A Series of Musical Voyages along the Marine Road

The historical Silk Road functioned as the overland trading route between China on the one hand, and South Asia, West Asia, Europe and North Africa via Central Asia on the other. Likewise, there was the Marine Silk Road, also known simply as the Marine Road, which was a seaward passage for trade and cultural exchange between East and West in ancient times. Indeed the Marine Silk Road was established before the land route of the Silk Road. It is the oldest known sea trade route in the world, and the main artery of the ancient sea lanes on the South China Sea to Southeast Asian countries, through the Malacca Straits between the Malay Peninsula and the Indonesian islands to reach Sri Lanka and India on the Indian Ocean, and then on to the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea, eventually reaching out to the countries in Africa and the Roman Empire in Europe.

In 1984, Min-On initiated a series of cultural exchange concerts entitled A Musical Voyage along the Marine Road, and brought more than 200 musicians and performing artists from eight different countries in Southeastern Asia onstage across Japan. The performances met with great popular success for the way they showed how musical culture developed based on the history of cultural exchange along the historical Marine Silk Road.

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