked messy in close-up view but showed lively and natural from far view. His new way of painting altered the aesthetic notion of the people at the time.

Via studying Monet’s life, one can easily find he did painting anytime and anywhere; moreover, he would especially plant a garden for painting his controlled nature: water lilies, pond, and bridge.  It is appreciated and worth learning that Monet spent a lot of time on observing and practicing in order to reveal the uniqueness of every single scene.

Confucius has been honored as the “Grand Master of all Ages” in the Chinese history.  He was not only the pioneer of education but also an excellent learning model.

The education team visited “Re-encountering Confucius” Exhibition — Master Confucius and ACG: Have Fun! in Hong Kong Museum of Education on May 20. The exhibition consisted of several thematic zones including: “Here and Now: Confucius Among Us”, “Back to the Origin: Re-encountering Confucius 2,500 Years Ago”, “Confucian Heritage in Hong Kong: Then and Now” etc,.  With a new perspective inspired from our daily lives, the exhibition aimed to lead the audience to discover more about Confucius’s life, philosophy and the development of Confucianism.

In order to create a connection between Confucius and today’s audience, the exhibition made use of a series of everyday objects such as local comic books, school badges, school mottos, etc., recalling the audience that Confucianism still remains as an influential part of our culture today. The exhibition was comprehensive and interesting in terms of contents and display methods. It showcased not only physical exhibits like old school textbooks and prints, but also multimedia technology such as sound recordings, animations and games.  In addition, the exhibition especially arranged a series of educational workshops catering for students in different ages.  According to the stage of learning, the context of the workshop was flexible to change in order to fit students’ needs. For example, for pre-school and primary-school students, the workshop would more focus on moral education, on the other side, for high-school students, it would provide more contents related to history and language instead. Different teaching props and extended learning materials would be applied to help people in different ages learning about Confucius from his life, education and philosophy. In short, their sophisticated arrangement of the exhibition from visual displays to educational activities, was worth for learning.

In the exhibition, the team learned that Confucius established the first private school in China. He spent 14 years to travel around different countries to promote education among people regardless of hierarchy and geographical boundary.  On the other side, Confucius’s teaching is inspiring and interesting. He believed that the key of learning is to enjoy learning.  This is also the educational objective our team is targeting to.  There was a movie, Fei Mu's Confucius, featured in the exhibition to introduce the characteristics of an ancient utensil  “warning vessel”: it turned over when it was full; it leaned at an angle when it was empty ; it stood straight when it was half full. Confucius used to use it to explain the rule of moderation.  This teaching metaphor is like a simple experiment, which looks easy but actually consists of profound wisdom and knowledge behind.  Instead of verbal explanation, the lively examples can help a lot to explain abstract notions and give strong impressions to the audience.

Thanks so much to the curator of HKME Ms Patricia Lui Shi Mun ,  the assistant curator of HKME Mr Iven Cheung to share about the content of the exhibition, and the experience of culture promotion to us. From now on, we treat Confucius as a role model in education promotion and look forward to discovering more interesting teaching methods for our audience in the future.

Lingnan is a geographic area mixed with lands and mountains. It is formed by various kinds of rocks and the weather is relatively warm and humid. Hong Kong and Zhuhai are also the cities in Lingnan area; however, what is the difference between them?

During the field trip to Zhuhai, the team visited Stone Exposition Park and Huitong Village exploring the interesting linkages among “natural elements”, “architecture” and “Chinese people”.

Stone Exposition Park is a theme park of stone culture by using a variety of ways to present the relationships between stone and human life. During the visit, our tutors were especially interested in studying the famous stones from different provinces of China such as Jiangsu Taihu-stone, Liaoning Tsuiwen-stone and Guangdong Limestone. Those individual stones were unique in shape and texture. Some of them looked like lively animals, beautiful landscapes or other things that we can imagine. With imagination and fondness for stones, each stone could have its own emotions and stories.

Architecture is not simply a shelter to protect people from environmental threats but a place to record people’s stories and emotions.

Huitong Village has been established for 280 years. Today, the village still preserves the characteristics of Lingnan residential architecture such as grey tiles, black bricks and cornices. At the south-west side of the village, a western building complex, called Xixia Celestial Hall, was built as a memorial to dedicate to the owner’s wife. One could see that the architectural elements of the complex such as high towers, spacious terraces and corridors together with the garden essentials like a water pond, winding trials and fruit trees create an elegant, quiet yet exotic environment to the visitors.

