MSAR 15th ANNIVERSARY | Macanese community in need of new dynamics

Miguel de Senna Fernandes poses with photos he took of his father, late Macanese writer Henrique de Senna Fernandes

Fifteen years after Macau’s handover to China, the uniqueness of the Macanese community seems to remain mostly untouched. Its creole language has even been revived by amateur theatre group Doci Papiacam di Macau, which prepares an annual play entirely performed in the city’s dying language.
Community members recall how people feared that the Macanese identity would not survive the change of administration after 1999. But fifteen years on the community remains and it has spread over five continents.
Still, they have met challenges along the way and community members believe that there’s a need to find new ways of reinforcing the Macanese identity, giving it a new dynamic. The recently re-elected president of the Macanese Association (ADM), Miguel de Senna Fernandes, told The Times that the community experienced a greater detachment in recent years, as the city developed rapidly while adopting new values. “There was a new order in the city that invariably affected the choices of the community,” he reiterated.
A greater dissociation from the Portuguese language in favor of Chinese and even English is one of the challenges, ADM’s president recognized. “This was happening even before the handover, but before the Portuguese was always a reference because we knew the government was Portuguese. The language had a certain status because it was the language of the government,” he recalled.
The Chinese side of the Macanese community sometimes spoke louder, with parents and children talking mainly in Cantonese rather than Portuguese. “It’s not something good or bad, it’s simply a fact. I respect the education that parents give to their child (…) but in recent years I realized that the language matter is a very important element, not least because it is a way of sharing one’s culture. Not using a language might turn into complete oblivion,” he reiterated.

José Luis de Sales Marques, president of the Council of the Macanese Communities

As director and scriptwriter of Doci Papiacam di Macau, Mr Senna Fernandes said that Patua still plays an important role in connecting people within the community. But most importantly the group’s effort to keep Patua alive through its humoristic plays is mainly a way of drawing the community and public’s attention toward the importance of a language. “This is a way of alerting that we have more that a crossroad of cultures. And language is such an important part of a community. At least younger generations must know that the Patua exists, and that it was the language our ancestors spoke” he stressed.
Now leading a new era of the Macanese Association, Senna Fernandes says that the community needs new dynamics, new ideas, and should strive to protect and use the Portuguese language as a form of preserving their identity.
José Luis de Sales Marques, president of the Council of the Macanese Communities (CCM), believes that, culturally, the community witnessed “a certain resurgence.”
The Macanese identity resurgence was an intuitive one, he stressed, although he too acknowledged that there was a concern for the survival of community’s identity.
“This triggered the need for the community to utter its identity (…) we saw the emergence of new associations, the teaching of the Portuguese language through the establishment of the Portuguese School and even the Patua theatre group,” he stressed, adding that there was a certain dynamic within the community, and its preservation has been supported by both the local and the central Chinese government.
On the other hand, Mr Sales Marques also recalled that the Macanese community faced challenges, especially because the Chinese side of the community tends to have a profound meaning inside the Macanese families. With a greater distance from Portugal and as some traditions have been forgotten, the community needs to still fight for its survival.
Mr Sales Marques concluded that movements in social networks that help the community remain connected should be reinforced.