New Year’s Tales | Love is in the air, or (The city of romance)

[Photo: Paulo Coutinho/MDT]

The taxi queues at Macau’s stands are now so long that tourists may meet, fall in love, and get engaged while waiting hours for a cab.

Especially on New Year’s Eve – that annual cocktail of passion, expectations, and questionable decisions. People stand packed so tightly, for so long, that chance encounters of kindred souls are almost inevitable. How romantic is a tale of love at first sight – or first bump in a queue – when you’re 64?

The problem, of course, is that a pair of late lovers might actually reach 64 while waiting for a taxi that never comes. See? Pure romance.

So don’t dismiss too quickly the power of prolonged waiting. Macau could yet become a city of love – all because of a late ride. The hours people spent stranded in the wee hours of New Year’s Day should be studied through that lens. We might learn something new. We might even be astonished.

I witnessed it myself: young fellows with mismatched luggage huddled in corners of Cotai properties. Love was in the air. Or, to be precise – a mix of love and anger. But really, what is life without both?

Humans, unlike learning machines, absorb wisdom through first-hand experience. Have you ever heard of a machine wandering the streets to learn love, compassion, or the everyday frustrations of ordinary people?

No, right? Because machines rely solely on historical data.

I know what you’re thinking: politicians are much the same. Sealed inside their tower offices, they resemble robots – feelings excluded. They deliberate using statistics and vacuum-sealed studies.

Which brings us to the obvious question: why on Earth are there no ride-hailing services in this little big town of ours – when they are omnipresent across the mainland, in Hong Kong, and just about everywhere else?

That, my friends, is the million-dollar-per-month question.

Paulo Coutinho, at a taxi stand