China meets the world

In addition to making connections within China, the Cantonese looked beyond the boundaries of their own country and ventured further afield. This intrepid spirit was encouraged by early Ming emperors, and resulted in a number of renowned explorers, the most famous of whom was Admiral Cheng Ho, a Muslim eunuch who was the first Chinese person to set foot in Malacca, off the west coast of Malaysia, between 1409 and 1411. This contact with the outside world was further enhanced by the arrival of European settlers, the Portuguese, in 1557. They established the first European settlement in the country in Macau, on the southern coast of Guangdong, where they had a great degree of autonomy, administering the region until the hand-over in 1997.