This conference will close a four-years French-Taiwanese research project (ANR/MOST) on Maritime Knowledge for Asian seas (seaFaring), which propose to reconsider, and possibly to review, our knowledge on China’s seafaring tradition through a new approach focusing on the practical know-how available to the craftsmen, seamen and merchants during the 16^th-18^th centuries, with special emphasis on sailing and trading knowledge and practices.

Argument

This conference will close a four-years French-Taiwanese research project (ANR/MOST) on Maritime Knowledge for Asian seas (seaFaring), and the achieved results will enrich the series of articles already written by the participants during these years and be published in thematic volumes in 2019. The aim of these publications is to provide important information about some issues related to nautical knowledge used by China seas’ sailors during the 16^th-18^th centuries, and based on historical accounts, as well as on archaeological and ethnographical surveys.

 This four-years French-Taiwanese research project (ANR/MOST) has proposed to reconsider, and possibly to review, our knowledge on China’s seafaring tradition through a new approach focusing on the practical know-how available to the craftsmen, seamen and merchants during the 16^th-18^th centuries, with special emphasis on sailing and trading knowledge and practices. Our purpose was and still is to carry out a large-scale investigation combining multidisciplinary research in order to understand this technical and concrete experience, both for themselves and within their specific temporal and geographical environment. This geographical area goes beyond the national borders, covering the professional network abroad – in our case, the South-East Asia – and includes the enlarged sphere of intercultural exchanges, and the interaction between various nautical traditions with the arrival of the Europeans in the zone. In order to build a comprehensive research field, our study will focus on the maritime expertise of networks in Taiwan and Southern China provinces (Fujian, Guangdong), and some of their ramifications into South-East Asia. These regions have in fact played a central role in human maritime adventure during this period.

Programme

November 21, 2018 (Wednesday)

École française d’Extrême-Orient (22 avenue du Président Wilson, 75016 Paris)

9:00-9:15 Opening Session EFEO Director, Paola Calanca and Chen Kuo-tung

9:15-11:15 Port governance and networks. Storage jars

Chair & Discussant: Pierre-Yves Manguin (École française d’Extrême-Orient)

• Shen Yueming (Zhejiang provincial Institute of Archaeology and Relics), An Investigation on storage jar produced in Zhejiang
• Bui Minh Tri (Vietnam Academy of Social Sciences), Champa kilns sites productions in the International maritime trade
• Béatrice Wisniewski (CNRS-CASE/EFEO), Vietnamese storage jars: production sites and local markets, new approach for long-distance trade
• Tatsuya Mori (Okinawa Prefectural University of Arts), A Study of Chinese and South-East Asian container ceramics excavated in Japan and Ryukyu

11:15-11:30 Coffee Break

11:30-13:00 Port governance and networks. Storage jars

Chair & Discussant: Pierre-Yves Manguin (EFEO)

• Roberto Gardellin (independent research), Jars and shipwrecks in Southeast Asia: a review of available evidence for the 9-14th century
• Monique Crick (Oriental Ceramic Society of France), The “Talking Jars” found in 15th and 16th Century Shipwrecks: Origin, Types and Uses
• Zhao Bing (CNRS-CRCAO), Global Chinese storage jars and their local consumption: New archaeological finds from port sites in Arabia and in East Africa

13:00-14:00   Lunch

14:00-16:00    Hazards at sea and sailing weather

Chair & Discussant: Pascal Arnaud (Université de Lyon)

• Li Tana (The Australian National University), Tackling puzzles of early maritime travel in the Gulf of Tonkin
• Charlotte Pham (Murdoch University), Sailing Cochinchinese waters
• Mathieu Torck (Ghent University), Military diets and naval logistics in Ming and Qing China
• Angela Schottenhammer (Salzburg University), Sea accidents and shipwrecks of Manila galleons in the East and Southeast Asian waters

16:00-16:30   Coffee Break

16:30-17:30  Hazards at sea and sailing weather

Chair & Discussant: Paola Calanca (EFEO)

• Liu Shiuh-Feng (Research Center for Humanities and Social Sciences, Academia Sinica), Maritime disasters in East Asian Maritime realm as seen from data analysis centering on Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Ryukyuan, and Vietnamese Records
• Jiri Jakl (Heidelberg University), Legal regulations pertaining to the property rights on the cargo of sunken ships: Old Javanese, Old Balinese, and classical Malay evidence

November 22, 2018 (Thursday)

Institut d’études avancées de Paris (17 quai d’Anjou, 75004 Paris)

(Registration is required, except for speakers. Contact: seafaring.2018fr@gmail.com)

9:00-11:00 Ships of the China seas: between local tradition and exogenous influence

Chair & Discussant: Eric Rieth (CNRS-LAMOP/Musée national de la Marine)

