A ‘witness to history’ says the world can learn from Macau

Gary Ngai

A new book chronicling the life of a sixth-­generation, Indonesian-born, overseas Chinese man was presented last week by the Macau Society of Social Sciences at the Jao Tsung-I Academy.
The book written by Barnabas Koo, titled “A Witness to History: an overseas Chinese in mainland China and Macau,” details the life of Gary Ngai, the president of the Macau Association for the Promotion of Exchange between Asia-Pacific and Latin America, against the backdrop of the large number of overseas Chinese living in Southeast Asia.
It addresses one of the biggest challenges of the “Chinese Diaspora”: the question of “competing loyalties and complex identities.”
The Times spoke with Gary Ngai to discuss the first and only book chronicling his fascinating life, and his unique perspective on what the world can learn from Macau.
Ngai, who regards himself as both Chinese and Indonesian, is just one of some 600,000 Chinese who were estimated to have returned to their ancestral homeland following the victory of the communists and the establishment of the People’s Republic in 1949.
Bound for China on a boat departing from the Indonesian island of Java, Ngai made his way to Beijing in 1950 at the age of just 18. There he studied, before working mostly as a translator for government officials. His early knowledge of Dutch and Mandarin prepared him well for a career that saw him learn Russian and Cantonese, among other languages.
After leaving mainland China at the conclusion of the Cultural Revolution, Ngai followed his wife and family to Macau, who had arrived around six months prior.
Gary Ngai told the Times that he has lived and worked through what he describes as “six very diverse and often difficult” periods: the colonial Dutch period; the Japanese occupation of Indonesia; the independence of Indonesia; the founding years of the People’s Republic of China; the Cultural Revolution; and both pre- and post-­handover Macau.
From these diverse life experiences, Ngai has formulated a unique outlook on Macau, claiming that the territory’s cultural harmony can serve as an example to the rest of world –
much of it currently rife with conflict.
“Where is a better place in the world where so many cultures can interact with each other?” Ngai asked. “The world has much to learn about peaceful coexistence from Macau. It’s a showcase [model] for the world.”
“The keywords here are unity and diversity,” he added.
Ngai also praises the cultural preservation efforts of Macau, which he regards as superior to that of neighboring Hong Kong and the mainland. “For example, take Daoism,” he told the Times, “these traditions were destroyed by the Cultural Revolution [on the mainland] and by the Japanese occupation in Hong Kong. But this did not happen in Macau.”
Even gambling has a long cultural history in Macau and ought to be preserved, the former translator justified. Gambling, in a more traditional Chinese sense, has existed in Macau for nearly 200 years, Ngai says.
“Macau has such a long tradition of gambling. You cannot throw out the tradition of gambling – it has existed for hundreds of years [here]. The Portuguese understood that,” he added, commending the cultural preservation efforts of the territory’s former administrators.
However, not everything in Macau has stayed the same. Ngai notes that, since his arrival in the MSAR around 40 years ago, the city has modernized both in terms of its infrastructure and in terms of its breadwinner industry: the gaming sector.
“Back when I arrived, there was no infrastructure here,” he said, adding that it would sometimes take around 12 hours to travel between Hong Kong and Macau. “You would leave Hong Kong in the morning and arrive in Macau at night.”
“There [also] used to be very few cars, and most people rode a bicycle around town. And there were no bridges at that time,” he told the Times. The first bridge to connect Macau with Taipa, the Governador Nobre de Carvalho Bridge, opened in 1974.
The Indonesian-born Chinese accredits the modernization to Stanley Ho. He says that mainland officials have repeatedly written Ho off, when, in fact, they are “jealous” of him. “He is a very clever man,” added Ngai.
Asked why the overseas Chinese feel such a strong attachment to their ancestral homeland, even when they are the second or third generation to be born outside of the country, Ngai replied that, in the case of Southeast Asia, it was probably due to the segregation they experienced in the countries in which they lived.
In countries like Indonesia and Malaysia, the ethnic Chinese were regarded as a distinct merchant class enjoying “partial rights.” While they were not entitled to the full rights that ruling imperialists enjoyed, they were seen as a step above the native people, who often possessed either no or few rights.
Therefore, ethnic Chinese people were alienated from the other segments of society in the countries in which they lived and resided. On the one hand, they were not considered home-grown natives; on the other, they were not considered a part of the ruling establishment.
The exception, says Ngai, was in the case of Thailand, where Chinese and Thai cultures have “fused well.” Thailand was the only country in the region that was not directly ruled by colonizers. Staff reporter