The Culture of the city, Macau!

What is the first thing that you should know about Macau?
Is it the culture? the location? the attractions? or the economy of the city?

Perhaps, we would be more interested in its location first! If you do not know, Macau is located at the Southern part of China, opposite Hong Kong. There are high-speed ferries running between Hong Kong and Macau every half-hour. Hence, when the very next time you visit Hong Kong, do not forget to take the ferry to visit Macau; vice visa.

And the very next thing you would be curious is the culture of Macau, which includes questions like what kind of people lives there? how is their lifestyle like? Let me bring you to Macau now!(:

Culture

Macau has the amalgam of both the Portuguese and Chinese cultures. This is one of the unique points of this small city. You could evident that by both its tangibles and intangibles. The tangibles would include the artistic and rich architecture, temples, catholic churches and various other buildings that could be found at every part of the city. Moreover, when you visit Macau, you could never miss its famous delicacy of Portuguese Tarts!

Whereas, the intangibles would includes festivals that are related to the Portuguese. Annually, there is a festival called the 'Lusofonia Festival', meaning "Portuguese-speaking" festival. People would gather together and enjoy the music and dance of Portugal, seminars and workshops on the study of Portuguese.

The Name

You might also wonder, what does Macau means? Macau came from the word in Chinese A-ma-gao of A-ma, a Chinese goddess. A-ma-gao means the bay of A-ma. The name is being shorten from A-ma-gao to "ma-gao" (The present Macau). This goddess has a temple at the bay of Macau, naming The A-ma Temple. Lots of tourists and even the locals visit the temple for blessing.

Religion

In Macau, there is no state religion. The residents has the Freedom of belief and religion which is being protected by a constitutional document called the Macau Basic Law. However, most of the residents are Buddhism. Although Roman Catholicism does influence in education and social welfare of the city, it only hold for about six percent of the population.

Population

The population of Macau has been gradually increasing from approximately 180,000 in 1960s, 300,000 in 1980s, 400,000 in 1990s and to 537 972 in 2009. Majority of the population is Chinese (95%) with only 2% is Portuguese.

Food!

The locals do have their meals relatively early. Sometimes, some of the restaurants would have their chefs leaving by 9pm due to the little number of people dining that late. However, if you would to dine at restaurants located at the hotels or tourist attractions, it would definitely close at a later time for the tourists. In Macau, you could get food from Portugal, Macanese to Chinese cuisine.

Portuguese food is usually heavy, meat based and not particularly refined. The common ingredients used in the dishes are olive oil, garlic and dried salted cod (Bacalhau). Also, their meals usually include soups.

Macanese food on the other hand is unique. It is a blend of both Portugal and Chinese cuisine. It uses a wide variety of spices which include coconut milk, cinnamon, wine, star anise and more. The popular dishes are Pork Chop Bun, African Chicken, Stir-fried curry crab and Rabbit stewed in wine. Last but not least it their egg tarts called the Pasteis de Nata.

This is African Chicken which is being marinated in Garlic lemon juice before grilling and being served with coconut white wine sauce.

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.

The indigenous people of Macau!

The indigenous people of Macau have unfortunately became an endangered species, the 'real' Macanese. This group of people are half Portuguese and Chinese.

Majority of these Macanese has migrated to all parts of the world, leaving a countable number of them left at Macau. In the present, the Macanese (People of Macau) consists of all sorts of races and religions. It comprises mainly the Chinese, follow by Filipinos and the rest with Europeans, Thais, Australians, Indonesians and so on. People from all parts of the world have migrated to Macau and became a Macanese.

People migrates to Macau are due to various reasons. Some of them love the unique culture over there and some migrated to order to get a better job with better wages in order to have better living conditions, not only for themselves, but also for their beloved ones, as compared to their homeland. Hence, Macau is known as a land of foreigners now.

This may be due to the fact that Macau lacks manpower too. Therefore it is a relatively favourable city for people from places like China, Philippine andIndonesia to migrate over to Macau, being foreign workers. This would not only benefit these people by having better living conditions but also helps to grow Macau's economy.

