Latin American festival kicks off on Friday

Sonia Chan Prado

Entering now its fifth year, the Latin American Cultural Festival will occur between August 19 and September 15.
For approximately one month various elements of Latin American culture will be celebrated through such elements as gastronomy, the arts, and seminars.
Organized once again by the Macao Association for the Promotion of Exchange between Asia-Pacific and Latin America (MAPEAL), the festival runs every year as detailed to the Times by the executive director and treasurer of the association, Sonia Chan Prado.
The activities of the festival are divided into six programs and one of the highlighted ones is definitely the regarding gastronomy.
“This year we are bringing [in] three Chefs: a Colombian, a Cuban and a Venezuelan who have never been in Macau,” explained Prado. Each of these chefs will be in charge of a “gastronomic week” showcasing their country’s culinary specialties. This will include cooking demonstrations to be held in both the Institute for Tourism Studies and the Macau University of Science and Technology..
Another of the highlights will be a cultural seminar series held by the consul-generals of the several Latin American countries. Those seminars aim that “letting the local students and people to know more about the culture of the different Latin American countries like Chile, Cuba, Colombia, Peru and Venezuela. So we will hold cultural talks about these countries,” Prado explained.
When  asked about the degree of knowledge of Macau citizens with regard to existing connections between the territory and Latin American countries, she admitted that people know about “some of them only.” That is in fact one of the reasons that leads the organization to choose one theme for a photographic exhibition to show these different connections.
“This year [the chosen topic] was ‘Food & Drinks’ but maybe next year it will be on Architecture. Last year the photo exhibition was about the scenery of those countries,” she added, saying that these activities contribute to the local knowledge of Latin American countries in addition to fostering  comparisons between the two regions.
“I think our work is starting to see results and one of these examples is the new Peruvian restaurant to be open at the new MGM resort in Cotai.”
With regard to arts, literature will be a central focus with an introduction to two Latin American Nobel Prize winners, as well as the writing style, more broadly, of Latin Americans. There is also space for movie screenings related to several Latin American countries. The screenings will occur in several local universities as well as at the Rui Cunha Foundation.