Revista Oriente Ocidente N.11 Supplement 2 - IIM.MACAU

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Número 11 Maio/Agosto de 2003 Number 11 • May/August 2003

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20Year

Ian Whiteley

PERSONAL JOURNEY TO DISCOVER THE REAL MACAU

A 20 YEAR PERSONAL JOURNEY TO DISCOVER THE REAL MACAU

This Extra-text supplement 3 of East/West has been sponsored by the Fundação Macau

Ian Whiteley Hong Kong journalist

Published by the International Institute of Macau Number 11, May/August 2003 Editor Luís Sá Cunha Production IIM Graphic Design victor hugo design Printing Tipografia Hung Heng Print Run 1.500 copies

www.iimacau.org.mo

Rua de Berlim, Edifício Nam Hong, 2 º andar NAPE, MACAU, Tel (853) 751727 - (853) 751767 Fax (853) 751797 email iim@macau.ctm.net

A 20-YEAR PERSONAL JOURNEY TO DISCOVER THE REAL MACAU

ORIENTEOCIDENTE “newsletter” do IIM Instituto Insternacional de Macau Número 11, Maio/Agosto de 2003 Editor Luís Sá Cunha Produção IIM Design Gráfico victor hugo design Impressão Tipografia Hung Heng Tiragem 1.500 exemplares EASTWEST IIM ”newsletter” Published by the International Institute of Macau Number 11, May/August 2003 Editor Luís Sá Cunha Production IIM Graphic Design victor hugo design Printing Tipografia Hung Heng Print Run 1.500 copies

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Ian Whiteley

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20Year

PERSONAL JOURNEY TO DISCOVER THE REAL MACAU

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A 20 YEAR PERSONAL JOURNEY TO DISCOVER THE REAL MACAU

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Ian Whiteley

I first fell in love with Macau more than 20 years ago. It all began innocently enough, after boarding a battered old ferry for an overnight journey across the Pearl estuary on a warm, humid night in the summer of 1979.

Macau shimmered in the early morning heat haze and seemed like a place lost in time. Clambering ashore, I quickly began to realise why so many of my friends in Hong Kong had urged me to visit this sleepy Portuguese “enclave”, as news reports usually referred to Macau in those far-off-days. With little experience of Portugal, I wondered what I would find that was so different to the brash British colony across the water.

Although subsequent visits to Macau would build up my understanding of this quiet, relaxing place that is so different in many ways to the noisy, bustling and arrogant Hong Kong, it was my first impressions that would remain the strongest. And with every visit grew a deep and lasting affection that continues to this day.

Macau at the end of the 1970s was a sight to behold. It seemed to have been caught in a time warp, unchanged for centuries. First of all, there seemed to be far more historic buildings than in Hong Kong and a much stronger Portuguese atmosphere than any British atmosphere you could detect in Hong Kong. Some of the buildings seemed neglected but added to the character of the place.

The people were friendly and taking life at a leisurely pace, which at the time seemed both astonishing and endearing to a visitor from Hong Kong, where people’s barely concealed impatience and the constant pressure left workers frazzled by week’s end.

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Portuguese and Chinese lived side in what seemed to be a more friendly and tolerant manner. Just like the architecture: fine old Portuguese buildings sitting snugly next to grand old Chinese structures each representing a different culture and yet together creating something equally different and unique. I strolled in wonder along Macau’s tiny streets and alleyways, at times believing I was back in old Portugal and at other times certain this was that was old China must have looked like.

To enjoy the noise and smells of a Chinese dim-sum restaurant for lunch and the different sights and smells of a Portuguese restaurant or coffee shop later was the best antidote to stressful Hong Kong.

So Macau became the obvious place to go to relax and get away from all the stresses and strains of hectic Hong Kong. In fact, by the time Sunday evening came around I was in no mood to clamber back on a boat to Hong Kong. We always did – or, at least usually did, since that was where we earned our money and thus our next weekend in Macau.

