Missionaries played a significant role as conveyors of transcultural exchanges between Europe and China. The Basel Mission, one of the major German-speaking mission agency to China which worked among the Hakka people in the Canton Province, was a leading actor in transcultural exchanges. Thus, Basel missionaries in China sent artifacts regularly to their homeland as part of the transcultural exchanges between China and Europe in the 19th Century. Using diverse approaches including museums and traveling exhibitions, missionaries transmitted Chinese culture to the public in German-speaking Europe not only to win support for its mission enterprise but also to expose the people to exotic Chinese culture. How did the mission agency organize Chinese exhibits to transmit Chinese culture? What was the image of Chinese culture that the Basel Mission constructed in German-speaking Europe? This article investigates these questions through material archival sources drawn from the Basel Mission Archives and Chinese artifacts conserved at the Museum of Cultures in Basel. The article concludes by arguing that the Basel missionaries constructed an image of a "heathen civilization" in German-speaking Europe. Yet on the other hand, the exhibitions provided a limited window for the public to open their horizons and shape their Eurocentrism identity.
