Macau

It’s been a while since I used a travel agent to plan a trip. But a major travel agent in Belgium posted a deal one can’t refuse in a newsletter in June 2023. Flights from Amsterdam Airport Schiphol to Hong Kong with Cathay Pacific and three nights at the four-star Park Hotel Hong Kong in the Tsim Sha Tsui, Kowloon area. So I messaged Oriol in ‘panic’ and pressured him to decide quickly (as the deal was popular and the the offer limited in time and availability) to come along to this Special Administrative Region (SAR) of the People’s Republic of China. Being four days in Hong Kong, we used one of these days to Macau (also often spelled Macao) the other SAR. We were there in November 2023.

Macau consists of a small peninsula – Macau proper if you like – and two islands, Coloane and Taipa, connected by bridges and reclaimed land. With a history shaped by influence of coloniser Portugal and a strategic location at the crossroads of East and West, Macau has evolved into a fascinating enclave that captivates visitors with its diverse attractions, from historic landmarks to world-class entertainment.

The history of Macau is a tapestry woven with threads of Portuguese colonialism and Chinese traditions. In 1557, the Portuguese established a trading post in Macau, and it remained under Portuguese administration until 1999 when it was handed back to China.

This unique blend of Eastern and Western influences is palpable in every corner of Macau, from its architecture to its cuisine. The Historic Centre of Macau, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, showcases the city’s rich heritage with well-preserved colonial buildings, ancient temples, and traditional Chinese residences.

One of Macau’s iconic landmarks is the Ruins of Saint Paul’s, the facade of a 17th-century church that stands as a testament to the city’s Christian heritage.

The Senado Square, surrounded by pastel-colored neoclassical buildings, is another highlight, reflecting Macau’s European architectural legacy. Temples such as A-Ma Temple and Kun Iam Temple pay homage to the region’s Chinese roots, emphasizing the harmonious coexistence of different cultural elements.

As a global entertainment hub, Macau is renowned for its world-class resorts and casinos, earning it the title of the ‘Monte Carlo of the East‘.

The Cotai Strip, a reclaimed land between Coloane and Taipa, is home to extravagant integrated resorts that boast opulent designs, luxurious accommodations, and a plethora of entertainment options. The Venetian Macao, with its Venice-themed architecture, is one of the largest casinos in the world, featuring a replica of the Grand Canal complete with gondola rides.

Beyond the glitz and glamour, Macau’s culinary scene is a delightful fusion of Chinese and Portuguese flavors. The city is famed for its Macanese cuisine, which blends southern Chinese and Portuguese ingredients to create unique dishes like bacalhau (salted codfish) and African chicken. Street markets, such as the Red Market and Senado Square Market, offer a feast for the senses with local produce, snacks, and traditional crafts.

For those seeking a break from the bustling urban landscape, Macau’s natural beauty provides a serene escape.

Coloane, the southernmost island, is a haven of tranquility with its hiking trails, secluded beaches, and the picturesque A-Ma Cultural Village.

Guia Fortress, perched atop Guia Hill, offers panoramic views of the city and the South China Sea, making it a popular spot for both history enthusiasts and nature lovers.

In addition to its cultural and recreational offerings, Macau is a destination for major international events. The Macau Grand Prix, an annual motorsport event involving GRT cars, bikes and its main attraction Formula 3, attracts racing enthusiasts from around the world.

The Macau Arts Festival showcases a diverse array of performances, including theater, dance, and music, adding a creative dimension to the city’s dynamic cultural scene.

While Macau has embraced modernity, it remains deeply connected to its traditions. Festivals such as the Chinese New Year and the Macau International Fireworks Display Contest bring the city to life with color, music, and vibrant celebrations. The Macau Museum and the Macau Science Center offer immersive experiences that delve into the region’s history, culture, and scientific achievements.

Two spellings

Two spellings exist for Macau. Macau and Macao. Macao derived from the original Portuguese spelling and Macau is derived from the current orthography.

Since the transfer of sovereignty over Macau in 1999, the Government of Macau considers both to be acceptable spellings of the name in English language publications, but Macau was more widely used across English-speaking world, especially in the United States and Australia. While Macao was more widely used in the United Kingdom, especially in government documents.

Dualism is visible in many English language government publications and documents, sometimes even within the same paragraph. For example, the spelling Macao appears on the local government’s English language documents and passports, but the government’s official explanatory note on the passport spells it as Macau. As of 2014 most English-language books use Macau.

