Macau: Cultivating culture

I SET not a foot, aye, not even a toe, in any of the ornate and opulent casinos of Macau. And I am all the more enriched by that (non)experience.
Which goes to show that Macau is not all gambling mecca for the exclusive enjoyment of junketing high-rollers. Neither is Macau nothing less of a shopping paradise lost to all but the jet-setting super rich and superbly famous.
Too poor to gamble, too impoverished to shop, I immersed myself – along with the other press people, but of course – in local culture. There lay the enrichment gained from this journey.
Beyond the shimmering lights of the hotel-casino complexes lies the soul of Macau, the bedrock of its past – its living cultural heritage.
The Mater Dei church – all that remains of it now is the façade that serves as the very icon of Macau – at the very core of the Ruins of St. Paul, is a living witness to the spirituality of the Macanese. A tiny incense-choked ancient Buddhist temple at its rear, a testimony to religious co-existence, if not tolerance.
The network of cobblestoned avenida, ruo, calcada, estrada and travessa that meanders through a maze of tiny stores and shops, restaurants and homes ever opens to a largo, a tiny square, where stands a Catholic church.
The yellow-toned St. Augustine’s is up an escada at the end of Avenida da Praia, where a row of green-and-white colonial homes now comprise the Taipa Houses-Museum.
Yellow-hued too is St. Dominic’s, right at the heart of commercial shops, opening to Leal Senado Square.
Through the hilly greens and rock formations of Camoes Garden and Grotto where locals do their early morning tai-chi, where pets have their own W.C., that’s water closet, toilets in plain language, one comes to the Protestant Cemetery, where stands a quaint white chapel, where antiquated tombstones, circa 1700-1800 tell the story of valor, of hardships, of struggle in the opening of a new world to Europeans.
Some 200 steps from Camoes Garden stands St. Anthony’s where the Jesuits set their earliest headquarters. I did remember to pray to my patron saint whose feast day is June 13.
For all its churches, Macau makes a pilgrimage site. Not only to Christians but also to people of other faiths, teeming as it is too with temples honoring various deities. Small shrines are just about every street nook and cranny, with plaques, stones and statues representing different gods, and the ubiquitous burning joss sticks.
By the sea, along Avenida Sun Yat Sen stands the golden statute of Kun Iam, the goddess of mercy. The base of the giant statue is an ecumenical center for Eastern religions, open to worship, retreat and meditation.
Atop the Coloane Hill Park is the 19.99-meter high marble statue of the goddess A-Ma, the patron of seafarers. At the base of the hill is the A-Ma Cultural Village with a majestic temple atop a marble stairway.
There is a much older A-Ma temple around Barra Square near the Maritime Museum.
Speaking of museums, Macau – so it is bruited about – has the most number of museums per capita in the whole world. I got to see only two.
The Macau Museum at Mount Fortress some hundred steps from the Ruins of St. Paul gives more than a glimpse, aye, a sense of the history of Macau and the Macanese culture. I had fun trying to translate old Latin manuscripts of missals and Catholic rituals displayed along antique santos. Even as I reveled too in immersing – if only for 30 minutes – in the day-to-day life in Macau of the past via dioramas, audio-visual aids, and exhibits.
It was most opportune for us to experience the Refugio de Um Viajante (Traveller’s Home) exhibition featuring the masterpieces of George Chinnery, the “pre-eminent representative of the English fine arts in the East during the 18th and 19th centuries.”
And to be gifted – by our tour mentor, Senhor Joao Sales, PR executive of the Macau Government Tourist Office – with a number of prints of Chinnery’s obras primas is simply… wow to the max!
At the Handover Gifts Museum of Macau is a collection of Chinese art pieces in different media, mostly sculpture in jade, ceramic potteries and tapestries that represented the gifts of China’s various provinces to Macau in celebration of its handover by Portugal to China on December 20, 1999.
Outside the museums, art and artifacts find their niches in the lobbies of the hotels and casinos. At Grand Lisboa is a showcase of the finest – and most expensive – artworks and antiques in jade, ivory, and gold. At MGM Grand Macau is the Dalinian Dancer, a bronze statue by the surrealist artist Salvador Dali, behind the very reception desk is a modern abstract mural.
A taste of the performance art – not in the classical sense though of ballet or the opera but no less entertaining – is the Cirque du Soleil’s “ZAIA” at the Venetian Macao.
An emergent culture – extreme sports – has found its base at the Macau Tower. Sheer thrill is provided by The AJ Hackett Adventure: be it in the bungy jump from 233 meters aboveground at a speed of 200 km/h; the skyjump, also from 233 meters on a 20 second flight at 75km/h; the skywalk around the rim of the tower; and the mast climb – scaling the tower’s summit at 338 meters.
For the equivalent of P10,500 for the bungy jump, I preferred to just walk through the museums, the heritage sites and the art-laden hotel lobbies. For free. Yeah, being a culture vulture need not be expensive. Not even in Macau.