A suffocating setting
​
​
The aircraft landed in Hong Kong, almost touching the skyscrapers, a unique sensation and a pilot’s acrobacy. During those six years living in Asia, in the late eighties, I had only heard of a single accident, with no victims, the aircraft extending its landing on water.
​
The only flight experience in a short airport track had happened by mid seventies in Madeira Island, where I could feel the power of brakes and sudden impact on landing. Later on, the airport expanded, gaining space to the sea.
​
It was my first intercontinental flight and my first travel to Asia, so the excitement was great with a new life experience, full of expectations.
​
I had just spent one full month holidays in Greece, a farewell to Europe, travelling around Athens and the islands of Santorini, Mykonos and Crete. The weather was hot and I and my companion carried heavy backpacks with a camping tent and other accessories for a long travel.
​
Intense blue of sea and sky, bright whitewashed houses of Santorini and the small churches with their blue cupolas imprint in my mind.
​
A night travel by ferry to Crete and its capital Heraclion, a way to save money. A must-to-do visit to Knossos ruins, a surprise to watch how the red painted columns and colourful frescos survived, even if restaured.
​
The greek people looked much alike portuguese and the mediterranean food was just fine, the greek salads and the moussaka.
However, the language was a barrier and the only extensive dialogues were established with an irish young fellow, whom we met in Athens and, afterwards, in Mykonos. We kept writing for long years and visited him in Dublin.
​
The wheather was hot in July, but when I got out of the airport in Honk Kong it was suffocating, with the warm temperature and the high humidity. This subtropical weather was new to me and not pleasant.
​
Hong Kong was not my final destiny, just a stop over to catch the jetfoil to Macau. I had been in a hovercraft in Portugal, crossing the beautiful peninsula of Setúbal to the amazing Tróia beach, but never had seen a jetfoil, which looked like flying over the water, a rapid transport that would take one hour to arrive in Macau, seventy kilometres away from Hong Kong. At the time, I would never have imagined that in 2018 a 55 Km bridge would conect Hong Kong, Macau and Guangdong.
​
The weather in Macau was the same as in Hong Kong . I felt uncomfortable with the permanent sweating, walking on the streets. The way to refresh oneself would be to enter the shops to get some cool air. Indoors, the power of air conditioner would sometimes get freezing. Some restaurants would provide shawls for ladies, on account of the low temperatures.
​
Summertime in Southeast Asia corresponded to typhoon period, dark sky, heavy rains and strong winds. The government would announce high signals of typhoon to prevent people to get out. Climate change turned to more extreme typhoons in this coast, and the worst tropical storm in fifty years happened in 2017, causing some deaths, casualties and material damages.
​
The hot season was too long and the sky closed the sun. In those periods I longed for the blue clean sky of Lisbon.
​
Bustling societies like Hong Kong and Macau contrasted deeply with the quiet Lisbon of those years. Macau was the most populated tiny territory in the world, with a constant flow of migration coming from mainland China.
​
Everyday I walked fifteen minutes from my apartment, on the top of a fifteen storey building to the office and I could witness the fast changing of shops, from one business to another. It pleased me to watch the lion dance ceremonies that the new shop owners would contract with the local associations, for good luck and prosperous business.
​
Contradictions in societies exist and in this part of the world the frenzy for money, a savage capitalism was pretty obvious.
Macau lived on gambling and casinos. Later on, it would become more prosperous than Las Vegas.
​
In spite of all, I could watch an alter traditional side of the territory, beautiful scenes like elderly people dancing Tai Chi, early in the morning or late afternoon, or another peculiar habit of walking the cage birds to the gardens. There were no dogs or cats, just birds as pets, and some cages were beautiful craftworks of bamboo with their tiny ceramic bird feeders.
​
In the first office building I have worked, facing Praia Grande Bay, I had a priviledged view over the Pearl River, the delta of the river coming from Guangdong. In low tide, water would disappear, showing the mud and tiny fish that would come out and crawl around, looking like small reptiles.
