ABSTRACT
Though antiquity collection began at least 3200 years ago (Lu J.M. 2009), the establishment of museums between the 1860s and the 1930s in mainland China, Hong Kong and Macao is a result of external and internal dynamics between different local and foreign social segments. To understand why and for what purposes museums were established in China, who were the key players, and why there were different causal factors for the founding of museums, as well as the legacies and influences of the early museums not only on museology but also on social sentiments such as the senses of superiority or inferiority, envy and gratitude (Kolm 1995), nationalism and individual and collective identities in contemporary China — to understand all this, we must first understand China, albeit briefly, in this period of time.