My preferred place to stay in those days was the Belavista Hotel, which was remarkably cheap considering its imposing appearance and faded colonial charm. I recall creaking floors and doors that didn’t close properly, beds that squeaked and service that forced you to slow down and take life at a more leisurely pace.

Certainly, the waiters bringing hot Portuguese soup out to the terrace could not be forced into hurrying, just because you were a guest. Life slowed down the minute you arrived in Macau and continued at that pace until you raced back to the ferry pier for the boat home.

There were several tourist sites that had to be taken in and several nontourist sites as well. The ruins of St. Paul’s Cathedral was an obvious one, and so was the immaculate Lim Ioc Garden. But us visitors from Hong Kong could not go home without a trip out to Pinochio’s in Taipa Island or Fernando’s on Coloane’s Hac Sa Beach. Around these places legends have grown, especially Fernando’s.

The trip was not complete without a steaming plate of prawns, curried crab, sardines and huge hunks of hot bread with lashings of butter, washed down by cheap wine and beer. Then we felt our batteries had been re-charged for another week in Pressure City, across the waters in Hong Kong.

In those early days few of us from Hong Kong had the opportunity to get to know many people in ORIENTEOCIDENTE 6

Ian Whiteley

Macau. For one thing we could nor speak Portuguese or for that matter Cantonese. Many times we traveled with a Chinese friend from Hong Kong who became the translator but which inadvertently meant we were even less likely to come into contact with Portuguese residents. It was some time before I was able to make friends with Portuguese in Macau and then my weekly or monthly visits to Macau took on a different perspective.

Through my Portuguese and Macanese friends there were other, more interesting bars and restaurants to discover hidden away in Macau. Sometimes I was invited to parties where I felt that I was in southern Portugal rather than southern China. But many of the friends I made in those far-off days are still my friends today.

One thing that was very different about being in Macau was that you felt there was definitely a European, not to say Portuguese, atmosphere whereas in Hong Kong it was definitely a Chinese city. The size of Macau meant that people seemed to have more of a community feeling, no matter if they were Chinese, Macanese or Portuguese. This was not a feeling I felt in Hong Kong.

It was easy for visitors from Hong Kong to feel a bit smug about their city compared with tiny Macau, but they still came back for more of this charming “backwater” as people sometimes called it, rather disparagingly.

The “pink palace” on the Praia Grande had a very “other world” feeling about it, a dramatic piece of historic Portugal dropped seamlessly on to this timeless waterfront where old men fished contentedly under bowing banyan trees, even without much of a catch, while sipping cool beer on a warm, humid summer’s evening and ignoring the imposing limousines sweeping past bearing VIPs to cocktail parties and dinner.

The big difference, of course, was that Macau was 440 years old while Hong Kong was a mere upstart of 160. And Hong Kong, despite Britain’s love for its own history and keenness to preserve it, happily demolished its historic buildings and replaced them with tall, shiny character-less skyscrapers.

Of course, Hong Kong preserved its rickshaws, but in Macau they really took you somewhere, whereas in Hong Kong their main role was as a prop for a tourist’s photograph. To ride along the Praia Grande in a cycle-rickshaw with the wind in your face made you feel like an emperor, albeit all due to the strenuous efforts of your sweating rickshaw-pedaller.

China seemed to be miles away, although in truth it was just across the water.

It was some years before I figured out that the undeveloped land just across the sea and river was not a part of Macau but the first stretch of the mighty People’s Republic of China, hidden from view behind the tall mountains. So near, and yet so far. I would not cross that frontier for many years to come, and then would do so in wonder at what Macau stood for and had achieved next to the sleeping giant of China.

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It was fun to visit churches in Macau, something I never did in Hong Kong.

Having endured my first Christmas Eve midnight mass in Kowloon all spoken in Cantonese in 1978, I did not often darken a church’s door there.

But in Macau it was pleasant to stroll into the cool interior of Macau’s tiny churches and even sit down to hear a service in Portuguese, while understanding not much more that I did in a Chinese church in Hong Kong.

Christmas was a special time to visit Macau with its spectacular lights and churches decked out in all their splendour.

