Aurelio Porfiri Musician | Macau has ‘development without a direction’

Aurelio Porfiri at the Sistine Chapel, Vatican

Aurelio Porfiri worked as a substitute organist at the Vatican City Vicariate in St. Peter’s Basilica when he moved to Macau from his native Italy back in 2008, joining the University of Saint Joseph as associate professor. For the past five years, Mr Porfiri has inspired young Macau students while serving as director of choral activities at Santa Rosa de Lima English Secondary School and at Our Lady of Fatima Girls’ School. But now the time has come for him to move back to Rome. In an interview with the Times ahead of his departure, Mr Porfiri acknowledged that Macau’s youth are very bright, but that the education system is killing their creativity. His students, he says, were always his source of strength when living here. However, he’s not confident that Macau’s future is developing in the right direction.

Macau Daily Times (MDT) – This city has been your home over the past seven years. Could you give us a review of your time here?
Aurelio Porfiri (AP) – I came to Macau in 2008 to be an associate professor at the University of Saint Joseph. I was invited by Professor Cabral, who back then served as USJ rector. I worked for four years there, where I developed some music programs, and tried to develop the choir.
There were many changes after Professor Cabral left, so I also left the university and continued to work with Santa Rosa de Lima English Secondary School and Our Lady of Fatima Girls’ School. I developed the choir and some musical activities at both schools. Meanwhile, I did many concerts, recordings and CDs. If you consider my body of work in general, I published about nine to ten books in Italian and in English, and did many things in between. I participated in choral competitions as adjudicator, and worked on many new compositions too.

MDT –You said in a previous MDT interview that it’s difficult to make children like choir music. But do you still feel you’ve had an impact on their lives and inspired greater appreciation of music?
AP – A few days ago, I was walking in the street in Rua do Campo and happened to see two of my choir students. They were talking in the street, so I approached them to say hello and they were surprised. They said: ‘Oh, before you approached us, we were singing your songs.’ Songs in Latin.
So if you just think about this for a moment: these are two Chinese students who are not even Christian but felt the need to, even outside the school, sing among themselves the songs that they’d learned with me, which I had composed for them… It feels that my work had an impact on most of my students.
Now, there’s the other side of the problem: Macau is not a place where this impact and influence can flourish. All those feeling that they have some kind of talent… they eventually go abroad. Some don’t even come back. I don’t have high hopes for my students to develop their talent here. So I tell them to go outside Macau as that will give them better chances for development. Unfortunately this city does not allow that kind of development, mainly because of what I call a systemic problem.

MDT – Macau seems to have developed over recent years and government officials talk about diversifying the economy. Why do you believe the city has not yet turned into a place where youngsters can develop their talent?
AP – First of all, not all development is positive. But we may ask ourselves: is Macau’s development positive? For some people it probably is, but for some other people it’s definitely not. Why? Because this is development without a direction. It’s material development, yes, but I don’t see cultural and spiritual development. The government talks about culture. But it’s difficult to develop a cultural agenda when the leadership has an ethnic agenda.

MDT – What do you mean by ethnic agenda?
AP – It means to favor some groups and not others, regardless of their qualities and status.

MDT – You’re saying that the government gives clear primacy to ethnic Chinese citizens?
AP – Yes, of course. It’s not a secret. And I don’t mean that they shouldn’t invest in their development. But when ethnicity becomes more important than quality, I think you will always have a problem, because you will assign people to a particular position because of their race, not because they’re good.
I don’t want to be a hypocrite. The Portuguese probably did the same. The difference is that, with the Portuguese, there were also other nationalities because of the missionaries, like Italians and Spanish people.
I always think about the example of the United States. We know that the United States used to be the superpower, and now they say China may be the new superpower. But the difference is – and you see this in music – in the United States, when they develop their culture, they crave foreign musicians, too.
All great musicians who go to the United States are welcomed warmly. And most of them even become U.S. citizens. They become part of the United States system. When you come to China, you will never become part of the system; you will always be a foreigner. Even I am married to a Chinese woman, but I know I will always be a foreigner. The United States has been able to welcome talent from everywhere. China is not. China has closed the doors to its own ethnic development.
In a certain way, this happens in Macau too. They need foreigners, but they never really accept foreigners as part of the local community.

