Seeing Macau’s Soul – illumelation

I’d heard stories about Macau from my good friend, Venus, who was born and raised there.

‘It’s not like anywhere else,’ she’d say earnestly. ‘I honestly think Macau is the best city in the world, though I know I’m biased.’

And after I got the chance to see Macau for myself, on a three-week trip between Macau, Hong Kong and Taiwan, I understood exactly what she was talking about.

Related reading: 5 Hidden Gems In Macau Beyond The Casino Floors

Macau through the eyes of locals

We board a packed green bus in Hong Kong, and within the hour, we have crossed the border into the glitzy coastal blueness of Macau.

Macau’s gleaming skyline, pulsing lights of casinos reflected in Nam Van Lake. Grand Lisboa hotel fanning tall and loud, visible all over the city. An emblem of excess.

Red lanterns strung up across its UNESCO centre, remnants of Lunar New Year, hanging even from Gothic-style Catholic cathedrals. Taoist temples just around the corner, incense swirling to the sky.

Drifting through its historic centre, the occasional dark interjection from Venus: ‘A guy jumped off this balcony after he gambled away his life savings. It’s pretty common here to be honest.’

The refusal to shy away from history. The elegant splicing between Chinese and Portuguese culture. 

How tradition and heritage is celebrated and preserved at the same time that colossal modernity and the gleaming technologies of tomorrow are championed by the city.

The impeccable uniqueness of Macau. 

Exploring the city through a local’s eyes, heart, and knowledge. The best way to explore a city.

 

The way to the heart is through the stomach

Home-cooked feasts of Portuguese and Chinese dishes in Venus’s family home. Her father spending hours at the stove on our behalf.

Six dishes to enjoy: salted cod with eggs and potatoes, clams tossed in black bean, fresh meaty mussels, wok-fried morning glory, Chinese tomato egg stir-fry, and Po Po’s chicken and potatoes. Knocked back with syrupy glasses of apple cider vinegar. 

Beyond homecooking, the food scene in Macau being unpretentious and delicious.

Dim-sum breakfast with Venus’s mother and grandmother. Pillowy sio-pao, cheung fun, har gau. Po Po tapping the tablecloth twice with her fingers to let the waiter know to stop pouring as her teacup is adequately filled.

Albergue 1601, a heritage Portuguese restaurant in the preserved St. Lazarus Quarter, serving traditional dishes.

Starters of fresh octopus salad (salada de polvo) and crispy salt codfish croquettes (bolinhos de bacalhau), followed by a hearty seafood rice stew (arroz de marisco), piri-piri grilled chicken (frango de churrasco), and lemon clams tossed in white wine. Topped with a heady malbec and the restaurant’s famous sawdust pudding (serradura).

 

By contrast, Nam Ping Cafe, a local cha chaan teng nestled in the centre, with its traditional Cantonese fast-food dishes like French toast, macaronis and milk tea.

Even stumbling across fresh, authentic pandesal at Filipino bakery Anak. Ube cheese and traditional pandesals dusted with fine breadcrumbs. 

Possibly the best thing we ate were custard tarts from Lord Stow’s Bakery. Pastry crispy, flaky and most. Filling creamy, rich and gooey. Balanced sweetness.

‘These are better than the ones in Portugal, right?’ Venus asks lightly, holding gun-fingers to my temple. All of us trying not to laugh as we devour our second custard tarts.

That classic trope of East meets West

It’s an unbearable cliché, but Macau really is a shining case study of how Eastern and Western culture can sit side-by-side in a metropolis and feel natural. 

Macau was a Portuguese colony for over 440 years, with sovereignty swapping back and forth between China and Portugal. It was the longest standing European colony in Asia, and the last European colony in Asia until its return to China in 1999.

Since Macau’s return to China, colonial Portuguese influence is still embedded in daily existence, from custard tarts to architecture to ceramic tiles and street signs.

Maybe the reason I’m so fascinated by the gentler hybridisation of east and west is because I have Filipino-Spanish heritage, and I’m deeply aware of the trauma that can be left behind by colonisation. 

The Spanish occupation of the Philippines lasted 333 years. A brutal colonial period smeared with bloodshed and violence.

Much of Philippine culture now stems from Spanish influence, not just tangibly in terms of architecture and food and names, but also with religion, tradition and so much more.

Spaniards weren’t the only ones who tried occupying the Philippines either: America, Japan and even Britain attempted to seize control of the islands.

By contrast, while Portugal occupied Macau with some military conflict, their rule was not primarily violent.

Visiting Macau and seeing how the city thrives with seemingly peaceful cultural coexistence is a concept that I find foreign and fascinating as a result.

Pinch of salt on the above thinking, of course, because I’m not a historian and my idealised tourist viewpoint limits any nuance in this opinion. Maybe I’ve got it wrong. 

But on face value, Chinese and Portuguese culture appear much more balanced and symbiotic in Macau.

 

Forever changed

I left Macau with an utterly changed outlook on the city. Mainly because I got to see Macau’s soul.

Macau is not ‘simply’ a gambling haven. It’s not ‘simply’ a backdrop to glossy Hollywood flicks. It’s not ‘simply’ anything.

Macau is a highly complex city with a nuanced culture and way of operating that makes it irresistibly explorable.

I love visiting places like Macau. Places that make you look twice, think hard, and come away having learned something new.

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