another snapshot from the september trip to singapore/malaysia (still catching up on those pictures and stories)…

But despite the fanfare, Shanghai is hardly an international city (anyone who has been to Kuala Lumpur will immediately spot the difference) and a curious absence of creative energy can make this fast-changing city seem oddly parochial and inward-looking.

from the lonely planet guidebook on china (which is banned around here).

The name Macau is thought to be derived from the temple. It is said that when the Portuguese sailors landed at the coast just outside the temple and asked the name of the place, the natives replied “A-Ma-Gao” (Bay of A-Ma). The Portuguese then named the peninsula Macau.

from wikipedia

macau, the most densely populated territory in the world, is a little city that used to be portuguese - until the portuguese gave it to china in 1999 or so. it’s a short boat ride from hong kong, so we decided to hop on the ferry and spend a day there last week… and well, what a difference a boat ride makes.

macau is a million years from hong kong. it thrives on casinos (and pawn houses) - i believe it is the only place in “china” where gambling is legal (1 country, 2 systems policy). our companions on the ferry? loads of old chinese people, eager to hop on the first bus that drove them to a casino. which is a bit sad… but then again, the overwhelming feeling i got in macau was precisely sadness. macau looked old and depressed, with the same chaotic urban planning reminiscent of a neglected mid-sized portuguese city.

the fun part though, was checking all the double translations in portuguese/chinese that give macau a very peculiar feeling (even though only 0.6% of the population speaks portuguese), counting our patacas, and walking in a portuguese “calçada” again, surrounded by semi-familiar facades.
closing our eyes and pretending, just for a second, that we were in portugal.

and

:)

summer has been good, despite the silence.
the olympics have come and gone and i guess now we’ll see how much life changes (or not), when it all fades away.
my company changed offices to a shiny new place, which unfortunately is located on the other side of town. the commute is now much lengthier, but watching shanghai in the morning through the bus window can be eye opening.

a couple of couchsurfers have surfed our couch too, true citizens of the world hopping between countries and cities. their stories and energy is what makes new this hobby so much interesting. i hope we can make use of this good karma on an upcoming trip to kuala lumpur and singapore. the weather there looks lousy right now, but we need a break from this city. a lot of exploring and sightseeing are in order, some gastronomical adventures and tons of pictures. if you have some tips, leave them in the comments!

we went to hong kong, a couple of months ago or so. hong kong is so different from shanghai that on the way back we realized that we were actually a bit disappointed to return “home”, to shanghai, and china. our experience is as biased as it gets, since we were only there for a single day (most of which was spent inside cafés, trying not to melt or get soaked up outside, on the inconstant spurts of rain). what follows is a gathering of random thoughts from that day. they are going to sound rough, i know, but that was exactly how i felt when i came back: angry and bitter at all the potential that this city has and that is currently being wasted.

so, we arrived in hong kong in the evening, took a shuttle to the city center, crashed in a small hostel and the next morning, by 8:30 we were queuing at the chinese administrative services doorstep, waiting for our turn. when it opened, we delivered the forms and our passports and were told to return around three o’clock in the afternoon. which we did, everything was ready, we picked our passports and strolled around a bit longer, window shopping and dodging the rain.

while we were at it, it rained a lot - not the kind of plum rain we see in shanghai. really pouring down cats and dogs, as i wish it would around here more often. maybe for once this city would be cleaner, maybe we could even see the skies more than once a month.

it seemed pretty bilingual to us, everybody we spoke to seemed to speak english. the people queued and gave way in the escalators, the buses were all double decks (an eye-blink from far away london), the metro stations had this tiny colorful tiles that made them gorgeous. the sidewalks seemed decent (not the chinese version of sidewalks, irregular patches of tiles and cement). we didn’t see any beggars or stumbled upon fake dvds stands, yet we stared in awe to the happy mesh of signs and neons in the narrow streets.
and then there’s disneyland (and not some fake imitation, like in the mainland). all banks can issue their own version of the hong kong dollars bills, which can be confusing but also colorfully fun and original. coffee franchises were everywhere (something i’m beginning to find quite reassuring) and we spent some hours on one of them, while i introduced p. to scrabble. no one (not even a single one of the 20 employees of the café where we had lunch) screamed “qing guoling!”* to welcome us.

there’s a quiet sense of normality, there are so many foreigners in this fast paced city that no one really cares (or stares) anymore. the driver that took us to the airport actually drove slowly, the whole way, letting us enjoy the ride and the view. and what a view! hong kong is beautiful. the geography of the place, with its bays, islands and peninsulas, hills and waterfronts…

anyway, as soon as we had set foot outside pudong’s international airport in shanghai, late night that day, there were hoards of taxi drivers trying to lure us into their taxis. we choose the shuttle back to the city - the bus dangerously (and disappointingly) sped all the way to the city center, where we leaped into a taxi and went home, feeling tired and sad.

an indian friend once told me that if britain hadn’t colonized india years ago, they’d still be in the middle ages - and ironically, that’s the exact same feeling i have about hong kong vs. china. hurray for british colonies and their civilized manners.

now, knowing the portuguese record on this field, i’m curious about macau…

* i don’t know if that’s exactly what they say. sounds like that and it should mean “welcome”. you can’t go inside any restaurant around here without having at least a dozen of waitresses screaming it in unison to your ears… quite literally, i’m afraid.

hong kong image by J.Yip, on flickr.