Traditions of the Macau!

Do you know that the traditional culture of Macau is very similar or rather being the same as Hong Kong's?

In Macau, people are still as superstitious. Superstitious could be in terms of numbers, food, dates, location, fung shui, zodiac or even clothings. And mainly talking about how supersitious the Macanese are, its endless. Hence, I would touch on the more popular custom that you should know relating to supersitions.

The locals would definitely search for an auspicious date before doing major events like weddings, building a house, moving house or starting a business. They tend to see things from a different view. In other words, they would be 'afraid' and believe that having an auspicious date to very important in order to hold a major event. If not, the event would be unsuccessful and things would not go as planned.

On the other hand, numbers. The locals would link the pronunciation of the numbers in Cantonese to words which share the same pronunciation. Meaning, two or more words having the similar pronunciation with different meanings are being linked together by the locals.

For example, the number eight have the same pronunciation as the word for prosperity in Cantonese. Therefore the locals usually love to have things containing the number eight, especially for items relating to business like contact number or pricing. The other number would be four, which is linked to the world for dealth. Hence, the locals would never never have their things containing the number four. It seems as a sign of bad luck to them.

Next, foods. Food does contains meaning to Macanese too. For example, when it i someone's birthday, it is expected that someone close to him/her should prepare noodles for them as strands symbolises longevity. Whereas, garlic and ginger are used to 'scare off' the evils from one.

Also, for clothings, bright colours are known to be for cheerful happy events and dark colours like for more formal events and for unfortunate events like funerals. During festivals like New Year, people are expected to wear bright colours. It is both for 'scaring off' evils and a sign of good luck as another year comes.

Moving on from superstitions, we should talk about other traditions of Macanese.

Gifts. When you being invited into someone' house, you are expected to bring along a small gift . It could be fruits, flowers or pastries. It would be rude if the guest did not. For events like weddings, you should also prepare an amount in a red packet for the couples as token. One should not open the gift right after receiving it too.

The locals mind a lot of having respect from others. For example, they do not like to be embarrassed in front of others, especially to people who are not very close with them like friends or relatives.