Neither Meat nor Fish:
Three Macanse Women in the Transition
Ian E. Watts
Brown University
Providence, Rhode Island
June 2-3, 1997
Macau and Its Neighbors toward the 21st Century
University of Macau
1. Introduction
2. Lin
3. Teresa
4. Carmen
5. Conclusion
6. Notes
Contents
Introduction
Until this century people from Macau have bore witness to and been affected by historical movements outside and within the confines of their progressively changing city. With the quickening pace of population and community shifts in the cultural topography of Macau, the Macanese1 have perceived a need to accelerate their capacity to mediate and internalize these changes and seek out an identity that is defined by class, race, gender and nationality.2 This predicament in the search for self is not unique in an age of rapidly developing circumstances. This paper presents the course of social alignment and cultural mediation in the pluri-ethnic context of contemporary Macau through individual histories. These stories are selected from among a dozen interviews with women, both in passing on a bus-ride, to conversations that spread over several hours. In each story - to protect their identities - I have re-arranged and altered certain details, including names. Given the vastness of material I have collected, I limit myself to presenting three stories, which by no means claim to represent the totality of Macanese women. Finally, it is important to mention that a tape recorder was not present during these interviews. There are two reasons for this approach: Firstly, it allowed people to talk at length about themselves without formality and reservation. The conversations became spontaneous offerings of memories and life histories. Secondly, my "research" began in a state of innocence, as I arrived in Macau with a notebook with the simple aim to hear and learn about Macanese women's identities and stories in their own words.
The term "Macanese" is formally used to refer to people of European descent or intimately connected to the Portuguese-based community in Macau.3 They are a group comprised of families who may trace their ancestry ultimately centuries-removed Portuguese settlement or to more recent pairings of Portuguese and Chinese individuals, although not always comprising of either of the two aforementioned ethnic groups. An essay by Marreiros offers a broad spectrum of "Macanse types", ranging from Chinese Christian converts who live among the Portuguese to the descendants of old-established families of Portuguese lineage; all groups are integrated into this historically legitimated group.4 As a general rule, it is not a point of reference, however for ethnic Chinese living and raised in Macau. They often identify themselves as Chinese or Chinese from Macau; "Macanese" is applied only to those persons who have been acculturated through Western education and religion and are recognized by the Macanese community as being Macanese.5
The basis to any Macanese identity is the use of the Portuguese language at home and some alliances with Portuguese cultural patterns. Pina-Cabral and Lourenço further suggest that this goal is reached "namely through the Portuguese-language school-system".6 Often, due to the close proximity to the Portuguese, the Macanese closely identify themselves with Portuguese nationals as opposed to Chinese in the bi-cultural/bi-racial equation. In practice, however, being Macanese is left up to how individuals categorize themselves; the traditional definitions are in a state of re-formulation and are breaking down.7 Given the political climate of Macau, recently, some Macanese are coming to recognize and identify closer with a Chinese heritage. The current cultural alignment, looking toward the political transition in 1999, finds the Macanese at a cultural crossroads of social and economic uncertainty.
Lin
Lin was the first Macanese who agreed to do an interview with me. She is in her mid-forties and works in a casino as a blackjack dealer on a three-day shift with about fifty other women. She is married to a Chinese textile factory manager who is a senior member in the firm. Together they have a sixteen-year-old daughter. At the time of the interview, Lin was in vacation and planned to return to work soon. She had just returned from a weekend in Canton province visiting some of her husband's relatives.
