Fragrant harbor experience: the incense culture in Hong Kong

An enduring commitment to studying incenses, which constitute a substantial part of traditional and everyday culture of East Asia, brought the delegation from Oriental Studies Department of NSU to Hong Kong (香港Xiangang) in May 2015. The visit was allocated to prestige universities of the city (The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology to name a few), prominent museums and temples. Official meetings and exploration of southern ways and habits were on the agenda too. It is known that majority of countries situated in eastern, south-eastern and central parts of Asia have been regarding incenses of paramount importance for extensive ritualism. Following this, the Orientalist scholars from Novosibirsk outlined their area of interest as variability of incense culture and how gaming and religious practices interweave with the modern multicultural appearance of Hong Kong, which has always been the southern hub of incense industry and due to that bears its name that translates ‘Fragrant Harbor’. Several results of this visit include acquaintance with the educational and research work in the Hong Kong Institute of Agarwood沉香學會(spreads the historical knowledge of incense enjoyment, at the same time studying methods to maintain agarwood plantations and seeking for production use); and inspection of the private Imperial Museum皇家博物馆 exclusive collection of produce made of agarwood, by courtesy of the head of the Institute Professor Paul Kan and his colleagues. Having used the opportunity, Russian scholars reviewed all the artifacts, those obtained from the field studies inclusively, and found agarwood to be both historically and naturally valuable.