The Maritime Museum’s folk exhibition presents fishing traditions and arts from Macao and other parts of southern China. Its displays cover boats, fishing methods, clothing and shipyard tools. In the loft, ten models represent traditional Portuguese fishing boats. Visitors encounter the models alongside accounts of local and southern Chinese fishing, making the museum a place to compare vessel forms and working knowledge.
From the journal
Fishing Traditions and Boat Models at the Maritime Museum
In one museum, Macao and southern Chinese fishing traditions sit beside ten models of traditional Portuguese fishing boats, making different maritime inheritances visible together.
Fishing Traditions from Two Coasts
Ten Small Vessels, Distinct Forms
The ten boats are shown as scale models, with hulls, bows, rigging and decks reduced to forms visitors can study closely. Nearby displays widen the view to Macao and southern China: the vessels, tools and fishing practices that supported life along the coast. The museum puts these maritime materials in one building, where their particular shapes and uses remain visible.
From Boat Shape to Boat Work
The folk exhibition connects boats with the labour around them. Shipyard tools point to repair; fishing methods show how a vessel was used; clothing belongs to the people who worked on the water. The Portuguese models add another set of boat forms to the collection. Together, these objects make coastal work legible through the things it required and the boats it produced.