But like many visitors I also felt drawn to the gaudily-lit casinos, especially the Lisboa with its endless rooms full of gamblers and where, for some unexplained reason, my shoes always stuck to the carpet.

I watched spell-bound as gnarled old grannies pulled $1,000 Hong Kong bills like magicians from their cardigan sleeves and placed bets, faces fixed and not betraying any sentiment, even when they won.

Security guards eyed us foreigners carefully as we strolled from table to table mesmerised at the money exchanging hands, and all the time keeping our own wallets firmly in our pockets. It took me some time to realise that this was where Macau’s fortune was being made, not from weekend visitors like myself buying a few bottles of wine and eating at Fernando’s.

The Macau Grand Prix was an event that was un-missable in my diary. This was a time of serious wining and dining not to mention bonding with one’s friends, as well as a chance to see some excellent motor-racing.

I remember the first time I went, I was struck by the chickens running next to the race-track. Drinks were served from shacks. It was delightfully amateurish and yet it attracted some of the world’s best and soon-to-be most famous drivers.

I was reminded of these humble beginnings when I returned years later to witness the modern Macau ORIENTEOCIDENTE 8

Ian Whiteley

Grand Prix with its impressive grandstand and dramatic street circuit winding among imposing skyscrapers and magnificent renovated Portuguese villas and other architectural wonders.

To visit the modern Macau is to truly witness the achievements of this tiny city and its loyal citizenry. But you have to understand it from the recent historical perspective of what has been done in less than twenty short years and, more importantly, in the few years leading up to the “handover” in 1999.

Having witnessed that myself during regular annual visits makes me gaze with great admiration on this city and its people.

Macau features prominently in many of my happiest memories of life in Asia. When family and friends visited Hong Kong from all parts of the globe, the trip would not be complete without popping over to Macau for the weekend.

I soon took on the role of unofficial “tour guide”, gently steering my guests from one historical site to another, from one panoramic viewpoint to yet another place of “photo-opportunity”, from coffee shops to dim sum restaurants and finally, of course, to a favourite Portuguese eating place for lunch or dinner, all the while answering typical questions about Macau’s culture, people, life-style, history, future and so on, as if I was the source of all knowledge on the place.

In fact I knew very little, but expressed it with great enthusiasm, and people would nearly always vow to return one day. And, bit by bit, I did start to learn more about this unique city and what made it so special.

However, to really get “under the skin” of Macau took many, many years and even continues to this day.

For me, nothing beats setting off down the narrow streets and alleyways of Macau, both those which are familiar and those that I have never ventured down before, constantly wandering what lies in store around the next corner.

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It could be it joss-stick maker, or a dusty antique shop, a cozy coffee shop or a noodle restaurant. It could be a tiny stall selling freshly-squeezed mango juice or a shop offering souvenirs of China’s Cultural Revolution.

All are jumbled together, in no particular order, offering surprise after surprise.

And although it was not always so, the streets are usually immaculately clean.

Ancient trees line many streets, their leaves rustling in the breeze and providing shelter and shade, when suddenly, hey presto, a Portuguese-style square comes into view, with tables and chairs under broad, bright umbrellas and a coffee-stand nearby.

Macau surprises its visitors at every turn. The path to the ruins of St.Paul’s is lined with antique shops that beckon the casual visitor inside. Here can be found pieces of furniture and items of decoration that are not only beautiful and sometimes historic, but are often also practical and reasonable in price.

It is no surprise, then, to be told proudly by one such shop owner that former Hong Kong governor Chris Patten was a regular customer. And what did he buy? Well, the owner gestures towards some impressive antique Chinese wooden cabinets in the corner and says ‘something like these’.

The Rua de São Paulo is one of my favourite streets, but not the only one to offer interesting items of furniture which extend deep into the interior of the narrow but long shops. Along Rua dos Evandrios are other bargains to be found. This alleyway is closed to traffic except for the occasional scooter meandering through the crowd.

Pedestrianisation has taken root in Macau and, in this way, the small city is streets ahead of its big neighbour Hong Kong.

