In his teenage years, Brazilian Erasto Santos Cruz fell in love with Chinese culture through a Portuguese translation of the "Tao Te Ching," or the Scripture of Ethics, a classic text that is foundational to Taoism.

As he grew older, he was inspired by the work of Portuguese sinologist Manuel da Silva Mendes, who spent his later years in Macao and considered it his second home.

This inspiration led Erasto to travel nearly 20,000 kilometers to China's Macao Special Administrative Region. His goal was to delve into the wisdom of Taoism and master the art of translation between Chinese and Portuguese.