Insight | Welcome to the Year of the Monkey

Paulo Barbosa

In the early hours of the first day of the Year of the Monkey (February 8), I visited the A-Ma Temple and witnessed a memorable moment. The night was misty and there was the occasional sound of firecrackers, which are thought to scare away evil spirits. The square facing the temple was crowded with families coming from their CNY-eve dinners.
People were buying joss sticks, altar candles and pinwheels from the stalls facing the temple and dutifully proceeding inside in order to pray and make wishes for good fortune, prosperity, and wellbeing.
For someone who comes from the West – where religion and superstition nowadays have, let’s say, more contained expressions – it’s puzzling to see grown men and women making their beautiful, newly-bought pinwheels spin around and around in the breeze inside the temple and bowing to the goddess.
Both tradition and faith say that praying brings blessings and that pinwheels may help “to turn one’s luck around,” or turn obstacles into opportunities. That’s why they are a revered symbol during the Spring Festival.
“Pinwheels are made with a number of pinwheels and auspicious elements affixed to a frame. As the pinwheels revolve in the wind, the individual pinwheels secure and multiply the states of being or the spiritual benefits desired by the worshiper. Those who suffer from bad luck, are dissatisfied with their living conditions, or are concerned about family and personal issues, hope to effect a change in their fortunes, or at least, an easing of difficulties, from the good effects of the pinwheel,” explains Janet Lee Scott in her book “For Gods, Ghosts and Ancestors: The Chinese Tradition of Paper Offerings.”
Those who believe in the benefits of the pinwheel are in the realm of magical thought. But who said that allowing ourselves a certain degree of magical thought every now and then is wrong or childish? It was precisely that eruption of tradition and superstition that brought about the fairylike atmosphere at the A-Ma Temple on the first day of the first lunar month.
My foreign eyes see the Chinese New Year as a blend of Christmas and New Year’s Eve. There’s the moment of family reunion, gift exchange (“lai see”), and also the countdown to midnight and passage to another season. There are promises of good luck and well wishes in the air, with cheerful people dressed in their best clothes, celebrating together with their loved ones, making wishes for a better future, shouting “kung hei fat choi!” In the fast-paced world we live in, where so many families are disrupted and greed rules, the brief moment of CNY benevolence is worth all the magical thought.
In Macau, the lunar year started with mixed feelings. On the positive side, the number of tourists who entered the region during the festive week totaled 908,000. The official data released by the Public Security Police Force indicates that this is an increase of 4.7 percent when compared with the 2015 CNY, but my impression when walking downtown is that there have been busier years in the past. Anyway, tourists, especially those from the mainland, still like to visit this “charming and quiet place,” as they say. Time to make a profit while that perception lasts…
The bad news was the fire at the main pavilion of the A-Ma Temple, rightly considered to be one of the city’s top attractions. According to the initial assessment, the damage is not irreversible and the major repair works will be concluded within three months. But those who are prone to the above-mentioned magical thought would certainly say that it is a bad omen for Macau.
Knock on wood.