The Leal Senado square is a masterpiece of design and restoration. There are few places in Asia that are better and more attractive than this Portuguesetiled square where cars are now banished and free entertainment can often be found on a stage near the fountain.

The lights and decorations of Christmas, New Year and of course Chinese New Year make this an essential part of a visitor’s tour, and rarely fails to impress those who go there. With the Leal Senado building at one end of the square and the magnificent restored church at the other, with the imposing Misericordia building in the middle, Macau captures history is one single place in a way that nowhere in Hong Kong can do.

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Even the old hospital, the first Western hospital in Asia, the saver of life, has a new lease of life, and a new lick of paint, and looks magnificent as the new Portuguese Consulate. The ingenious use of these old, historic buildings in Macau is nothing short of brilliant.

The Lou Lim Ioc garden is still one of my favourite places to spend a quite hour or two. Wispy creepers hanging down, like Father Teixeira’s beard, and tall, slender palm trees towering above the bamboo groves while fish dart among the lilies floating on the tiny lake, restore a sense of balance and peace, and harmony.

Bright red flowers sit in green pots on carved balconies, high above. Yellow dahlias bow down from blue-and-white jars. There is a sweet smell of blossoms in the air. Behind one bamboo grove is an old, elegant Portuguese building that I have never seen before, or visited. Another surprise, for another day.

Late autumn is a glorious time to visit Macau. The weather is cool but sunny with a bright blue sky. The heat and humidity of summer has blown away.

A breeze follows you around the city and butterflies settle on bright flowers to sun themselves. The sound of children’s laughter can be heard drifting over the old wall that lines the street.

In this garden I feel I am truly in Asia, in China, in Macau. Old folks sit chatting under the pagoda. The language is Chinese, or was that Portuguese? Perhaps it was Macanese. The faces are interesting. Not all are so easy to identify.

Centuries of living together has created a blend of Chinese and Portuguese and other nationalities. An old man walks up to me and greets me with a smile in fluent French. He also speaks Portuguese, and English. An of course Chinese, in several dialects.

Why does he like Macau? It is open and free, and small and friendly, he says, pointing out where he lives in an apartment overlooking the park in a nearby EASTWEST 11

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building. He has lived overseas, including Paris, but he says he always looks forward to returning home to Macau.

Macau, the home of so many different nationalities, refugees from this crisis or that, bringing their own language and traditions and mixing them in to Macau’s melting-pot. A man who works in a nearby hotel says he was a student in Burma when he fled to Macau due to a government crackdown.

Another man, who lived in East Timor, tells me he is looking forward to returning there but will miss Macau. A woman from the former Portuguese territory of (those islands off Africa) says she feels at home in Macau, her home-awayfrom-home. A man from Goa speaks proudly of his birthplace but says Macau has brought many benefits to his family. A Portuguese man says he wants to stay here for the rest of his life.

These are just some of the comments I have heard in countless conversations with countless people who live in Macau and love it.

Around the corner is a huge, imposing Chinese temple. Inside is what first appeared to me, many years ago, as a kind of comfortable chaos of huge, burning joss sticks, enormous burning cones hanging from charred ceilings, deities gazing out while surrounded by fruit and other offerings, the faithful bowing and praying for health and wealth and other gifts.

Around the back, not visited by many people, either tourists or locals, is an enormous garden that is also a kind of comfortable chaos of enormous, odd-

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Ian Whiteley

shaped trees, creepers, flowers or all kinds, and the occasional religious statue, garbed in a tiny red cloak with a mysterious hood.

Not far away are the graves of the past. The Chinese graves with photographs, fresh flowers and other offerings. The Western graves more sombre and silent.

Marking history. Each telling their own tale.

These are places for meditation. For peace and quiet. For reflection and consideration of all that has gone. They are as much a part of Macau as the buildings and monuments, the palaces and piazzas.

Here is a man who died at the age of 29 in 1819. His name was Henry Sturgis and he came from Boston in the United States of America. What brought him here, and what led to his untimely death in old Macau and his burial in this neatly-cropped cemetery so many years ago?

