The Macau Adventures: August 2002

The harbour in which I arrive reminds me of back-street Hong Kong, low lying buildings, and pedestrian architecture. I expected at least fabulous Vegas style casinos, flaming the sky with the latest in neon lights.

As I walk up the main street, my interest grows. I look up at the touches of century-old Portuguese architecture - the windows, the doors, the balconies, and the roofs, that suggest the pictorially romantic Asia of Merchant-Ivory films.

Moments later, after spying merchandise on clothing tables in the alleys, I hit the main square, the energy spot of the town.

The square is so well-positioned that if you are completely exhausted from previous travels, you need only walk a few steps in any direction to hit three or four main travel attractions.

Here you can find the helpful Macau Travel Service, providing maps and answering any questions that you might have.

Within a few minutes, I gathered an armload of free brochures, changed my money, had a quick coffee at the American Cafe.

Addicted to clothes as well as caffeine, I picked up a blue cotton knit ankle-length skirt and some pastel green shorts: cost for both, under $5.00 Canadian.

I next discovered the famous St. Dominic Church, a gem of a building. To Chinese tourists, the attached museum can given them an insight into the mind and history of Christians. I imagine these artifacts must seem hypnotically fascinating the first time that they are viewed.

I wonder how the stigmata, the marks that nails leave upon white flesh, the golden halos around the heads of saints, and the more happy fluffy white wings sprouting from scared backs must appear to people raised in other cultures.

It is in the church itself, less forboding than the museum's bloody crucifixes and melancholy winged creatures, that the visitor sees how the material world of religious architecture and the internal world of meditation can merge seamlessly.

As I sat there noting with the green and white colour tones of the elegant structure, touched with gilt here and there, Japanese tourists snapped everyone in their immediate line of vision, with a digital video camera.

Leaving the Church I walked a short distance to the remains of St. Paul's Cathedral, which is only one wall. This ruin is magnificently lit up at night. The fame of this site seems far larger than its size, which is after all only one wall!

Walking back from the Cathedral, I found a good English-language bookstore. There I bought a book by Amy Tan, the Chinese-American writer, who writes about women in pre-revolutionary China and their descendants in California.

I ended my walkaround day with a shrimp won-ton soup. The restaurant had a Hong Kong feel to it, with arborite tables, plastic chairs, and a bilingual menu.

I went down to the American Cafe for my morning coffee, after I purchased delectable egg custard breakfast pastries over the road at the bakery counter.

I thought thoughts about the history of Chinese women over breakfast, haunted by the Amy Tan book, one story of a girl whose maid commits suicide.

It turns out the mother of the girl is really her step-mother, the legal wife of her father, and her maid, who waited on her like a servant, is really her own mother, who was taken in by her father after her first husband was murdered.

So the tragic girl discovers her servant is her mom, loses status immediately in the household as the truth is known, is estranged from her half-sister, and is shipped off to a Christian boarding school, as the Japanese close in on the area, killing Chinese men and raping Chinese women.

After digesting this at breakfast, my mind turned from literature to art: Portuguese visual artists. I entered the Town Hall to view the adjacent contemporary arts gallery.

The arts show was very impressive in terms of talent. I had never seen contemporary Portuguese art, and later wished I had written down the names of artists that I liked.

I was taken with a Renaissance style head of an adolescent, with curling locks on its nape, a snub nose, and gentle expression. This was painted in the chalky brown tones of an ancient drawing, though on a large white square canvas textured like stucco. The painting combined two periods in time, rather like the writings of Amy Tan.

Bargain posters, about $3 USA, stood in a big bin by the central door. These posters are lightweight, and reflect the recent shows of the museum They all have both Chinese letters as well as Portuguese script.

I purchased a golden yellow poster, a type of Chinese folk art, and have yet to find it in a real store. I have seen it in the ladies washroom at the Hyatt in Hong Kong, and in the gift shop of the Railway Museum in the New Territories.

I was happy with my first trip to Macau though I knew I had to return to see the Buddhist temple, and other places. The trip like my first trip to Hong Kong was far too short and left me longing for more of the place.