The interview took place on an unusually cool May afternoon in her small apartment near Guia Hill. The family was living very comfortably and had recently bought new stereo equipment. The apartment contained two bedrooms, a kitchen, a combination dining-living area, a small bath and a patio. From the balcony, I was afforded a clear view of the São Miguel cemetery. In the living area Lin has a small case displaying trinkets, photographs and figurines, effectively advertising the disparate sources that form her identity. The focal point of the apartment, however, is the family altar, which contains images of the husband's ancestors. I noted an absence of photographs of her parents, since other relatives figured so prominently on the walls and tables.8
Lin's mother is Cantonese and her father is Portuguese or Macanese, it was never made clear to her which one. She was never very curious about her background, nor had the desire to ask. The little she does know about her parents comes from her maternal grandmother. While visiting an aunt in Macau, her mother was courted by a Portuguese man; she later became pregnant. And, after Lin's birth, the young couple disappeared for parts unknown. Her grandmother had to sell some gold jewelry to feed the infant Lin. This is the official story she was told. Lin was raised by her grandmother from infancy and has only known her mother vicariously, through the descriptions of others.
Lin has always been told that she looks very much like her mother. She is, however, very self-conscious about her Chinese features: the smooth pale skin, delicate eyes and straight fine hair. When she was an adolescent she fantasized about getting plastic surgery, perhaps narrowing her nose, but at the time it was too expensive. She tells me that there is a procedure in Hong Kong where surgeons can "slice open fat and cut a double lid". If she could, she would have deep-set eyes, double lids, a narrow nose and be much taller than she is now. She could afford these changes these days, but says "surgery is for the young". Her teenage daughter, on the other hand, looks Eurasian. Lin proudly points out that:
"When [my daughter] was born I was delighted to find that she had natural double eyelids. She has very beautiful eyes. She won't need surgery later".
The daughter, who is sixteen, has also internalized this same aesthetic of beauty made evident by the poster-size collage of Western fashion models taped to her wall. The emphasis on "beautiful features", as defined by Western standards, illustrates how important physical appearance, facial features particularly, mark a person's identity. Although Lin is speaking of physical beauty, on another level, she is speaking about the perception of others. She must look a certain way to be happy with herself and be accepted by those around her.
Lin never completed elementary school and started working very young. She has held down various jobs as receptionist, waitress and once as nightclub singer. Seventeen years ago she started work in the casino and has moved from one to the other, as is company policy. Although she has worked continuously for the same company as a table-dealer, she has not advanced to higher positions. She attributes this fact to both sexism and racism from her male supervisors. She explains that:
"In the casinos there are different levels and uniforms. There are the girls who wear [lilac] uniforms and black ones. The ones in black have more seniority and manage the floor. They make a lot of money. [...] the lilac work the tables for the lowest pay".
Women who have advanced through the ranks being dealers and floor managers are often promoted at a steady rate to wear the black uniforms and gain greater authority. Lin wears the lilac and has little authority with a small salary as compared to the amount she works, she says. She is bitter about being passed for promotion by younger, prettier Cantonese girls. She says she feels unnoticed by the way she looks, and that most people in Macau are always judging each other whether they have either predominantly Chinese or Portuguese features, or both.
I asked the next obvious question whether Lin considers herself Macanese. I mentioned to her that I had been told that Macanese meant learning and being acculturated Portuguese. She answers that:
"If you look the part, people expect you to know certain things, and behave certain ways. My father was Portuguese, or Macanese - I don't know. I don't speak Portuguese, but part of me is Portuguese in my blood. People never called me Macanese. It is all how everyone sees you. I am Macanese".
Lin brings up an interesting point rarely discussed in the formation of ethnic identity, that how the gaze of others affects the subject's view of herself. In Lin's case, although she is bi-racial, she does not "look the part".9
Lin was raised Chinese and has internalized this identity, making her assertion of being Macanese subject to question. Due her not having been acculturated Portuguese and not being recognized as Macanese by both those around her, she stands at the boundary of the Macanese identity. Racially she may be considered Macanese due to her mixed parentage; however, being Macanese is a facet of her biological personality, not so much her cultural identity.10
With no connection or network with her father's family, she is able to say easily that: "Holding onto a Portuguese identity is like cultural suicide. Although", she quickly adds, "it would be nice to have a Portuguese passport". She has several reservations toward the future transfer of administrations and wishes to mover her family to Vancouver, where she could live safely and comfortably among a large Chinese community. But since she has no documentary proof of her birth, she cannot apply for Portuguese citizenship. She is effectively a stateless person in limbo, neither Chinese nor Portuguese in nationality.