I emerge from the shady grave-yard into the bustling street of modern Macau, past pawn-shops and a traditional Chinese pharmacy, where the click-clackclack of mah jong tiles echoes from somewhere above and a family sits down in a tiny restaurant to bowls of steaming noodles.

On top of the hill is the old lighthouse, the oldest the say in all of Asia. Later, after the sun sets, its bright beam will sweep over the old, and the new buildings, and light the way for the weary traveller, now sailing in by high-speed catamaran from Hong Kong instead of Portuguese caravel from Japan or Goa. Today, as I stroll along the modern Praia Grande of this bright, sunny morning in the year 2001, marveling at the enormous needle-like tower sprouting from the sea on the reclaimed land that stretches far out towards China, and walking under the same old banyan trees that shaded me as I first wandered here over 20 years ago, I find I am still discovering Macau’s mysteries and learning about its people and its place in the 21st century.

Although much has happened in these past twenty years, it is still nice to find that in some parts of Macau times seems to have stood still. And that, in itself, is a pleasant surprise.

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Turning the corner by the Pousada de Sao Tiago, the former fortress that is now a hotel, and the only one I have ever visited that has a cannon, and glancing out to the New China across the shining waters where an enormous suspension bridge now dominates the skyline, I wonder what a Portuguese adventurer from centuries past would make of these changes.

The old temple that gave Macau its name is still there, much as I imagine it was when the first Portuguese traders stepped ashore. People still pay their respects and burn joss-sticks, with smoke filling the air and stinging the eyes, much as they must have done for centuries.

But across from the old temple is a museum of maritime achievement that honours the past as well as celebrating the present and future. It is but one of several superb museums in Macau that are, without doubt, among the finest in the world.

The amazing construction of the museum that it is now housed inside the ancient St. Paul’s Fortress is a triumph of modern design incorporating original historical features. To stroll through it is to experience life in Macau in past times, even with the sounds of street traders hawking their wares. What a master-stroke, to house it within an ancient fortress, history preserved within history itself.

Macau’s museums have brought greater understanding of this tiny yet precious place. How many cities boast museums of wine, motor-racing and the fire service as well as more obvious subjects like local history and art?

Clutching a copy of the Cultural Institute’s excellent “Cultural Heritage” walking tour guide of Macau, I set off to wander around the old Portuguese settlement known as the “Christian City” and find myself visiting places I have never entered before in over 20 years of travel to Macau.

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Ian Whiteley

Places like St. Lazarus Church, the earliest church for the Chinese community in Macau, draw me in to hear a church service in progress. Then, spiritually refreshed, I stroll outside and across the road to an area that the Chinese called the “circle for admitting Chinese Catholic converts” which includes the atmospheric streets of Rua do Volong, Rua de São Roque and Pátio de São Lázaro.

This area, built in an unexpected grid pattern, is the best surviving example of early Portuguese urban planning in Macau and surely is destined to be renovated in grand style, like so many preserved parts of this delightful city.

One of Macau’s many attractions is that it is a living museum as well as being a modern city, and the mixture is intriguing.

I book a room in the Pousada de Mong Ha, the home of Macau’s tourism college, where keen, enthusiastic young staff make a visitor feel completely at home. This is another new discovery and the first time to stay here since my old favourite, the Belavista, became the home of Portugal’s top representative in Macau, the Consul-General, and therefore, sadly for me, out of bounds.

Gazing over the city from the Mong Ha hill, I wonder what other historical buildings will one day welcome tourists to stay the night. Nothing would surprise me, for in Macau, I have discovered, anything is possible.

When I got married there was really only one choice for our honeymoon hotel and that was the much-loved Belavista. Such was its popularity as a smart, elegant and attractive “boutique” hotel at that time that members of my family from overseas could not resist coming along too to enjoy the surroundings, with the unusual result that the “newly-weds” from Hong Kong were joined for break-fast, lunch and dinner by their close relatives, a fact that still causes much amusement in our family, as it no doubt did then among the staff.