Most of the 'real' Macanese have Portuguese Father and Chinese Mother. This is because it is seem as a taboo to have Portuguese women to marry Chinese men. They are usually Catholics too. Moreover, the men had to go through military service.

Do you know that one of these 'real' Macanese is an artist?

She is Michelle Monique Reis (李嘉欣), an actress and model. Her father is a Portuguese and Mother a Chinese.

She married a tycoon, a Chinese Businessman. As you can see, although Portuguese women marrying Chinese men are seen as a taboo, she is a good example who still did too. Therefore, the culture of Macanese has been diluted due to various influences. For example, living in a modernised city (20th Century), having Internet-wide knowledge, Facebook socializing and twitter. All these made an influence of the authentic culture and mindset of race and religion.

The reduction of Macanese (Portuguese and Chinese) may due to reasons like lesser Portuguese man are marrying the Chinese and therefore decreasing the creation of new generations of Macanese and generations of Macanese had migrated overseas.

Their languages

The languages spoken are Portuguese, Chinese (Putonghua dialect), English and Cantonese (Dialect). English is expanding as a language in commerce, tourism and is being used in education. These are all official languages used in Macau.

However, there is also the old Macanese language (Patuá, or Makista). It is a language of Portuguese with a little mix of Chinese in it. Unfortunately, it has now virtually died out as the number of Macanese (Chinese mixed Portuguese) population decreased drastically.

The mode of education in Macau.

Ever since 1997, there has been a concept of 10 years' free education being guaranteed to all children to the age up to 15.

Most of the schools in Macau are either private or being subsidized. The minority which holds the public or government schools, Portuguese is being used as a medium in terms of teaching or conversations with the teachers. Some other public schools would instead put Portuguese as a compulsory subject for the students there.

If you do not know, the schools in Macau are not only being grouped into public or private schools, but also in grammar or technical.

Grammar schools holds the majority. These schools teach subjects like Mathematics, Languages, Social Studies, History and Sciences. Whereas, the techical schools teach their students subjects include car repairing, electronics and engineering.

Moreover, in Macau, it does not have its own educational system. Different schools have different educational systems depending to its mission and vision. And the 3 main types of educational systems include Portuguese, British and Chinese educational system.

For schools which adopt Chinese educational system, students attend
- 6 years of schooling at primary school,
- follow by 3 years of junior secondary school education, and
- 2 years for senior high school education (To Form 5, and some schools up to Form 6).

Moreover, when these students are in their senior secondary school years, they have to choose a major (either science, commerce or arts).


And for other schools which adopt the British educational system, students attend
- 6 years of schooling at primary school,
- 3 years for junior secondary school,
- 2 years for senior secondary school, and
- 1-2 years for matriculation.

Also, when students are in their senior secondary school years, they have to choose a major (either science, commerce or arts). In addition, after their secondary school education, they have to sit for the General Certificate of Education (GCE) directed by different educational boards in Britain.

Lastly, for the rest of the schools which adopt Portuguese educational system, the students have to attend:

- 4 years for basic education,
- 5 years for junior secondary school, and
- 3 years for senior school education.

In these schools, Portuguese would usually be the medium used. Recently, these schools have put either English or Chinese as a compulsory subject for the students.

If students wish to further their studies, there are more than 10 higher institutions in Macau. However, some would choose to attend universities or polytechnics overseas. And some of the well known local universities include University of Macau and Inter-University Institute of Macau.

The Leisure Activities Available at Macau!

Macau is always known as a city with legalised gambling and cheap food like Dim Sum. Moreover, a lot of people had the perception that Macau is a place which is dirty and a developing city. However, Macau has been improving its tourism industry and service standards constantly, it has attracted increasing number of people both knowing more about Macau and urging to visit.

Macau provides a wide range of activities for all types of travellers. This includes the gamblers, night life seekers, family getaways, corporate meetings and honeymooners.

