Macau

In my last blog entry, I said I might post some pictures of Vietnam. Well, I figure the expiry date on that intention has passed. I also have since been to Macau and my memory is only good for recalling one trip at a time.

Macau is a pretty nice place to visit, and it is getting bigger all the time. The Special Administrative Region consists of Macau Peninsula, Taipa Island and Coloane Island. But because of the huge investment in infrastructure in the area, Taipa and Coloane are actually connected by a broad area of reclaimed land. This Cotai strip not only serves to enable greater travel between the two islands, but it is also the construction site of many new casino resorts of a type for which Macau is already becoming increasingly known.

Lindsay and I took in a lot of casinos over the course of our trip, but we never actually placed a bet. I was close a couple times, but the complicated rules of the cashiers and the language barrier prevented me from changing my money into chips. Baccarat is the game of choice in Macau, but neither of us knew how to play really. The game is interesting because it appears that players play against each other, while the house only takes a 3% commission off each round. A lot of the Mainland Chinese who come to play appear to sit at tables in groups of families or close friends, so this competition between each other is probably preferable compared to the other games.

Whether you choose to gamble or not, the casinos are definitely sights to see. The opulence of each one is striking. Stanley Ho's Hotel Lisboa, shaped like a lotus flower growing out of a bulb, is visible from almost anywhere on the Macau Peninsula. It's an impressive structure but its constant presence in the background becomes somewhat of an affront to the senses. The Wynn, the MGM Grand and the Sands are all impressive buildings near the city's waterfront. They are impressive not just for their size, but, especially in the case of the Wynn, because of the nice paths and gardens they have built surrounding their casinos.

In the Cotai strip, most of the casino resorts are still in the construction phase. However, a big exception is the Venetian. The Venetian is massive and completely self-contained. If you were to fly to Macau and take the shuttle bus to the Venetian, you might get an impression that Macau consists of only the airport and the one resort. The scale is ridiculous, yet so is the detail. There is an enormous tower in the middle of the steel and glass type, which is probably wider than it is tall. In front of the tower are facades of Venetian buildings based on actual places in Venice. What is striking about these facades is not only how numerous they are, but also how much detail there is in each one. Further out from the facades is concrete lagoon where Italian gondoliers will take you out for a ride. And then there's the interior. The inside looks more akin to the Louvre than most of the other casinos. Beyond the casino area there is a shopping mall. Throughout the shopping mall there are more canals and more gondoliers to give you rides. The ceilings are all painted to resemble a blue sky and the lampposts and lighting give the area a feeling of everlasting dusk. At the food court there are people dressed up in Renaissance style clothes performing Renaissance style dramas on a stage. It's a pretty surreal experience.

Aside from the casinos, Macau has quite a lot to offer for sightseeing. There are many Portuguese structures that have lasted for centuries. The roads are also built in an old style, and some are still made of cobblestone. People often bring up the word fusion when talking about Macau, insisting that the area is an example of fusion between Portuguese and Chinese culture. As far as architecture goes, I think the Portuguese elements still have a leg up on the Chinese ones. Portugal already has a lot of cultural fusion in its history, so it has a lot of different techniques. The outside of the Portuguese buildings is almost universally two-tone and the colours are always pastel, but there is a lot of variation on the construction. One of the buildings we saw was a Moorish Barracks. The Moors never occupied Macau, obviously, but the Portuguese have a lot of Moorish buildings at home. So why not share that style?

We also saw many churches. There was the Church of Saint Dominic, the Cathedral of Macau, the Church of Saint Anthony, the Church of Saint Augustine, the Church of Saint Lawrence and the Church of Our Lady of Carmel. They all had Portuguese names, but I can't remember if the saints were Sao or Santo, and I think some were different.

There were temples all over the place, as in any Chinese city, but the temple to A Ma was a larger one. While it didn't have as much impressive architecture as the churches, it was still pretty impressive in keeping a natural feel to the complex. There are paths leading up rocks and trees growing all around. In spite of its more natural appearance though, there is incense burning all around. It doesn't offer the same feeling of tranquility as one would hope to get at such a natural looking place.

We also saw a Protestant chapel which was about half a block away from the Church of Saint Anthony. It was tiny in comparison. There was a cemetery behind which was interesting because many of the headstones gave descriptions of who the people buried there were. Many were British officials from Hong Kong, or sailors with the East India Company; many others were members of the American navy who died in port or at sea. There seemed to be a fair amount of Dutch headstones as well. Even though they were all from different denominations, they all had to be buried in the Protestant cemetery because they couldn't be buried in consecrated ground. This cemetery was their only option.

Near the Church of Our Lady of Carmel, which was in Taipa, there were old colonial style houses where people lived up until the 60's. The furniture inside would have been collected over generations. Some pieces were beautiful. The houses themselves were fairly modest, considering the wealth of the inhabitants, but they were beautiful. They once would have had a view of the ocean, and Coloane island across the way; now they look out upon a marsh and the Venetian resort.

It was an interesting to be in Macau just now. In the future, the Cotai strip is going to be developed into so many hotels and casinos that the region is going to undergo a huge transformation. It has already seen a big change with it's reunification with China and the opening up of the casino industry to foreign investors. It'll be interesting to see whether it will become a place where ESL teachers are needed for one. With so many foreigners coming to the region, will it aim to diversify into things other than gambling tourism, or will it just base its wealth entirely on that one industry?