Then in 1999, in the closing stage of Portugal’s long presence in Macau, came some news that gladdened my heart. I was invited to work alongside old friends in Lusa, the Portuguese news agency, as plans were being made for the historic “handover” on December 19th.

My job was to help foreign journalists understand more about this remarkable place and its achievements and not just report crime incidents which had unfortunately begun to dominate coverage of Macau and tarnish its image.

For me this was a job made in heaven, since I finally had an excuse to move to Macau and actually do what I had often dreamed about and live there.

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From May of 1999 until after the actual handover, I immersed myself in the life of Macau, soaking up like a sponge as many experiences as I could find of life in this place of great history and transition.

To see at first hand the final chapter of a long and remarkable period of close exchange between Portuguese and Chinese, and of course the start of a brand new chapter in those relations, was to feel a part of history itself.

In this final stage of Portugal’s long presence in Macau, I saw the distillation of so many historical and social themes into pure forms of expression in architecture, art and other cultural forms, and life itself.

The city spruced itself up, polishing the streets, restoring and re-painting grand buildings, constructing new and impressive monuments.

The area around the Outer Harbour was given a new lease of life and not just because it was where the Handover Ceremonies would take place. The impressive Kun Iam statute became the centre-piece of a new, modern area with landscaped gardens, fountains, trees, ducks and fish where families could enjoy peace and quiet and stroll or sit to their heart’s content.

A new restaurant and bar area sprang up and people began to move into the area, and I joined them. To stroll along the water-front at dusk past the courting couples and amateur fishermen was to experience life in such marked contrast to overcrowded, noisy Hong Kong that I wondered why more people didn’t just move to Macau.

It seemed that Portugal and the people of Macau rose to the challenge of creating a fitting and true legacy of their history for all future generations to enjoy and respect, but didn’t forget to have fun along the way.

In this way, I believe Portugal achieved far more in tiny Macau than Britain did in its much larger neighbour, Hong Kong. Just over three years after Britain handed back Hong Kong, the people there seemed to be somewhat disappointed with what had happened. Attempts to play down Britain’s colonial legacy seemed to have back-fired, leaving many of the population confused and pessimistic about the administration’s efforts, however well-intentioned.

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Macau seems to have taken a different path, and although time will tell if this is indeed the best and correct one, I have a feeling that Macau will emerge the overall winner. Preserving the past while building for the future is a winning strategy. In the rush to succeed, Hong Kong has destroyed so much of its past.

This tiny territory of Macau has, like the story of the hare and the tortoise, taken its time to get where it is today, but has succeeded in laying a solid, secure foundation for the future.

It has surprised visitors like myself for over 20 years and, I firmly believe, will continue to do so.

The tall tower in the harbour, the new bridge and border crossing, the planned yacht marina and all the other ideas on the drawing-boards show that Macau is not content to rest on its laurels.

Although I cannot imagine what this new century will really bring to Macau, in my heart I feel that Macau will thrive as a remarkable symbol of tolerance between people of different nations, and as a strong bridge between East and West, exhibiting some of the finest achievements of a proud European nation that came first to settle in the great and mysterious Middle Kingdom, and was the last to leave.

As I gaze on a bright red setting sun reflected in the shimmering waters of the harbour that stretch away into China, peering through the leaves of the old banyan trees along the ancient Praia Grande waterfront, I cannot but marvel at what the people of Macau have achieved.

Brought together from diverse cultures, through difficult and successful times, down the long generations of history to this point at the beginning of the 21st century and a new millennium, it seems the future is like the brilliant sunset, stretching ahead and beckoning the people to do even more.

In the great achievements of modern China, Macau’s role and that of Portugal cannot be forgotten.

The achievements can be witnessed at first hand by anyone who whishes to do so for the simple cost of a boat trip across the Pearl Delta, just as I first did all those years ago in1978, and still do today.

Long may Macau flourish and long may visitors come to enjoy this wonderful and ever-changing city of life, love, history and dreams.

And long may I be among them.

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Ian Whiteley

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