• Qiu Dandan (University Paris I), The navigation on the Grand Canal of China: the evolution of the canal transport between the 7th and the 12th century
• Abhirada Pook Komoot (University of Western Australia), Seeking past in present: an ethnographic approach to the Phanom-Surin shipwreck in Thailand
• Lee Chi-lin (Tamkang University), A transitioning Chinese sailing technology in the Ming and Qing Dynasties: Reflections on the “bird ship”
• Nick Burningham (Independent researcher), East Asian Ships, 16th to 18th century

11:00-11:30  Coffee Break

11:30-13:00    Ships of the China seas: between local tradition and exogenous influence

Chair & Discussant: Alexandra Biar (CNRS-UMR 8096/Université Paris 1)

• Damien Peladan (Paris 7), The Origin of the Chindo Shipwreck
• Jun Kimura (Tokai University), Cross-regional study of shipbuilding in East Asia: archaeological perspectives
• Steven Davies (University of Hong Kong), Flat roach to curved roach: using maritime art to identify when southern Chinese junk rigs underwent a significant design development

13:00-14:00    Lunch

14:00-15:30    Ships of the China seas: between local tradition and exogenous influence

Chair & Discussant: Eric Rieth (CNRS-LAMOP/Musée national de la Marine)

• Pierre-Yves Manguin (École française d’Extrême-Orient), Large traders of 16th century Asian seas: the Malay and Javanese jong
• Sun Jian (China National Center of Underwater Cultural Heritage), “Nan’ao I” shipwreck of Ming Dynasty
• Michael Flecker (Independent researcher), Variations in Chinese junk construction: The Shipwreck Evidence

15:30-16:30 Ports and harbour areas  

Chair & Discussant: Nicolas Carayon (Ipso Facto, Marseille)

• Leonard Blussé (Leiden University), The organization of the port facilities at Batavia
• Liu Yi-chang (National Chengkong University, Tainan), Structure of ports in the Southwestern Coast of Taiwan and their vicissitudes in Qing times

16:30-17:00   Coffee Break

17:00-18:00 Ports and harbour areas

Chair & Discussant: Nicolas Carayon (Ipso Facto, Marseille)

• Huang Lan-hsiang (National Taiwan University), Two port -towns built by Overseas Chinese from South China – Hoi An in Vietnam and Lu-kang in Taiwan
• Jiang Bo (China National Center of Underwater Cultural Heritage), Quanzhou and Zhangzhou: Archaeological investigation in harbor cities

November 23, 2018 (Friday)

École des hautes études en Sciences Sociales  (105, boulevard Raspail, 75006 Paris)

9:15-10:45  Seafaring languages, loan words and “lingua franca”  

Chair & Discussant: Alain Peyraube (EHESS-CRLAO)

• Claudine Salmon (CNRS), Contact languages on the South China Sea and beyond
• Eugenio Menegon (Boston University), Communicating on board and on shore: European testimonies on varieties of lingua franca in maritime China, 1550-1850
• Wang Qianjin (University of Chinese Academy of Sciences), Professional jargon from sailing books

10:45-11:00   Coffee Break

11:00-12:00    Seafaring languages, loan words and “lingua franca”  

Chair & Discussant: Alain Peyraube (EHESS-CRLAO)

• Chen Kuo-tung (Institute of History and Philology, Academia Sinica), Some loan words used by the Chinese in sailing and shipping lists
• Xu Lu (Chinese Sailing Junk Expedition Society, Xiamen), Seafarer terms along the China coast: Southern Hokkien dialect and their equivalents in Chinese

12:00-13:00   Lunch

13:00-15:00    Mapping maritime landscapes in the Asian seas

Chair & Discussant:  Peter Shapinsky (University of Illinois, Springfield)

• Vera Dorofeeva-Lichtmann (CNRS-EHESS, UMR8173 Chine-Corée-Japon), Kunlun Mountains Raising from the Sea: Cartographical Representations and Cosmographical Origins
• Rila Mukherjee (University of Hyderabad), Finding Routes, Measuring Distance and Locating Markers in South Asian Sailing Traditions
• Paola Calanca (École française d’Extrême-Orient), Mazu temples and religious shrines along Asian maritime routes: polyvalent rendez-vous for Chinese sailors
• Robert Bachelor (Georgia Southern University), Facing the Gyres: Conceptualizing the Pacific Frontier in Seventeenth Century East Asia

15:00-15:15   Coffee Break

15:15-16:45    Maritime charts and sailing directions: how and who used them?

Chair & Discussant: Pascal Arnaud (Université de Lyon)

• Chen Kuo-tung (Institute of History and Philology, Academia Sinica), Sailing aids and sailing guides used by the Chinese in the 16^th-18^th Centuries: A checklist
• Li Qingxin (Guangdong Academy of Social Sciences), The Map of Mileages of Land and Water Routes from Guangdong to Siam of Qianlong dynasty and the Maritime Transport in the Western South China Sea
• Paola Calanca (EFEO), “At sea without danger (海不揚波)”, incursion into Chinese written sailing directions books
• Elke Papelitzky (NYU Shanghai), The sailing routes of the Siyi guangji 四夷廣記