An itinerary of Macau

Having arrived around midday of the Thursday of the Macau Grand Prix at the Macau Outer Harbour Ferry Terminal, we wanted to go to the city centre on foot. But because the Guia Circuit was live, we couldn’t. So we had to take a free shuttle bus service to the Praça de Ferreira do Amaral or Ferreira do Amaral Square. João Maria Ferreira do Amaral was a governor of Macau. He was assassinated in 1849.

The praça offers quite a view of hotel and casino Grand Lisboa. It is owned by Sociedade de Turismo e Diversões de Macau, originally the monopolist of casinos in Macau. The Grand Lisboa is the tallest building in Macau and the most distinctive part of its skyline.

Senado Square

We started with the historic centre of Macau. The Senado Square, or Senate Square, is a paved town square in the Macau parish of Sé and part of the UNESCO Historic Centre of Macau World Heritage Site.

It is an elongated triangular shaped square and connects Largo do São Domingos at one end and Avenida de Almeida Ribeiro on the other.

Ruins of Saint Paul’s

The Ruins of Saint Paul’s are the ruins of a 17th-century Catholic religious complex in Santo António. They include what was originally St. Paul’s College and the Church of St. Paul, a 17th-century Portuguese church dedicated to Saint Paul the Apostle.

Today, the ruins are one of Macau’s best known landmarks and one of the ‘Seven Wonders of Portuguese Origin in the World‘.

Built from 1602 to 1640 by the Jesuits, during the time in which Portugal and Spain were under the same crown, the church was one of the largest Catholic churches in Asia at the time. It was destroyed by a fire during a typhoon on 26 January 1835. The Fortaleza do Monte overlooks the ruin.

The ruins now consist of the stone frontispiece. The façade is shaped like a retable and themed around the Assumption of Mary.

Likely influenced by Japanese Christian craftsmen who worked on it, the ruins of St. Paul’s include carvings with heterodox images that draw from Asian traditions, including Mary stepping on a seven-headed hydra, described in accompanying Chinese characters as “Holy Mother tramples the heads of the dragon”. The base of the structure has six Chinese guardian lions carved from stone.

Resisting calls for the dangerously leaning structure to be demolished, from 1990 to 1995, the ruins were excavated under the auspices of the Instituto Cultural de Macau to study its historic past. The crypt and the foundations were uncovered, revealing the architectural plan of the building.

The ruins were restored by the Macanese government into a museum, and the façade is now buttressed with concrete and steel in a way which preserves the aesthetic integrity of the façade.

Fortaleza do Monte

Next up was the fortress. The Fortaleza do Monte or Mount Fortress, also Monte Forte and officially Fortaleza de Nossa Senhora do Monte de São Paulo, is the historical military centre of Macau.

The fort was built between 1617 and 1626 on the 52-metre tall Mount Hill, located directly east of the Ruins of Saint Paul’s.

It was constructed to protect the properties of the Jesuits (mainly Portuguese Jesuits) in Macau, especially from pirates. Later, the fort was taken over by the Portuguese colonial governor and the relevant authorities for the defence of Macau.

The fort proved crucial in successfully holding off the attempted Dutch invasion of Macau in 1622.

The fort remained a restricted military area until 1965 when the barracks in the fort were converted into a weather observatory and the fort was opened to the public.

The observatory ceased its function and was relocated to Taipa in 1996 before it was demolished to make way for the Museum of Macau, which was officially opened on 19 April 1998. The tree-covered park at the top of the fort has a panoramic view of the mainland area of Macau.

Guia Fortress and Lighthouse

From one fort to another. The Guia Fortress is a 17th-century colonial military fort, chapel, and lighthouse complex in São Lázaro. The complex is part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site Historic Centre of Macau.

The view of the fortress and the lighthouse has been blocked by the Liaison Office of the Central People’s Government in the Macao Special Administrative Region since 2010. Local citizens and scholars criticised that such a case proved that the Macao government had ignored the conservation of heritage in urban planning.

Still, the Guia Lighthouse provides quite some views of Macau.

Time left but not enough time

At this point of our visit, we had a problem. Glory, our guide in Hong Kong, had said “three to four hours is enough” for Macau. We allocated five. That was both too much and not enough. Too much for just doing the Big Highlights. Not enough to explore more and / or more in-depth.

Oriol spoke to locals on Grindr and one in particular was very keen on meeting up with him. He also gave us some tips and addresses, but they were all in (or on) Taipa.

But there was no time for Taipa and the A-Ma Temple but we did have time for pastéis de nata.

Pastéis de nata

A pastel de nata or pastel de Belém is a Portuguese egg custard tart pastry, optionally dusted with cinnamon.

