We just got back from our first long weekend: five days of traveling and bonding. The long break was thanks to the Chinese National Holiday. One of only a handful of nationally recognized holidays sprinkled through out the year. The actual holiday takes place on October 1st and commemorates the formation of the People’s Republic of China in 1949. Happily it also coincides with the traditional Chinese Harvest Festival celebrating the Autumn Equinox. Most Chinese workers get an entire week off for the festivities. There are community festivals, fireworks, and parades across the nation to celebrate. The closest American holiday is probably Independence Day- except National Day is a week long and bigger…. Much, much bigger.
We started our trip with high hopes. Both Macau and Hong Kong are notable Chinese cities with rich culture and history. Also, Macau and Hong Kong are both Special Administrative Regions (SARs), which means that the provincial governments operate with a relative degree of autonomy. This means that travelers must prepare as if they are leaving for a foreign country. Passports, customs, the whole nine yards.
Macau was the first stop on our adventure. For those of you who don’t know, Macau is known as the “Las Vegas of Asia”. It is nestled just off the coast of mainland China and consists of three main island: Taipei, Macau, and Coloane. Spread across the three land masses are casinos, restaurants, and shopping just like America’s Sin City. However, Macau is considerably larger than Las Vegas. In 2006 it even surpassed Las Vegas in gambling revenues. As a business major I was particularly interested to see Macau for myself. American investors have begun to pour money in to the SAR, perhaps due to the afore mentioned statistic.
In addition to the lure of the craps tables and slot machines, Macau is a veritable melting pot of European and Asian culture. Macau only just returned to Chinese rule in 1999. Prior to that it was a Portuguese colony. The city still retains the architecture and European flair of its long time inhabitants. Even the street signs were written in Portuguese and Chinese.
Having read about the many virtues of the city you can imagine our surprise when we arrived and found it entirely empty. We walked through massive casinos, perfect replicas of the American Venetian and Hard rock Hotels, eerily silent and still. The streets were clean, staff friendly, and facilities in perfect condition. Yet they lacked one thing: people. Confused and tired from a day of school and night of travel we returned to our hotel.
The next day we awoke to magically find the streets crowded and bustling. The sudden change caught us by surprise, but we continued about our day of touring. First up: the A Ma temple, a tribute to the goddess of the Sea. The temple was beautiful. Carved stone steps led up a hillside over looking the sea. The natural tropical plants provided shade from the warm sun as we admired the view. Everywhere there were handicrafts and flower offerings to the goddess. Overall, it was an awesome experience.
From there we wandered in to the heart of the city in search of the Ruins of the Church of St. Paul (Ruinas de Sao Paulo). It was designed and built by Jesuit missionaries from 1582 to 1602. The architecture is particularly notable because it combines both aspects of traditional European cathedrals with those more typical of Asian temples. For instance instead of traditional gargoyles the architect chose to use dragon faces to ornament the alcoves of the façade. Today all that remains is the front portion of the church, but the ornate detailed carvings make the trip worthwhile. We managed to catch the tail end of a performance by some street dancers. They were extremely kind and let us take a picture with them.
Next we hiked up a massive hill to the Mount Fortress, another of the Jesuits building projects. Ironically the cannons were only fired once. Now it’s just a lovely historical park, which houses the Macau Museum. We wandered our way to the top, took some fun pictures and looked out over the city. It was there that it really hit us. We we’re literally half a world away from home on a trip we had planned and paid for ourselves, not accountable to anyone but each other. It was really a liberating experience. It felt like being grown up.
Well after that moment of clarity we perused the dark and dusty hallways of the Macau Museum for a while. The exhibits primarily focused on the daily life of the Macanese during different time periods. Perhaps not the most engaging of museums, but it did do a good job of showing the cultural clash that has taken place in Macau since the Portuguese settled there in 1537. Catholic iconography mixed with traditional Chinese relics as the East and West met and melted together in to one.
After the museum we returned to the hotel to prepare for a night out on the town. This time we went out a little earlier and finally found some people. We had a lovely dinner at the Wynn hotel and then watched fireworks at the Macau tower. The Macau tower is the tenth tallest building in the world, in case you were curious. It sort of looks like the space needle. I personally was not all that impressed. However, the gaudy Hotel Lisboa and the brand new MGM Grand Hotel did impressed me. Everything was beautiful and in immaculate condition, but again streets were empty by 9:00 PM. After walking up and down the strip and taking in all the luxury and grandeur of the Macau casinos we decided to sample some of Macau’s nightlife. We also hoped to find some of the missing people.
After consulting the concierge at one of the hotels we headed off to Cubic “Macau’s largest and most prestigious club”. It, predictably, was empty. By that time we were incredibly fed up and confused. So we asked a helpful bartender who explained that people in Macau come out to party at around 2 AM. Of course we had to see for our selves. Lo and behold the club began to fill at about 2 AM and by 3 it was in full swing. We met some awesome people that night. Including a group of recently graduated USC students. The DJ was wonderful, our new friends entertaining, and the venue beautiful. We danced away our final night in Macau. I’ll give you the run down on our adventures in Hong Kong in my next post! It was an awesome trip and I can’t wait to share with you all! Zai Jian for now.