Library of the Convent of Mafra, Portugal
The Palace of Mafra is a monastery located on the west coast of Portugal, almost 30 kilometers from Lisbon. It was built in the 1700s and declared a national monument over a century ago. The baroque Mafra National Palace inspired Portuguese Nobel Prizewinning author José Saramago (1922-2010) to write the novel Baltasar and Blimunda, which is in the collection of the Thammasat University Libraries. The Library of the Convent of Mafra contains about 40,000 rare books. Some of these date back to the 1400s and 1500s. The library’s importance as a collection was recognized early on. In 1745, the Pope, then Benedictus XV, stated that it was officially forbidden for anyone to take any books out of the library without the express permission of the King of Portugal. Today researchers and historians visit the collection, still without any need to remove anything from the library.
Thailand and Portugal
His Excellency Francisco Vaz Patto, Ambassador of Portugal to the Kingdom of Thailand, gave an interview to The Big Chilli in March. In it, the ambassador points out how old the contacts are between Thai and Portuguese people. Ramathibodi II, (1473–1529) King of Sukhothai from 1485 and King of Ayutthaya from 1491 to 1529, was in power when the Portuguese arrived in 1518 as the first Europeans in Siam. Ramathibodi II signed a treaty with the Portuguese, who had just conquered the Malacca Sultanate, part of today’s Malaysia, giving the visitors complete commercial freedom and the right to establish Christian missions and construct churches. As the ambassador notes:
In 1518 our two countries signed the agreement that we will soon celebrate – the 500th anniversary of the Treaty on Friendship and Commerce. The treaty allowed us to set up a trading post in Ayutthaya and this led to a rather large Portuguese community there. At one point there were several thousand Portuguese living in Ayutthaya… We were permitted to construct three Catholic churches there and signs of these are still in evidence today. In those days we sold guns, ammunition and cannons to Siam, and Portuguese soldiers always fought on the side of the kings of Siam. Portuguese soldiers were known for their bravery and were the first known bodyguards of King Ramathibodi II. Our settlers stayed in Ayutthaya until it was invaded by the Burmese in 1767… After the capital of Siam moved from Thonburi across the river to Bangkok in 1782, King Rama I gave the Portuguese community more land in the area where we are now. In 1820 the first Portuguese ambassador to Thailand arrived and began construction of a small wooden house that served as the first embassy. Construction of the present embassy and residence was begun in 1860.
The upcoming 500th anniversary of Thai-Portuguese cultural relations has already been commemorated by two in-depth studies in the collection of the TU Libraries, 500 Years of Thai-Portuguese Relations: A Festschrift by Prof. Michael Smithies and Reflexions on 500 Years of Thai-Portuguese Relations, edited by Dr. Natthanan Kunnamas and Dr. Pornsan Watanangura of the Center for European Studies, Chulalongkorn University. The latter book gathers research presented at an international colloquium on the history of Thai-Portuguese relations at Chulalongkorn University held in March 2012.
Cultural exchanges
Looking forward to further connections between Portugal and Thailand, Ambassador Vaz Pato comments:
Just last year a memorandum of understanding was signed between the fine arts departments of our two countries to protect our shared cultural heritage. Initiatives are underway to implement it. Cultural exchange visits are ongoing. We are organising various exhibitions and participating in events such as a dance festival at the end of the year that will bring Portuguese dancers to Thailand. We will also participate in the 14th World Film Festival of Bangkok in November 2016. We have an agreement with the Thai Film Archive to show one Portuguese film a month. We were involved in the Bukruk-Urban Arts Festival held in the embassy neighborhood in January.
As the festival’s website explains, it is a
10-day project featuring public wall paintings, art exhibitions, artist talks, animation night and a two stages music open-air festival. Bukruk II Urban arts festival is a 10-day project featuring not only public wall paintings, but also art exhibitions, artist talks, animation night and three stages music open-air festival, visual happenings, mapping projections and workshops. The general atmosphere of this new edition of Bukruk will be imprinted by the bizarre, the uncanny and the surreal. More transversal activities will be proposed: A one of a kind music festival will officially launch Bukruk II, with bands and DJs from Europe and Asia, food and design market, mapping/ video projections. Each artist’s personal work will be presented in solo or duo exhibitions, in over 10 gallery partner spaces… Bukruk 2016 will be the Asia-Europe connection. For this present edition, we focused on a selection of emerging and established Asian and European artists who are becoming more and more eloquent and original on the international level.
In addition to cultural exchange, the ambassador takes a lively interest in mutual tourism between Portugal and the Kingdom and industrial projects:
About 10,000 Thais visited Portugal last year. Around 30,000 Portuguese nationals visited Thailand in 2015… There are about 1,000 Portuguese expats [in Thailand]. It is not such a big community but you can find all kinds of people within it. Some are young Portuguese who have come to work in the tourism industry or corporate world. Others are people who immigrated many years ago. There’s a big variety in the Portuguese community in Thailand, which is good because it shows the diversity of Portugal to the Thai people. The Thai expat community in Portugal is a little larger, maybe 1,200 or 1,300 people, and it is increasing. These respective expat communities help to strengthen contacts and develop business between our two countries. There are around 250 companies that export goods from Portugal to Thailand – mainly cars, spare parts, software, textiles, paper products, wine and cork (Portugal is the biggest producer of cork in the world). Thailand exports to Portugal machinery and equipment, plastic, rubber and seafood, as well as cars and spare parts, which are going both ways. We also import rice from Thailand but not so much because we grow our own rice. Portuguese are among the biggest consumers of rice in Europe. Maybe this is the Thai influence…We have agreements and exchange protocols with Chulalongkorn, Thammasat, Kasetsart, Mahidol and Ramkhamhaeng universities. We are trying to establish Thai language programs at Portuguese universities and we actively encourage and support Thai university students who want to study in Portugal…We have a lecturer teaching Portuguese language at Chulalongkorn and Thammasat universities and we hope to bring another professor to teach at Kasetsart. At Thammasat University Portuguese is taught in the ASEAN Studies Department.
While this may surprise some readers, the Southeast Asian nation of East Timor or Timor-Leste is a former Portuguese colony, after which it obtained independence from Indonesia. In 2011, East Timor announced its aim to join ASEAN as its eleventh member. Among the many languages spoken there is Portuguese.
(All images courtesy of Wikimedia Commons).