Our Desk | ‘If you’re going through hell, keep going’

Anthony Lam

This quote by Sir Winston Churchill flashed into my mind when I was about to write this piece. If it’s necessary to explain why I have picked it, read on.
This first half of the year has been tough on Macau people. Has it, or has it not? I’m rather unsure.
Look at the streets. They’re full of people. Buses are full. Restaurants are packed. Shopping malls are frequented. In certain ways, I can’t help but think the pandemic was unreal, if not surreal.
After all, with everybody held within the city, they must, no matter how willingly or unwillingly, consume goods and services here.
They are human beings, and they need to eat and drink to survive. They can avoid buying new clothes, new computers, new iPads, new cars, new flats, or any other new commodities that you can imagine.
The situation is not that bad, they said, hinting that many people in Macau have sufficient savings to survive. With this I agree, for I have seen people driving cars registered with that eye-catching red number plate that stands out from all the other monochrome plates in the city.
But we must admit that some people are really struggling.
Also fighting to survive are the many hotels across the city. I believe they have required deep thinking and taken a long time to make plans to cope with the ever-changing situation. It has been so fluctuating that not even we in the media can comprehend the situation.
Most of them have opted to run food-and-beverage offers, with some doing so spectacularly. I must admit that I’ve been to a 5-star NAPE hotel, in which an all-day set menu was offered at the incredible price of less than 300 patacas, not to mention a possible further discount.
What caught my attention was the way these businesses have tried to combat the situation and amaze their diners during these hard times. I’m a pious believer in food’s ability to heal, That’s why I trust this offer is going to mend the hearts of so many.
They have also dug up the years-old “I Love Macau” campaign for a rerun. When it was first introduced, the six casino operators placed emphasis on their love for Macau people by making the Macau ID an exclusive VIP card to access the exclusive privileges at their properties.
This reference to love reminds me of William Shakespeare’s Sonnet 116:

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O, no! it is an ever-fixed mark,
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth’s unknown, although his
height be taken.
Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips
and cheeks
Within his bending sickle’s compass come;
Love alters not with his brief hours
and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.