The Macanese are a people made up of many different parts, Lin tells me. They have had many cultural inputs in the past, but the only way for them to configure themselves is attaching themselves closer to either the Portuguese or the Chinese. Lin feels the only safe method of identity alliance is to choose either one or the other, not both; and not be trapped in an uncertain middle ground like she is.
Teresa
São Miguel cemetery is the place where most deceased Catholic are buried in the territory. In a city famous for outrageous real estate prices, space is precious and the remains of the dead are placed in ossuaries bordering the far walls of the cemetery enclosure. I met Teresa at a nearby park outside the cemetery. She just visited her mother's grave and left behind a bouquet of flowers. Dressed in a simple black dress that accentuates her tall figure - slim, but not thin - she moves decisively, with her shoulders level. Her head held high, with the chin tilted forward and up, she gives the impression of enormous ease. She is without self-consciousness, which shows in the way she walks and speaks. Teresa points to her mother's final resting-place. She tells me that she was a devoted wife and mother.
Teresa is a middle-aged, self-described politically conservative, middle-class woman. She works as a supervisor in one of the government's numerous departments and prides herself on her Macanese heritage and stable family life, both of which are "an endangered species these days". She is married and has two children: both daughters. Her Portuguese husband is in a middle-management position at a well-known bank.
We met over the course of several days in a spacious apartment near the Estrada da Vítoria close by Restoration Row. The apartment was lavishly decorated with European antiques and China-trade artifacts. She takes pride in her collection of old porcelain plates that are hanging on the walls around the dinner table. A great portion of the collection was passed down through generations; it effectively functions as a visible reminder of her cultural alliances with the Portuguese.
Upon asking her to tell me a little about herself, Teresa immediately begins speaking about her family. She portrays her mother as a dutiful wife and concerned mother:
"My mother took great care in running the household. Every evening she would make certain that we eat well. We always had a five or six course dinner. She would make sure that every pot and pan was used. By the time my father returned from his office, my mother would make certain that my brothers and I had washed up and completed our homework and that we were in good behavior".
Teresa's family had arrived in the late eighteenth-century to trade in textiles and soon prospered within the Macanese community. They worked diligently at first importing and exporting silk, and later dabbled in provisioning the British expatriate community in the nineteenth century. Since childhood she has been well versed and made familiar with this family lore.
Teresa was raised in the relatively privileged atmosphere at the base of Penha Hill among a cluster of closely-knit family complexes. When she was very young, she spent most of her day indoors and ventured outside only occasionally with her mother to attend Church services at the nearby São Domingos Church at least three times a week to picnic on nearby Taipa. Her education began at the renowned Santa Rosa de Lima school and later moved onto the Liceu for secondary school. Overall, her experiences as a child were happy, filled with care-free memories.
Some of Teresa's happiest memories are of those spent in the care of her Chinese nurse, or amah, who effectively nurtured and socialized her into adult life.11 For Teresa, her amah became a confidant and sometimes surrogate mother. Although this woman was Cantonese, Teresa felt a close affinity with her and felt as though she was a member of the family, if not a close friend. It was through her that Teresa learned how to speak Cantonese and to cook some of her favorite dishes. She does not remember feeling confronted with the differences in class and race between them.
However, the only time she was ever confronted with issues of race in Macau was as an adolescent during the "1, 2, 3" riots that occurred in late 1966 and early 1967. Teresa distinctly remembers standing on top of Penha with her amah one afternoon and watching a flotilla of Chinese gunboats hover closely to the Porto Interior. Later, they decided to walk to the nearest market together. What unraveled was a painful memory.
"We went to a stall to buy some fish. An old Chinese man started to speak to my amah as if he was in a fight with her. (I didn't speak Cantonese very well).12 As we turned around, he spat at the ground and shouted something and the whole building cheered. I was afraid and wanted to hold her hand, but she hastily pushed me back home".