​
Sometimes I watched the junk boats passing by, and that romantic picture remained in my memory forever, like a landscape painting.
Macau preserved the traditional colonial architecture and the bilingual street signs, in portuguese and cantonese. The municipality had imported the traditional portuguese sidewalk, an enlarged roman mosaic with design in darker stone for the main square.
​
The taoist and buddhist temples in Macau were a place to visit often. The first impression was awkward, namely in A-Ma Temple, where firecrackers would make a lot of noise and the space looked like an entertaining spot, rather than a place for prey and meditation. The incense sticks were familiar, namely the indian ones, but the spirals of incense hanging from the ceilings were new to me.
​
The first time I heard a strange noise like a machine gun firing, a colleague explained that it was a «panchão», a long firecracker line, some might have several metres, much used in festivities like the Chinese New Year or the Lunar Year.
​
Behind my apartment building was located a small traditional chinese garden, that used to be a private area, but turned to municipality responsibility. It looked like a treasure hidden among high buildings.
​
At the time, only a few important casinos existed, the most famous was Lisbon Casino, a three storey building of late sixties. In the seventies another adjoint building with the same type of architecture would host Lisboa Hotel, a twelve-storey round tower, a luxury hotel whose lounges and corridors were filled with precious chinese art pieces.
​
At the entrance, the cover had the shape of a bat, which was also the neon signal for pawn shops around the area. In chinese culture the bat was a symbol of wealth. The hotel would be extended twice to over two thousand rooms.
​
The five star Hotel Lisboa was, to my eyes, the ex-libris of Macau, though at official level, the ruins of St. Paul’s Cathedral played that role.
Later on, I became aware that this stone façade in ruins had survived to the wood structure of the church consumed by fire. The church dated back to the 17th century and it was built, under the supervision of the jesuits, by christian japanese in exile. It holds christian and oriental elements entertwined, religious inscriptions in chinese, japanese chrysanthemums, a portuguese caravel, chinese lyons, a rare example of a mixture of cultures, a unique feature in a catholic church.
​
The traffic in Macau was intense, with many scooters getting through. The air was polluted and warmer in Macau mainland than in the two small islands of Taipa and Coloane. Taipa became a suburb of Macau with residential skyscrapers, but in those days the jockey club was the main attraction, with the old trotting track. It was not a profitable enterprise, nothing like the horse racing in Hong Kong, it would shut down in 2016 with a big loss.
​
Coloane was the nature preserved Island. Up till the 19th century it was a salt Island and remained unpopulated till the istmo to connect Taipa was built in late sixties. Later on, it would become linked by land reclaim, a way already used to expand Macau mainland.
Coloane had two famous beaches, Cheoc Van with white sand and Hac Sa with black sand.
​
Working in the administration of Macau compensated from a professional and economic perspective. I never heard of financial cuts in Macau administration budget, unlike the situation in Portugal.The status of expatriate was a priviledged one, but in a concentrated territory with a community of portuguese bumping on each other, sometimes felt suffocating, and frequent escapades, during week ends, were common to the neighbour territory of Hong Kong. A special ID card as Macau resident turned these border crossings easy.
​
The portuguese had been in Macau since the 16th century after establishing a commerce agreement with the chinese. Hong Kong turned to british administration in the 19th century, as a result of the Opium War, and only after World War II, developed fast as a financial and trade centre.
​
In the escapades to Hong Kong, visits to Victoria Peak, walking around the trail, allowed a belvedere view of 360 degree over the Island.
A more distant Stanley, in the southern coastal area, with its street vendors looked much different from the present wooden promenade, big buildings and urban improvements.
​
Macau remained with its traditional looks and only started developing in the eighties. However, the traditional colonial buildings were preserved and remain one of the main touristic attractions.
​
Macau had that exotic flavour and in spite of the suffocating summer days, I treasure those memories.