MDT – This is regarded as a place where West meets East…
AP – That’s true historically, but it’s not true in everyday life now. You may have heard about a famous Macau historian, Manuel Teixeira. He was a great historian and he returned to Portugal I think in 1999. He gave an interview to a Portuguese magazine and the journalist asked him why he was leaving. He said, ‘I want to leave because I don’t want to see Macau die.’ I think this is very meaningful. So when we talk about East meets West, we are talking more about a metaphysical idea. It doesn’t exist anymore. Now we have ‘Ou Mun.’ It’s another thing. That Macau you mentioned is gone.

MDT – Are you also leaving because you don’t want to see Macau die?
AP – That version of Macau is already dead. For me, I leave because I don’t want to die myself. I did many things here. But I also need to stay among colleagues who can teach me something, and here, I’m alone. I am sorry to say this, but the current standard of music is not at a point where I can have a colleague teaching me something.
Even when I talk to Chinese people from Macau who went abroad, they say the same. Unfortunately, you don’t have quality here. When I say quality, it means that the standard of teaching is low, but the students are very bright.
I love my students. They’re very bright. They’re as bright as the ones in Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan or Italy. They were my strength throughout these years. The smiles of my students, their joy when they sing something complex and realize they can do things they didn’t do before. That was my strength. But then there’s a problem: when they’re in secondary school, they’re very brilliant, very creative – when they go on, the Macau system kills their creativity.

MDT – When they go on to university?
AP – Yes, when they go to university. People are always afraid. People here are afraid to make mistakes. Every time I’d like to do something, I have to fight to do it. So I fought a lot, because I wanted to prove that the problem in Macau is not the students, but rather the whole system itself.
The system ‘eats’ them and they don’t even notice. Why do people from Hong Kong look down on people from Macau? Why don’t the people of Macau ask themselves this same question? The problem is that the answer to this question is perhaps too painful. If you want to develop, you have to open yourself up to new perspectives. And people here always look internally, which is quite similar to mainland China.
MDT – Do you hope that Macau will become more open? We’ve seen civil movements taking shape before.
AP – In Macau, there are bright people. The problem is we have a system that does not allow for creativity to flourish.
Hong Kong is different. The British developed Hong Kong into a very international city. This cannot be denied. They cherish Western influence. I don’t know if Macau people share the same feelings about the Portuguese. I don’t feel that the Portuguese were interested in developing Macau in the same way that the British developed Hong Kong.
The question is: what is the direction you want to give the city? Macau was developing, you said. But can we ask ourselves about the development of Macau? The development is mostly linked to gambling. You saw that when the gambling went down, everything collapsed. The government wants to diversify the economy. But with what? I am not the only foreigner feeling this way. You have huge difficulties working here; there’s this kind of fear of the outside world. That’s why I am not so optimistic about Macau’s development.
MDT – You mentioned that your students were your strength here. Did any of your students go on to pursue a career in music?
AP – Indeed. Some students, especially in Santa Rosa, went on to study music abroad. Some went to study in the U.K. And I have to say that even with students who did not pursue a career in music, I remained on very good terms. When they visit the school, they always look for me, and they join the choir to sing together. I think I was really lucky to meet these students, both at Santa Rosa and at Our Lady of Fatima.
They were so kind and patient as well, although I was a cultural shock to them. I was that foreigner who brought them a lot of music that they had never heard before – not just my music, but many musical pieces in Latin. They trusted me so much, that we could put on music programs and concerts. It was very impressive.

MDT – How did students react to singing in Latin?
AP – At the beginning, of course, they were surprised but I have to tell you frankly: when I give them pieces in Latin, I don’t even have to teach them the pronunciation.
You may ask, ‘What’s the use of having students singing in Latin?’ It’s really useful, because Latin is the mother of all European languages, so when you learn to pronounce Latin, you’ll find it easier to learn all of the Romance languages. Most of the discipline’s terminology comes from Latin. So if they learn a bit of Latin and Greek, they can understand more words.
I’m very pleased to see that when music is beautiful, it’s universally beautiful.

MDT – What do you think of the role of the Macau diocese over the years you have lived here?
AP – Next year, the diocese will have a major anniversary: 440 years old. I know for sure that there are many priests and missionaries who are supportive of me and my activities. I certainly know that being a Catholic here is not easy, because you’re in a city where the standard is set by the gambling industry. What I suggest is that it’s very important for people who want to become Catholics to see the strong recognition of faith. I think that it would be important for the diocese to show that Macau is not only about gambling, but about being ‘the heir’ to 440 years of Christianity.