Macao at a glimpse

cctv.com 12-17-2004 10:07

Welcome to travelogue. This turn, we are going to visit a very special place in Southern China with Changying. It's one of the first points in the country to be exposed to foreign cultures and now its name is synonymous with slot machines and roulette. Yes, it's Macao. But as you soon will discover, gambling would be too small a word to describe a place like this.

It all began in the mid-sixteenth century, when Portuguese seafarers stumbled across a great port linking the trade routes to China, Japan, India and the Western Hemisphere.

The Macao you see now is definitely different from what the first batch of Portuguese saw 500 years ago. It has evolved from a couple of villages and markets into a popular travel destination. However, you can see exotic traces of the Portuguese everywhere in Macao, from the azure tile street signs to the colonial architecture to the biracial Macanese. At the same time, the locals still maintain Chinese traditions that have been quietly merging with the western influences. This lasting legacy means it's a great place to see how the west and east can and have intersected.

There are something like 20 churches and dozens and dozens of different temples in Macao but the region takes up just 23 square kilometers.

Where the Portuguese seafarers landed some five centuries ago, they were told the name of the place was A Ma Gau. So the Portuguese decided to call it Macao. But in reality, A Ma Gau was the name for the temple there, the A Ma Temple, where people worship the Goddess of A Ma."