Outside Portugal, they are particularly popular in other parts of Western Europe, Asia and former Portuguese colonies, such as Brazil, Mozambique, Macau, Goa in India and East Timor. The Macanese pastel de nata has been adopted by KFC and is available in regions such as Hong Kong, Taiwan, Thailand and China. In Indonesia, this pastry is especially popular in Kampung Tugu, Jakarta, a culturally Portuguese (Mardijker) enclave.

We bought ours at a Saint Honoré Cake Shop.

Lou Kau Mansion

In the same street, we stumbled upon the Lou Kau Mansion, a house built around 1889 as a home of Lou Kau, a prominent Chinese merchant. The building has been listed as part of the historic center of Macau and a protected property in 1992.

The building was built with Portuguese decoration and Chinese architecture style. The blue-bricked building consists of two-story. It has also three courtyards.

Mandarin’s House

Afterwards we had more coffee, tea and cake at Alley Café. We explored some more and finished our visit of Macau at the Mandarin’s House.

The Mandarin’s House is a historic residential complex in the São Lourenço neighbourhood. It was the residence and family home of the late Qing theoretician and reformist Zheng Guanying (1842–1921). He completed his masterpiece ‘Shengshi Weiyan‘ (‘Words of Warning in Times of Prosperity‘) in the house.

The Mandarin’s House is among the largest family houses in Macau.

The Mandarin’s House was built in 1869 by Zheng Guanyin’s father Zheng Wenrui. Zheng Guanying and his brothers gradually enlarged the complex since. It was built largely in Cantonese style but is noted for its fusion of western architectural elements.

In 1990s, the Zheng family gradually moved out and the house was then rented out. There were at once more than 300 tenants living inside the complex, resulting in poor living conditions.

The house was 4,000 square meters.

That concluded our visit of Macau. We then hurried to the shuttle bus, to be on time at the ferry terminal.

Macau vibes

I found Macau to have a very different vibe to Hong Kong. You sense the Portuguese influence a lot. Some streets and buildings made me reminiscing of ‘typical cononial’ vibes in Cuba (2017) or Mexico (2022) and specifically Yucatán. Maybe because of the humidity being unfriendly to the buildings.

But then of course, with Chinese instead of Mesoamerican influences.

Macau ≠ Hong Kong (1)

The Mainland influence on Macau is bigger than on Hong Kong. Macau is hugely popular with mainlanders for its casinos.

Macau has always been more Beijing-oriented than Hong Kong. Macau even frowned upon Hong Kong protests. Chinese president Xi Jingpin highlighted Macau as an example to follow.

“Unlike Hong Kong, pro-Chinese Communist Party (CCP) groups have controlled and influenced Macau for over half a century. What’s more, Macau’s citizens not only identify more strongly with the PRC but are also more trusting of Beijing”, sinologist Thomas des Garets Geddes states in ‘As Hong Kong rebels, why is Macau so quiet?‘ (Merics.org, 21.01.2020).

“Not only has Beijing enabled Macau to prosper, it is also regarded by many in the city as more competent than their own local government. (…) Macau’s citizens know all too well how much their success depends on the central government.”

Macanese people identify themselves more with the PRC. Local identity is underdeveloped, the researcher says. “Despite four and a half centuries of Luso-rule, a mere 2% of the population can actually speak Portuguese and only around a quarter English (compared with over half in Hong Kong). This certainly limits people’s exposure to western and perhaps more liberal influences.”

Still, Portuguese is everywhere in Macau. Street signs and shop names for instance. “(But) people’s identification with their colonial past remains weak”, Thomas des Garets Geddes says.

Flag of Macau (which was very hard to capture. Not many flew.)

“More strikingly perhaps, most have no qualms about singing the PRC’s national anthem and speaking Mandarin.”

Also, in 2016, 43.60% of its citizens were born in mainland China, slightly more than those born in Macau itself (40.70%). In comparison, less than a third (29.8%) of Hong Kong’s 7.3 million residents were born on the mainland.

Macau ≠ Hong Kong (2)

What struck me, is how little tourism / visitor information you find on Macau compared to Hong Kong. I watched many YouTube videos on HK before travelling, but I found comparatively few resources on Macau.

So?

If we would do it again, we would allow a real full day in Macau, including the A-Ma Temple, Taipa and Macau By Night in our itinerary. The presence of the Macau Gtand Prix wasn’t ideal, although for me that was enjoyable. More on that in next blog post.

Anyway, whoever does a Hong Kong city trip, should include Macau. It’s different to Hong Kong in many ways, but as an SAR, it is more easily accessible than the PRC proper.

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