My Journey to Macau, the original Gateway to the East (part 2)

Here is the second part of my long post about my Sunday excursion to Macau. When I ended my last post, I was in the Leal Senado building of Macau - the former headquarters of the colonial government of Macau.

In this post, I will cover steps #7 through #15 of my actual travel itinerary:
7. Visit Sir Robert Ho Tung Library
8. Visit St. Augustine's Church
9. Visit Dom Pedro V Theater and glimpse St. Joseph's Seminary from the outside
10. Visit St. Lawrence's Church
11. Visit the Mandarin's House
12. Visit the Moorish Barracks
13. Visit A-Ma Temple
14. Take taxi to Taipa
15. Visit the Taipa Houses Museum

I began walking south from the Senado Square toward Sir Robert Ho Tung Library. Again, the contrasts between colonial Portuguese architecture and architecture reminiscent of 1950's Hong Kong is often very sudden and clear-cut. Here is a Portuguese-style street...

And by the street intersection, the neighbourhood architecture has completely changed...

Farther along my path, I enter what is supposedly the traditional Portuguese district of Macau:

And then, I arrive at the Sir Robert Ho Tung Library, which was formerly the summer retreat of the Eurasian industrialist and philanthropist Robert Ho Tung. Before he passed away, however, he donated the building in his will along with a large sum of money to be converted into a library for the people of Macau. In fact, the original building is rather small for a library, so it is used for administrative purposes while a modern building later annexed to the original one actually holds the library facilities. I strolled inside for a glimpse of the turn-of-the-century colonial Macau architecture favoured by the elite.

 In fact, the way the wooden inner main doors are inlaid with windows in a grid pattern makes me suspect that Sir Robert Ho Tung tried to incorporate Chinese design elements into an otherwise thoroughly Western building. Either that, or he was just following the fashionable French window style.

To the right, you can see the modern library facilities attached to the original building to the left.

A short walk later, I encountered St. Augustine's Church in the Santo Agostinho Square, which was built in 1591 by the Spanish Augustinians (hence the name). Finally, a church dedicated to the patron saint of my high school alma mater! The exterior looked a little worse for wear but the interior was marvelous. The church is especially known for the statue of Christ bearing the Cross on the Road to Calvary behind the main altar.

 

 You might not be able to see the statue of Christ bearing the Cross from this viewpoint, but you can already tell how traditionally Portuguese the church interior is, with its cream coloured walls highlighted with white, its flat roof, and ornate stone carvings behind the main altar. You can also spot the unique separate wooden pulpit at the left.

  

Then, I made my way over to the Dom Pedro V Theatre, which is a historic theatre in the heart of Macau. Clearly, with its Greek-style roof and columns, it is in the neo-Classical style but its incorporation of green walls and white tints makes its style thoroughly Portuguese as well. To this day, it hosts important cultural events.

Here is a view of St. Lawrence's Church, which is just another short walk from Dom Pedro V Theatre. Again, St. Lawrence's is one of the oldest churches in Macau but the current building actually dates back to 1846. This church is well-known for being situated on a hill and as such, the wives of Portuguese fishermen and sailors used to wait on its steps, praying for the safe return of their husbands. In fact, this was so well known that the Chinese name of the church became 風順堂 (The Church of Smooth Winds). Like most churches in Macau, the exterior is thoroughly neo-Classical but the interior is intricately Baroque.

And now I move on...

Here is a wonderful banyan tree in a Macau city square - some banyan trees remind me of thin and spindly fingers draped with vines!

Eventually, I made it to the Mandarin's House, the restored family residence of the influential Chinese literary figure, Zheng Guanying (鄭觀應) built before 1869 in the traditional Chinese style. Although Zheng Guanying is certainly not one of the most famous of historical figures in the final years of the Qing Dynasty, his role in history is not insignificant either. The museum proudly exhibits a letter from Mao Zedong to his cousin apologizing for damaging the copy of "Warnings in a Prosperous Age" (盛世危言), which was a progressive work written by Mr. Zheng advocating reform in a corrupt and backwards Chinese Empire. Even Sun Yat-sen was influenced by the liberal writer's works. 

Here is a map of the entire complex, as provided by the Museum's website:

 In English...

... as well as in Chinese.





The mansion left behind by Zheng Guanying is a testament to the architectural tastes of the Chinese elite during the late Qing Dynasty and how even traditional tastes were slowly being influenced by radical new Western ideas.

 The Sedan Way of the complex.

 Here is the so-called Moon Gate (月雷) of the house. Originally, prior to the restoration, the Moon Gate was missing where traditional architectural principles would have dictated its existence in that location. Later on, archaeologists found remnants of the original Moon Gate and reconstructed the current one in its place.