In fact, the Huitong Village also has a special connection with Hong Kong as three main ancestral halls and two watch towers were built by the clan relatives from Hong Kong. The exhibition in the Mok ’s Ancestral Hall introduced the outstanding village people in the past encouraging the new generation of the village to pass down the objectives of the family.  One of the most famous people in the village, Mr. Mok See Yeng, together with his two lower generations, were hired as the comprador of Butterfield & Swire (HK). At that time, besides the Mok’s family, many villagers also went to other cities for career development. Once got wealthy, they would contribute to the re-construction of the village.

Architecture could create bonding among clan and family members. For example, Xixia Celestial Hall, watch towers and ancestral halls were used for remembering the family member, protecting the villagers and worshipping the ancestors respectively. Even the people moved out from the village, they still thought of their hometown.

The team has often discussed and sought for proper topics related to Chinese culture during the brainstorming sessions of the curriculum development. Meanwhile, we found that “stone”, a natural element, can be a significant topic for investigation. To find out more interesting stories of “stone” in the Chinese culture, the team decided to attend a talk – Stone and Chinese Culture held by the Museum Director Mr. Yeung Chun-tong at Sun Museum on May 7.

The followings are the interesting findings from the activity:

In ancient times, Chinese people considered that “stone” is the hardest and the most durable object on earth. It was an ideal material to build shelters for both living people and people after death. Besides making houses and scriptures, the ancient nobles would make use of stones to construct large-scaled graves decorated with many splendorous wall paintings and motifs. They believed they would enjoy eternal life there after death.

The ancient Chinese used to express their emotions and thoughts via stone carving which imposed a certain new meanings to stone. For example, they would create some stone statues with the image of tomb guardian, Bi Xie (which is a creature mixed of lion and tiger) for the function of protecting the graves of imperial family. On the other side, in order to create some quiet environments for religion practice and meditation, they would also build up huge grottoes together with Buddha statues inside. The relationship between the daily lives of Chinese people and stones has been tied in together for a long time. Different stones have preserved different life stories and precious memories of ancient people. Through studying them, one would recognize more about the ancient people’s worldview and pursuit.

Via the talk, our tutors have obtained a lot in terms of the significance of stone in the Chinese culture. The team learned not only how the ancient Chinese made use of stones to create comfort environment for various purposes but also what kinds of spirits they have imposed in stones. We all look forwards to sharing those interesting stories about stones in our coming education activities and exhibitions with the audience soon.

In order to encourage tutors to learn more about the local culture and enhance their skills in painting, writing and observing, the team especially arranged a trip to Ma Wan for field study and outdoor sketching in April.

At the beginning of the trip, the team visited a special historic building, Ma Wan Fong Yuen Study Hall, formed in the 1930s. According to a local tour-guide, the study hall was first established as a rural private school by the Chan family’s ancestors and revitalized into the Ma Wan Residents Museum cum Tourism and Chinese Cultural Centre in 2013. During the guided tour in the Centre, apart from some related information such as the changes of Ma Wan’s outlook and living practices of the fishermen there, the tutors have unexpectedly learned more about the development of education system in Hong Kong. In the early 20^th century, the traditional rural private schools in Hong Kong were still primitive. They didn't have any rigid rules and usually allowed students with different degrees of learning studying together in the same class.

The private schools in the past had to adjust a lot in terms of teaching and class arrangement due to the limited resources at the time. In contrast, the education system and facility today have been well improved; thereby, the schools should pay more attention on uplifting the learning quality of students.

Besides joining the guided tour, the team traveled to an area near the Tin Hau temple and stilt houses capturing “the most beautiful moment” of the old village via sketching. In order to experience more physical and direct methods of pictorial recording, the tutors left their computer graphic skills aside and tried different hand-drawing techniques like shading, dot painting, outlining and coloring, and etc.

Comparing to computer graphics, sketching is a unique practice that requires the practicers to draw what they see. Some tutors mentioned that they easily got used to draw things based on their experience or impression instead of the actual look. For example, a tutor tended to sketch out a tree that looked like the one in mind rather than the one in front of her. In fact, once the tutors can pay more attention on the details of the scene with respectful attitudes, they would be able to record more lively pictures with their personal touch through some simple yet effective methods such as manipulating the contrast of shading, controlling the boldness of the strokes, etc.

Starting from December 2015 to April 2016, some tutors of education team have joined a series of sharing session about historical photographs held by the Culture and Heritage Management Programme (CUHM) at City University of Hong Kong. The lecturer, Dr. Ting Wing Yan, through some historical photographs, shared her thoughts about the historical development and the change of cityscape in Hong Kong with the students.

