Macau

"You're from a cow?!" "No, I'm from Macau."

Stanley Ho, the man credited with transforming Macau from a sleepy former Portuguese colony into one of the world’s gambling meccas, has died at the age of 98.

The son of a once-influential and wealthy Hong Kong family who lost their fortune in the Great Depression of the 1930s, Stanley Ho escaped to Macau during World War Two when Japanese forces captured Hong Kong.

Stanley built his fortune smuggling luxury goods from Macau to China.

Rare pink dolphins are returning to the waters between Hong Kong and Macau after the coronavirus pandemic halted ferries.

During my last trip to Macau, I lost a bundle in the casinos.

Lisbon was a fascinating visit for me. The old city was teeming with immigrants from Africa, Brazil, and Macau. An African-looking asked for directions, but I said in basic Portuguese, "Não falo português" (I don't speak Portuguese). He said, "Não?" (No?). With my family, I ate at Pizza Hut or Domino's Pizza a pizza loaded with onions. There were antique buildings galore. The sidewalks were laden with red bricks. A tube man, a skydancer, flailing about was a memorable sight in the evening.

"Macau-Macau!" exclaimed Michael, the Guǎngzhōu Man, when we were thinking about Tagalog and the Philippines, as we were sitting at Lulu Island's Tim Hortons café, after 10:00, June 15, 2025. "Malaki?" I wondered if he was referring to the word for "big." I asserted: "'Lalaki' is for a man or boy, a male. 'Babae' is for a woman or girl, a female." It was déjà vu: I remembered that conversation with him from years ago. I was explaining that Tagalog words for gender alluded to size or stature. To Michael, the Philippines seems like a big Macau, the Portuguese ex-colony in the PRC, except that the Philippines is ex-Spanish. After we talked more about other subjects, Michael had to leave to pick up his kids at Sunday ESL class at posh Aberdeen Centre. At the café, Alex, my Filipino friend, reminded me about Mass times: Well before 15:00, I ventured walking in the blue-sky sunshine to the "Clam Temple," the Roman Catholic church on St. Albans Road. In the great worship hall, there were just a Filipina nun in her nun outfit and two women church co-workers at the front. I was sitting way back. Feeling the void was all that was necessary, except that one of the ladies started using a handheld vacuum cleaner to clean underneath the votive candle stands, where some candles were lit. I exited to the nice sunshine, as I sat on a bench. I'm Buddhoanimist as many Asians. The "Clam Temple" is a good ersatz for me. It was likely my 44th visit this year for me there. Ah, the void...

Open 24 hours a day and seven days a week, Macau's 35 casinos entertain around 30 million visitors each year, making over 30 billion euros in revenue. These are figures which make the US gambling city of Las Vegas look like a desert village.[…] Macau is the only place in China where gambling is officially permitted. Until the end of 1999, the peninsula was a Portuguese colony. Since it was handed back to China, the city of 600,000 people located at the mouth of the Pearl River has been a largely autonomous Special Administrative Region (SAR).

At the height of the Covid wave, some mainland residents ventured across the border to the Chinese territory of Macau to find foreign-made mRNA vaccines.