 As mentioned briefly by the exhibit in the Museum of Macau, the genius of Chinese architecture lay not in the use of stone arches and domes to distribute the weight of a building's ceiling onto its walls but in its use of interleaving wooden posts and beams. In fact, this system was so sturdy that not even a single nail was ever used!

Here is the entrance hall to the main building of the house - Ronglu Hallway (榮祿第). In many ways, the Mandarin's House reminds me a lot of the Tang Clan village in Sam Tung Uk, Tseun Wan. The pure white walls combined with dark wooden doors and green ceramic windows make for a very beautifully contrasting structure!

The inside of Wen Chang Hall.

If you look closely at the ceiling, you will realize that the roof merely consists of two layers of clay tiles - that's all between the inside of the building at the elements outside!

 Like the Man Mo Temple in Hong Kong, this plaque was donated by the Governor of Fujian Province to Zheng Guanying after he donated a large sum of money to aid in relief efforts after a large natural disaster hit the area. From right to left, it reads 榮德厚施 - Glorious Virtue Amply Applied.

Here are some tables and chairs along the colonnades of a cloister-type courtyard in the middle of the house. If you look closely enough though, you will discover that the identical-looking flower pots have simplified Chinese writing on them, almost certainly indicating that they are modern factory-made specimens from Mainland China! Oh well, I suppose they had to get some flower pots from somewhere...

The sign at the bottom of this picture points out that the window panels below the window shutters on the wall at the right of the picture are made out of mother-of-pearl. This is a very valuable substance extracted from the inside coating of the shells of certain molluscs. It used to be highly demanded for such windows because of the soft lighting produced by windows made of mother-of-pearl.

This is the Front Courtyard of the complex.

Now, I enter the ground floor of Yu Qing Tang (餘慶堂, literally Plentitude-Celebration-Hall), which held the residence of the eldest male of the Zheng family. The interior courtyard opened up to the elements is sealed off from the rest of the building by movable wooden doors (you can tell from the picture that the restorers of the building tried to be as non-intrusive as possible with their work as possible). However, as a nearby sign noted, the living room in the background of the photo has no closeable doors and so would have been constantly exposed to the elements!

Here is the upper floor of Yu Qing Tang. A nearby sign points out that even Zheng Guanying incorporated Western influences into his traditional Chinese residence - the windows on the left are identified as French windows. And it might just be me, but the floor tiles seem remarkably European in style...

Apparently, in former days, these windows would have offered a beautiful view of the South China Sea. Now, they open up to a view of a cluster of neighbouring houses.

A nice display of Chinese fans flanking a flower display is put at the front of the entrance to Yu Qing Tang. But look closely and you will see that the right fan has the words 餘慶堂 on it - does it not seem odd that a fan would display the name of the building is placed in? 

 A special shot of the beam and bracket system supporting the roof, according to traditional Chinese architectural methods:

Here is a view of the upper floor of a Chinese-style courtyard, complete with windows inlaid with precious mother-of-pearl:

Back at the ground floor, I moved on to Ji Shan Tang (積善堂), which held the residence of the second-oldest male in the Zheng family. It similarly had an upper floor for sleeping quarters but as can be expected, they were not as interesting as the elaborate Yu Hing Tong so I didn't take any pictures. On the ground floor of Jik Sin Tong however, I found a beautiful 12-panel Chinese screen, which was described by another information sign as one of the most intricate examples of wooden carving in the entire house.

Moving on, I quickly realized that I couldn't find my planned bus stop on my way to Taipa village. I brought my phone with me and tried to activate roaming (in hopes of using the GPS) but it still no connection! I decided to make an educated guess and start heading south and towards lower elevation (Taipa village is located south of Macau Peninsula and I knew that both the Macau Fortress (near St. Paul's) and St. Lawrence's Church overlooked Macau from the north so southern Macau must be lower in elevation). Very soon, the elaborate barracks of the former colonial Portuguese army came into view. Its rather Arab style gave it its current monicker of the Moorish Barracks.

 Good thing the Moorish Barracks was situated on the side of a hill in sunny weather. I was now certain I was heading south (as it was the afternoon already, the shadows would point to the northeast).

I decided that my best hope of finding a bus that would take me to Taipa village would be to find a bus stop located near a major tourist attraction. I passed by A-Ma Temple (媽閣廟), the historic Chinese temple dedicated to the goddess of the sea and fishermen. Apparently, A-Ma Temple is the reason why the English and Chinese names for Macau / 澳門 (pronounced "ou mun" in Cantonese) are so dissimilar. When the first Portuguese sailors arrived in the vicinity, they asked the locals for the name of the place. When they were given the reply 媽閣 (pronounced "maa gok"), in reference to the nearby temple, the Portuguese decided to name the entire area Macau. The story reminds me of how Canada got its name from similarly linguistically-challenged French settlers who decided to name the entire area after a small Native village.