When they were outside, Teresa asked her amah what the man had said. Although she was too young to fully understand what her amah said about the relationship between liberation, resistance and hatred, the bitterness and anger resonating from her mouth was enough to convey a sense of uncertainity. When she returned home later, she found all the windows shattered in her parents' house and her family huddling with the children in the basement.
In the days leading up to Teresa's visit to the market, Macau was in a state of turmoil. Chinese residents and students of Macau staged a series of loosely orchestrated riots at the Government Palace and in the Largo do Senado demanding for re-compensation of injustices the Portuguese colonial project subjected them to. Historian Anthony Dicks maintains that the crisis was initiated not simply by "the local equivalents of the Red Guards [... but also] engineered by [...] the important class of businessmen who traded with and on behalf of China".13 These groups used the refusal of granting a kaifong14 a permit to build in Taipa and the police beating of several Chinese youths, to rally around. The demonstrations started peacefully and later led to violence. Protesters desecrated monuments and fought in the streets with the police. Although the frontier was kept open and that boats laden with goods still arrived from Canton, Chinese shop-owners would not sell goods to the Portuguese or Macanese communities.
For the first time Teresa looked into the mirror and noticed her difference. Her olive skin and wavy hair in combination with her predominantly Chinese features stood out as targets among the angry protesters who were seeking for equity. It was no longer safe for her to walk on the familiar streets of her neighborhood. Protesters had proclaimed a new civil order in Macau and the Portuguese government had no control over the situation; the government was prepared to leave at a moment's notice. Teresa says she felt victimized and betrayed during the riots and still has nightmares about that time and will never be able to erase the image of the Chinese merchant glaring and spitting at her.
Teresa came to realize that although she had done nothing wrong, that she was being discriminated against on completely arbitrary grounds. She resolved that although they spoke Portuguese and lived in their own community, the Macanese were as much a part of and just entitled to living in Macau as the Chinese. She points out that her ancestors helped shape Macau, stone by stone and build it into what it was at that moment, for better or for worse. She felt it unfair that the Chinese would be so blind as not to see that she too belonged to the same land, and that really those who cultivate the land have the right to own it. She was not about to abandon her home.
Fortunately as quickly as the storm engulfed Macau, it receded and life was back to business as usual. The Portuguese and Chinese resolved the crisis and measures were taken to guarantee Chinese rights in the territory. Teresa, although deeply hurt about the overt discrimination she experienced during the riots, felt a little sympathetic toward the Chinese. She, however, did not feel as though she had an obligation to right any past wrongs, that it was up to politicians.
Through the process of the revolts, Teresa became aware for the first time of her own difference and "Macanese-ness", and that she should do whatever possible to preserve the heritage of her family in light of possible future re-occurrences of the events of "1, 2, 3". Since her life is inextricably interwoven to this larger family unit, and from which she has framed her identity, to loose that anchor in her life would b devastating.
I asked Teresa if she is concerned about the possible social and economic transformation after December 20, 1999. She looks bewildered and answers, "Why should I? Everyone in a position of power is prosperous; there is too much money involved for anyone to jeopardize that". There will be not another "1, 2, 3", she assures me. She will stay after the transition; her ardent feelings betray the fact that her future in Macau as a Macanese is uncertain and that the Portuguese past she has constructed for herself offers no certain guarantees for her cultural safety.
Teresa, despite her assurances that the future bodes well for Macau, still shows some apprehension about the eminent changes. Actions within her household present a double dialogue. Teresa hopes Macau will remain the same and one in which she feels as though she will not lose her cultural space - which is inevitable, "but not soon", she says. However, her husband is in the process of packing away family valuables for transport to Portugal, where the family will re-locate if Teresa's predictions are not true. In hoping for the best, she revises and obscures some evidence of her own history and experience as a Macanese.
top
continue
contents