culture

Brazil and Macau were once two extremes of the vast Portuguese Empire, the history of which you can read in Charles Boxer‘s book: The Portuguese Seaborne Empire 1425-1825.

I recently went to Macau for a day trip, hoping it would make me feel like I was back in Brazil, or, as they say in Portuguese to matar a saudade. Macau was until 1999 a Portuguese-administered colony in China. The Chinese government on assuming sovereignty promised to maintain the political system unchanged for 50 years, which means that Portuguese is still one of the official languages of government. And this has helped to keep the language alive.

Macau and Hong Kong, although both former colonies, have very different attitudes toward cultural preservation.

It appears that the Hong Kong government, regardless of the dedicated voice of "collective memories," prefers for the city to be an ultra-modern metropolis, with almost all traits of colonial influence being allowed to fade.

A failed or neglected city springs to mind when walking around Macau during the day time. Around the outskirts of the Islands the doors of modern buildings never seem to open. Hotel restaurants tend to sole customers with reluctance: public gardens remain empty except for the lone tramp rooting around in the bins, roads remain unsullied with tyre tracks and the silence is loud all around. Inside and up the hill cracked and uneven pathways run along to meet the next, weeds compliment the falling cement on graying walls.

Macau casino mogul Stanley Ho has paid $8.9 million for a bronze horse head stolen by French troops 147 years ago from China's imperial palace and plans to donate it to a Chinese museum, Sotheby's auction house and a spokeswoman for Ho's company said.

The piece is one of 12 animal heads from the Chinese zodiac that formed part of an elaborate water clock fountain designed by Jesuit missionaries. The 12 heads marked time by spouting water.

Situated 60 kilometers west of Hong Kong on the Chinese mainland, Macau was colonized by the Portuguese in the 16th century, and the Portuguese influence is evident to this day. In fact it was in 1553 that Portugal established a trading post in Macau, as a center for trading with China, Japan and areas of South East Asia. It was the first settlement that Europeans established in the Far East.

The rise of the Venetian Macao from the dust of the Cotai reclamation is a harbinger of great change. Undoubtedly, as some commentators have noted, the unprecedented scale of its convention facilities, shopping arcades and suites stand to change the face of the tourism industry in the region.... (registration required)