Our Desk | How to go back to the future?

Renato Marques

Looking at the latest news and developments in Macau society, I have started thinking about what Macau is nowadays, and undertaking the mental exercise of comparing it to the “old days.”
Well, when I say “old days” I do not certainly mean back in the 1960s or 1970s (times when I was not even alive). My “old days” are a little closer to the current time period, as I am speaking only of the last 10 years or so.
When I first encountered Macau my first impressions were: 1) the humidity, 2) the smell, and 3) the oddness. And by “oddness” I mean its “uniqueness,” which was the fascinating part (I guess it still is) that made and still makes me walk kilometers around what many find to be “a tiny territory lost somewhere in the South of China.”
For me, Macau is much more than that. It is a special place with its advantages and disadvantages, its beauties and its flaws.
Unfortunately I was not acquainted with Macau long enough to live through a longer part of its history – what people nowadays describe as HERITAGE, as if Macau’s past is just something to keep locked in a museum.
Fortunately, I had the chance during these past years to talk with many of those that lived through those times, and are full of stories to tell.
Browsing all those stories in my head, I find that something immediately stands out: Macau’s Internationality, or how people in Macau lived for 500 years (or more) facing the world, seeing people from across the globe coming and departing…
I guess during those times, Macau was not a “platform.” Instead, it was (just) a safe harbor where commerce was thriving and the sea was the “path to success.”
Apparently, somewhere in time (I cannot say precisely when) Macau seems to have turned its back on the sea that made it “big” (important) and faced China instead.
By turning our backs to the sea, we turned our backs on the world too, concentrating all our efforts in…right, Mainland China, the “big gold mine,” the “solution to all our problems,” the one that would eventually make us “rich and famous.”
With that, we lost basically all of the rest. We lost our internationality, we lost our roots, we basically lost our cultural references and who we were in a kind of trade-in, like Nickelback said in the lyrics to ‘Rockstar’: “I’m gonna trade this life for fortune and fame, I’d even cut my hair and change my name.”
And then, suddenly, we want to be international (again). Do we? I guess someone told us to and that was a well-learned lesson from long ago: if there is something that we have mastered, it is certainly the art of submission.
But the problem is, how do we go to the future by going back to the past? Do we still have anyone who can remember how to do that? How do we open those museum display cabinets and make history come alive? And more importantly, is that really what we want?
From recent developments, I have learned that the answer is negative. The “Macau Love Locals” campaign is a great example of that. Right at the press conference to launch the program, one of those (supposed to be) responsible for its creation clearly stated: “Go! Enjoy it! And tell all your friends…especially the ones from mainland China.”
Frustration! I am frustrated as I was when, just a couple of days ago, I was approached in the street by a couple of “very picky” tourists. Can you imagine, they were looking for a coffee shop (?!), and not just any coffee shop, they wanted a Portuguese-style one, with coffee and cakes and things like that, right in the city center. So demanding, these “international” tourists are. We had better stick with the usual suspects.