Nowadays, people often say “photographs are the best evidence”; however, through this special talk, our tutors have learnt the photography may not really present the actual state and whole truth of affairs but create a conscious scene with the multi-layer aspects of communication which is executed by photographers and communicators (such as project planners and editors) through a series of manipulations. Dr. Ting especially shared a several photographs taken by foreign visitors in Hong Kong during the late 19^th century.  Via observing the photographs in details, one can easily find a certain elements/compositions of the photograph were designed by intention. For example, the Chinese costumes on the foreigners and the Chinese furniture in the background of the photo were well arranged in order to create a Chinese atmosphere. The process - from designing setting, selecting models and story plot, to directing model’s performance - was fully controlled by the photographers at that time.

However, even being produced by intention, those photographs were still valuable for study. Photograph is like a cross sectional image of our history and its related study and interpretation can be done in multi-points of view. Apart from the scenery captured inside the photo-frame, the study on different aspects of the photograph, including the reason of taking the photos, the photographer’s motivation and intention, the model’s mood and the objects out of the photo-frame, is helpful on learning history.

The way of studying historical photographs can let us review the changes of history and retrospect the relationship between imagery and our daily lives. In everyday we see thousands of images at the same time; however, hardly spend any time on individual ones. In the information age, compared to the past generations, fostering visual literacy is getting more significant.

On 19th and 20th of February , the education team visited "Of Mist and Lushly Green: Longquan Celadon from Song to Ming Dynasties" in Sun Museum. Moving on from our last visit to the exhibition of "The Radiant Ming 1368-1644 through the Min Chiu Society Collection” in Hong Kong Museum of History, we went further to explore different types of porcelains art during Song to Ming dynasties.

There are more than 60 pieces of Zhejiang Longquan celadon, dated from the Northern Song dynasty to Ming dynasty, displaying in this exhibition. They are owned by 9 collectors in Hong Kong and being exhibited at the 1st time. Through the tour guide's explanation, we all learned that Longquan kiln originated from the Northern Song dynasty; however, was immature in terms of technical skills and styling at the time. Until the Southern Song dynasty, Longquan kiln stood out from others and produced various celadon wares which were covered in greenish glaze with elegant shapes. During Ming dynasty, Longquan kiln has developed to be more international and advanced in terms of technique and quality. It became an imperial kiln to supply to the court exquisite. In term of colors, Southern Song Longquan celadon wares have more plum green or pastel green glaze; in contrast, imperial Longquan celadon wares were more in brighter green or olive green.

Celadon wares are monochrome. The choices of color and pattern in celadon were usually simple and elegant. For example, a plate in Yongle period of Ming dynasty came with minimal decoration, one would either ignore it easily or wouldn’t know how to appreciate it. In the past, when the pottery tools and the techniques of celadon making were not yet advanced, the artistic values of a plain celadon ware would be determined by several factors such as the thickness of the glaze, the distribution of color on the ware, the craftsmanship, etc. The tour guide pointed out that no two celadon wares are exactly the same; otherwise one of them must be a counterfeit. Porcelain is made by clay. Through a series of manmade procedures, it turns to be a utensil of our daily lives. Every piece of porcelain is unique and precious.

In a special talk "Green Ware and Chinese Culture", the museum director, Yeung Chun-tong explored the related topic from a new point of view. He believed celadon was the earliest glaze color being used in the world. In Shang dynasty, celadon has already worked as a protecting utensil. The popularity of celadon was highly related to the culture of tea drinking and the practice of incense burning during Song and Ming Dynasties. Other than the purpose of worshipping ancestors, incense was also commonly used at home. Incense stick, spiral incense and longevity incense pillars were also the popular kinds of incense. To fit in the usages of different incense, the artisans created different shaped celadon incense containers, such as ding-shaped (ding is a three-legged ancient Chinese vessel) censer, duck-shaped censer, etc, which reflected different burning practice and culture at the time. On the other side, in Lu Yu's The Classic of Tea, the jade greenish celadon tea wares were recommended for tea tasting. From commoners, literati to emperors, celadon was also a fond object to everyone. Just like the other objects mentioned in the workshop, "1001 Chinese Objects", a piece of celadon looks ordinary and simple; however, it actually consists of different essences of Chinese culture.

The education team is delightful to learn from the exhibition and talk, we expect to look forward to well utilizing the stuff we learnt in our education workshops.

