Born around 1690 in Londonderry his family came from Sterling, Scotland during the Plantation. Cowan used these Ulster-Scots family connections to enter the international wine trade before joining the East India Company.
Rising rapidly there, becoming Governor of Bombay from 1729 – 1734, he excelled as a private trader. He pioneered trade with China amassing a fortune which was inherited though marriage by the Stewart family of Mountstewart, Co. Down.

Born in 1737, at Lisanoure Co. Antrim he was descended from an old Scottish family, the Macartneys of Auchinleck, which settled in Ulster in 1649.
He was the leading British statesman and diplomat of his day. In 1793, he led the first diplomatic mission to China, attempting to establish formal trade relations. The mission exposed the cultural and economic differences between Britain, and China, which saw no need for innovations or imports from the West. The Macartney Mission set the stage for future conflict between these two great empires.

Born in 1789 at Mount Pottinger, Belfast, he entered the army of the East India Company in 1804. A gifted linguist, with a sense of adventure, he excelled as a soldier before becoming a colonial administrator.
In 1841 he was appointed superintendent of British trade in China just as the First Opium War broke out. He led the British military response and negotiated the Treaty of Nanking which opened trading ports and ceded Hong Kong. Pottinger became the first Governor of Hong Kong in 1843 ensuring it developed as a commercial centre.

Born in Portadown in 1835, Hart was a British diplomat who served as Inspector General of China’s Imperial Maritime Customs Service for 48 years. A key adviser to Chinese rulers, Hart modernised the customs system, and contributed to China’s economic development as he generated one third of China’s revenue. He served the Chinese Government loyally, spoke Chinese fluently and had a real love for the Chinese people. This was reciprocated when the Emperor invited him to become ‘Commander-in-Chief of China’s army’. However Hart felt he better served China by remaining in his current post and offering advice in the conduct of foreign relations.
On retirement he became Pro- Chancellor of Queen’s University where his records and the ‘Empress of China’s Silver’ collection are held.

One of the great connections between China and Northern Ireland is a love of tea. The tea trade first brought the countries close through commerce, then culturally as tea customs were shared and developed. When a practice or object is important in a culture there are often many words, phrases and idioms developed around it.
The Chinese word for tea 茶 is pronounced differently in the
different varieties of Chinese, such as chá in Mandarin, zo and dzo in Wu Chinese, and ta and te in Min Chinese though it is written the same in them all. Ulster Scots or Ullans has its own word for tea ‘tay’, still heard in common phrases like “weet the tay” – add water to dry tea-leaves in the teapot; “a wee drap o tay” or “a wee cup o scad” or even “a wee cup a tae in yer han”.

Tatties or potatoes are a staple of the local diet in Northern Ireland. Our relationship with the humble potato has not always been easy with the legacy of the Potato Famine in the 1840s. Like Ireland the potato was introduced to China, and has thrived in the colder more mountainous areas of North China. Like here it has become an easy to produce, economic source of food for many ordinary people. Similarly different regions have developed different cooking methods for this highly versatile vegetable. China is actually the world’s biggest producer of potatoes and also the greatest consumer of potatoes due to their enormous population. Since 1991 China has led the world in terms of sown area and potato production. Since 2020, potatoes occupy about 4.6 million hectares (27% of the world’s cultivated area under crops), the crop exceeds 90 million tons (24% of the global production).

!n recent years as communities have come together to share in their respective rich cultures and heritage many points of comparison and similarity have become apparent. Today in Belfast at Chinese New Year you are likely to hear the swirl of the pipes or the infectious rhymes of Scottish dancers alongside more traditional Chinese music and dance forms. The fusion of our drumming and dancing traditions has produced a rich local layer of talent and entertainment enjoyed by all.
Today the piping tradition is carried on in China by the Hong Kong Pipe Band and Beijing Military Pipe Band which proved a popular feature of the 2022 Winter Olympic Games. The role of the drum in both Chinese and Ulster Scots culture is similar with the wood and animal hide instrument evolving from a military context, becoming bigger and more ornately decorated over time. The drumming tunes and different regional styles are designed to evoke different emotions. In each culture the beat of the drum is often likened to a ‘heartbeat’ and symbolises strength, vitality and energy.

Burns was introduced to China by Lu Xun a writer and revolutionary described by Mao Zedong as the “chief commander of China’s Cultural Revolution”. Su Manshu, was the first person to translate Burns’s ‘A Red, Red Rose’ into Chinese in 1908. The first book of Burns’s poetry in China was translated by Yuan Shuipai in 1944. He was later chosen to translate Mao Zedong’s poetry into English and became vice-minister of China’s Ministry of Culture.

Burns’s hatred of injustice, and poverty and his praise of revolution, as well as his patriotism and fighting spirit fitted well with China as it developed. His poetry was studied in universities, and even became the march song for Chinese soldiers in the war against Japanese invasion.
In 1959 for the 200th anniversary of Burns’s birth, Professor Wang Zuoliang published a collection of Burns’s poems in Beijing. The Oxford University educated Vice-President of Beijing Foreign Studies University popularised Burns. His words inspired the folk-song movement behind the cultural ‘big leap’ in poetry. It inspired people of all backgrounds to write, and publish folk songs and poems. In this context, Wang Zuoliang’s translation of Burns’s poems became a powerful weapon in political discourse.
Even today ‘Auld Lang Syne’ features in in the soundtrack of ‘The Rebel’, a 2021 Chinese series commemorating the centenary of the Chinese Communist Party.