Casinos

There are more than 10 casinos in the city. For example, Casino Macau Palace, Casino Taipa, Crown Macau, MGM Grand Macau,The Sands Macau, Venetian Casino Resort. And due to the legalisation of gambling and the number of casinos available, Macau had became Asia's Las Vegas. Moreover, Baccarat is the most popular game in the city.

The largest casino is The Sands Macau. Most of the gamblers at Macau are super-high rollers. These people consist of the Chinese who challenged their destiny via the game in casino! However, some of the people at the casinos who are not gamblers but visitors who want to experience the whole atmosphere in the casino since it is a place of what Macau is known for.

Events

There are plenty of events being held at the city. They could be based on cultural, educational, interest or sports. And the biggest sports event is the Formula 3 Macau Grand Prix held in the 3rd week of November.

The streets of the town called Monaco were used as the track of the race. This event started in 1954. There are 2 races - one for cars and one for motorcycles. Annually, it attracts numerous international contestants and countless spectators watching the whole event (Especially sport-lovers).

Besides, some other popular events held in Macau are Horse Racing and Dog Racing.

The Bars

With Portuguese influence, the culture of drinking is very visible at Macau. There are plenty of bars available around Macau. And most of these bars import portuguese red and white wines, ports and brandies. People who loves night life would definitely be fond of Macau.

Some of the well known bars include the 180° Lounge and Grill (Located at the Macau Tower), Bellini Lounge (Located at the Venetian Macau-Resort-Hotel) and Flow Bar (Located at Crown Macau). Besides, there are a number or karaoke lounges and discos within the city.
As a result of numerous bars and casinos around, Macau is also a city that never sleeps.

Museums/Heritage sites

Culture-lovers or culture appreciators would have a variety of choices to choose from and decide which museum to visit first.

Some of the Museums:
- Macau Museum: It exhibits the history of Macau.
- Grand Prix Museum: It exhibits some of the winners' used cars during the past races. Visitors could also use the museum's new feature, the stimulators, to test their racing skills. However, this would attract more sports lovers rather than culture-lovers.
- Macau Wine Museum: It shows anything about wine.
- The Macau Cultural Centre: Its exhibits Macau's cultural landscape.
- Maritime Museum: It has the collection of boats and artefacts relating to Macau's seafaring past.

Some of heritage sites:
- Ruins of the Church of St Paul: The remains of a Jesuit church built in early 17th century by Japanese Christian exiles and Chinese craftsmen.
- Macau Cathedral: It is for most major religious festivals and holy days in Macau.
- Monte Fort: Part of the College of the Mother of God.

Food!

The locals love to have teatime! It seems like another Hong Kong at Macau whereby you could see people all around at various restaurants at any time of the day. Exploring the various food cuisines at Macau is one of the favourite leisure activity for a number of tourists visiting the city.

Macau not only have fine dining and smart casual restaurants but also stalls located along the streets (Dai Pai Dongs). At these Dai Pai Dongs allow you to try all types of local food at one location. They would have their curry fish balls, portuguese tarts, glutinous rice with sausages and peanut congee.

Adventure!

At Macau tower, you could take the opportunity to do bungee jumping! Yes, the world's tallest bungee jumping. For people who love to have this kind of thrill and yet have a memorable experience at a foreign destination, this would be an excellent choice. The speed of jumping down the tower is around 200km/h. The tower do sell the admission ticket to the top of the tower and bungee jumping as a package.

Shopping!

Although shopping is not that well known at Macau than for its casinos, there are still plenty of shopping areas available at the city. For example, the Venetian Macau-Resort-Hotel has a total area of over 96,800 square feet for restaurants and retail stores.

Macau is known for?

Once you hear the name Macau, the first image that comes into your mind would mostly be the grand casinos.

However, some people would have different images. It could be the Asia's Las Vegas, the Church of St Paul, the Portuguese tarts, the Venetian Macau-Resort-Hotel or the Macau Tower.

Hence, if you were to visit Macau, you have to visit and experience the above sites. Or else, it would be as if you have not visited Macau.