"We All Live in Forbidden City" Education Programme undertakes to share the delights within Chinese culture with public. Beside Hong Kong, the education programme also takes initiatives to reach out for other regions for cultural and charitable work. Through the support of the Robert H. N. Ho Family Foundation (RHFF), the education team, together with Wah Yan Cultural Foundation and Chu Kuang Cultural Service Centre, had delivered the book series of We All Live in Forbidden City to Chinese language schools in Northern Thailand with our care and respect.

In the last September, the book series had already arrived Northern Thailand. We are grateful that Da Tong Junior High School in Chiang Rai had assisted us in distributing the books to 85 schools in the mountain range of Northern Thailand. Together with the books, the education team had also invited Hong Kong students to send their wishes and blessings to Thailand through postcards, including students from (names not listed in order) Kowloon City Baptist Church Hay Nien (Yan Ping) Primary School, TWS St Bonaventure Catholic Primary School, FSFTF Fong Shu Chuen Primary School and Sam Shui Natives Association Huen King Wing School. Allow us to thank Mr Tsang Sing Ming, an experienced volunteer of "Share the Warmth in Northern Thailand" Charity Project, and all the devotees who care for Northern Thailand again, for making this book delivery happens.

Celebrating the 90th anniversary of Palace Museum, Joint Publishing (HK) Ltd has published the Traditional Chinese edition of Forbidden City 100 in January 2016. The new publication was officially launched at Wanchai bookstore of Joint Publishing on February 15. Ms. Ming Hou, vice-executive editor of the Joint Publishing (HK) Ltd has attended to share her own insights. Dr. Ting, Sun-pao, famous historian in Hong Kong and Mr. Szeto Yuen-kit, curator of the Hong Kong Museum of Art have also exchanged opinions with the author Mr. Chiu Kwong Chiu. Major local media were invited.

During the sharing meeting, Ms. Ming Hou mentioned both Joint Publishing (HK) Ltd and Mr. Chiu Kwong-chiu are both fond of Chinese culture and share the same vision of cultural inheritance; at the same time, they are not simply publishing partners but congenial companions on promoting Chinese culture. On the other side, Mr. Chiu Kwong-chiu shared about his motivations behind creating books. He believed books are always the fundamental of different entertainment medium, like drama and movie. He urged to let the new generations feel what he has experienced. He also mentioned that he and the teammates from CnC have encountered a lot of issues while writing the book. For example, they spent plently of time on revising the illustrations. He hoped the readers can take time to enjoy reading it. Last but not least, he especially gave a big thanks to The Robert H. N. Ho Family Foundation for the long term supports.

Ming Dynasty was the last unified and centralized dynasty ruled by the Han Chinese. It was prosperous and rich; at the same time, consist of various cultures originated from different countries and tribes. Ming culture was resplendent and multifarious. In January, our education team visited “The Radiant Ming 1368-1644 through the Min Chiu Society Collection” Exhibition co-organized by Min Chiu Society Collection and Hong Kong Museum of History. There were more than 300 sets of rarely seen items displayed in the exhibition providing audience new perspectives on knowing about Ming’s history and culture, and the stories behind the historical relics.

The tutors are interested and impressed by the relationship between the sets of Ming’s porcelains and the stories of Zheng He’s seven voyages. During the early Ming dynasty, the color pigment of “blue and white porcelain”, called cobalt oxide, which is in grey blue color, has been invented in mainland China. The maritime was not yet vigorous at that time. However, starting from the period of Ming Yongle, the colors of “blue and white porcelain” became much brighter and shinier. It’s more or least due to the imported cobalt oxide brought from Zheng He or other voyagers.

Zheng He and his fleets visited the east coast of Africa the farthest. During his voyages, besides dispensing and receiving goods along the way, he would also study different local cultures. In the exhibition, one can see there were a lot of blue and white porcelains characterized by Islamic influences in different forms such as plates, jars, basins, etc. Some of the porcelains were even painted with scripts in Arabic or Persian that highly reflected the frequent exchanges in both economy and culture during Ming dynasty.

Besides porcelain, the kinds of exhibits were quite diverse including: lacquerware, cloisonne, fabric, furniture, gold/silver ornament, etc. Meanwhile, one can closely observe the craftsmanship of each item in details such as the delicate double-hook patterns on the porcelains, the smooth surfaces of the hundred layers lacquerware and the Ming-style furniture jointed in mortise-tenon connection, etc.