Indeed, there was a map of all the bus routes on Macau Peninsular near the temple, so I walked over to the bus stop and waited for my bus...

Unfortunately, the only bus route running to Taipa village (氹仔, pronounced "tam zai" in Cantonese - quite differently from the Portuguese!) arrived every 15-20 minutes and every time the bus arrived, it would refuse to take any passengers aboard! Eventually, I gave up on my plan to take the bus to Taipa and hailed a taxi (compared to the 4-6 MOP bus ride, the taxi ride cost about 40 MOP but it was my best option in that circumstance).)

As the taxi drove over the narrow channel separating the Macau Peninsular from Taipa, I could clearly see that the buildings on the north side were of the same satellite city type ubiquitous in Hong Kong's Tseung Kwan O. Tall residential buildings shot up into the sky in rows upon rows. And at the street level, banks and shops abounded. But the southern side of Taipa (which used to be an island but is now connected to the other former island of Coloane (路環, "lou waan") by a reclaimed-land area called Cotai) still retains its historical low-rise houses and colonial Portuguese-era architecture. Even the newer developments attempt to blend in with the rest of the area.

The taxi driver dropped me off at the edge of the historic Taipa village and I decided to keep heading south to the Taipa Houses Museum (unfortunately, the weather was rather cloudy by now so I couldn't use the sun's direction to navigate; I headed south by heading to the big casinos and hotels in distant Cotai instead). Here, even obviously modern apartment buildings attempt to adopt the traditional pastel green-and-white palette seen in the rest of Taipa:

Here is the Auditorio do Carmo, a hall used for cultural and artistic events in Taipa:

When I asked the taxi driver to take me to "Taipa Houses Museum" (I actually asked for 氹仔屋博物館), he had no idea what I was talking about. When I told him that it was located somewhere north of the lake in Taipa (something I remembered from my reviewing of the area on Google Maps), he asked me if it was somewhere near the 嘉模 church, I replied that I had no idea. As I was walking to Taipa Houses Museum, I suddenly came across the 嘉模 church that the taxi driver was talking about. It was the well-known Nossa Senhora do Carmo church (Our Lady of Carmel Church). I knew that I was getting close!

A short walk later, I saw the lake in Google Maps - it was a medium-sized lake with much of its surface covered with lotus and other greenery. In the distance lay the modern casinos and hotels of Cotai (a port-manteau of the flanking villages of Coloane and Taipa).

Indeed, the Museum was located in traditional Portuguese-style homes right at the edge of the lake. In former days, Macanese (that is, residents of Macau with mixed Portuguese, Chinese, and other ancestries) people lived in these homes which used to face the South China Sea. Now, with the development of Cotai into a gambling wonderland, it faces just a humble lake.

In fact, the homes were so traditionally Portuguese in style, that I often found myself wondering if the former residents were actually pure Portuguese. As you can see in the dining room, a statue of Jesus is placed on a corner altar while a painting of the Last Supper hangs on another wall. 

The living room contained a few Chinese-style furniture. Here, you can see some pottery glazed with Chinese dragon motifs on the bottom left while Chinese plates hang ont he wall, and wooden chairs carved with Chinese dragons sit on the bottom right:

According to a sign, the study's desk would have been a family heirloom passed down the generations while the study itself would have been a place for business talks among adults and a place for doing homework for children:

Here is the kitchen, complete with ironing board and firewood for the stove:

And don't forget the food storage box, lined with metal on the inside to prevent insects from getting in (I'm not too sure how that works).

The washroom is notable for its large bath-tub, wherein the master of the house would have relaxed after a long day of work:

In the master bedroom, the bed drapes protect the heads of the household from mosquitos during the night. And in the right of the photo, you can see a statue of the Virgin Mary placed on the bedside altar along with a kneeler for private prayer. I clearly remember the information sign saying that the altar was for "worshipping" the Virgin Mary - obviously, either the English translation was faulty or the writer had a faulty knowledge of Catholic doctrine.

As the information signs rightly note, the Macanese were a highly religious people, as further shown by this child's bedroom, replete with saints' statues, a kneeler, and heirloom painting of the Sacred Heart of Jesus (above the bed):

Inside the next building of the Museum was a temporary exhibit showing clay flower arrangements (done really well, actually - I mistook them for real flower arrangements at first) but I didn't take any pictures.

The last building of the Museum housed an exhibition of the different traditional garments of the various Portuguese regions. Here are some shots that I took of them (I'll let the display signs do the explaining):

Stay tuned for my final post (which will be done by tomorrow) on my trip to Macau. I will be covering Steps #16 through #23 of my travel itinerary, wherein in eat some Taipa street food, attend Mass at Macau Cathedral, visit Hac Sa Beach, and return back to Hong Kong. See you next time!