16
Understanding Macau’s History and Society:
Through the Eyes of Literature and the Arts
By Zhidong Hao
University of Macau
Abstract: This paper examines Macau’s history and society through an examination of some of its well-known literature and art over the past 450 years. We examine Chinese, Macanese and Portuguese literature and other historical artefacts. These works tell us the story of Macau’s social, economic, and political history, and about the clash and cooperation of civilizations and cultures. As an example of this “clash,” we can also observe a Chinese literary tradition as opposed to a Macanese and other foreign traditions in Macau, with little integration. Such a literary scene gives us much food for thought for understanding and dealing with the clash and cooperation of civilizations and cultures and for building a multicultural identity in Macau.
Key Words: Macau, literature and arts, the clash of civilizations, Chinese, Macanese, Portuguese
The sociology of literature and the arts is the study of who has created what works of reflection upon our society, how these works can help us to understand the societies we study, and how they have impacted social change. This is the approach we will take in understanding the literature and arts in and about Macau, and indeed, in understanding Macau’s history and society.
In other words, in this paper we will examine who created the poems, essays, stories, plays, paintings, architecture, etc., how they can help us understand various historical developments, and to what extent they can help us understand the clash and cooperation of civilizations, and the transformation of Macau society. The order we follow in discussing these issues will be largely historical and literary: 1) traditional Chinese literature on Macau during the Ming and Qing dynasties; 2) the continuation of the Chinese literary tradition in modern times; 3) traditional operas and modern plays; 4) Chinese arts in Macau; 5) Macanese arts, literature and plays; and 6) Portuguese, English, German, and French poems and paintings in and about Macau. Whilst we are not conducting a full-fledged study of the sociology of literature and arts in Macau, it is believed that our examination will nonetheless help us better understand the political, economic and social aspects of Macau society.
Traditional Chinese Literature on Macau During the Ming and Qing Dynasties
Once the Portuguese had begun to settle in Macau to do business in the 1550s, the Chinese and Western cultures began their interaction with one another in one way or the other. Chinese scholar-officials frequently visited Macau, and there were also other scholars who had fled the Qing government on the mainland or who came to study religion in Macau. These scholars created a large amount of poetry reflecting on what they experienced and thought about while in Macau. Zhang Wenqin collected 544 poems by 129 poets in two volumes of poetry covering a period of over three hundred years (Zhang Wenqin, 2003). We examine some of these poems to see what they can tell us.
Commerce in Macau
Tian Xianzu (湯顯祖 1550-1616), a renowned Chinese poet and playwright, arguably the Shakespeare of China, wrote about his admiration of the jewels the Portuguese traders brought to China in the following poem entitled香嶴逢賈胡 (or Meeting Foreign Traders in Macau”).
不住田園不樹桑，珴珂衣錦下雲牆。明珠海上傳星氣，白玉河邊看月光。
He is saying that these Portuguese traders do trade rather than agriculture like the Chinese. Wearing colorful clothes and in big ships with tall masts, they bring to China jewels as bright as the stars and as brilliant as the moon. One of the scenes in his famous work Peony Pavilion is based on what he saw in Macau (Zhang Wenqin, 2003: 5-6, 16). This admiration of foreign cultural products reminds us of what Yin Guangran and Zhang Rulin say about the chime clock and magnifiers in their famous Aomen Jilue (A historical sketch of Macau, 1751).
Feng Gongliang 馮公亮, another poet, sings the praises of prosperous business in Macau:
濠鏡由來荒僻濱，今成戎蠻貿易津。十字門中擁異貨，蓮花座裏堆奇珍。
What used be a barren area has now become a business center with many exquisite commodities and treasures (Zhang Wenqin, 2003: 14, 172-4).
Wu Li (吳曆 1632-1718), another famous poet, and painter, describes Chinese people busy doing business between Macau and what is now Zhuhai at a time when the Qing government forbade trade on the sea:
小西船到客先聞，就買胡椒鬧夕曛。十日縱橫擁沙路，擔夫黑白一群群。
The poem says that when the foreign ships arrive in Macau, the Chinese come to buy pepper till dusk. On the dusty road, you see many people, old and young, carrying their goods on shoulder poles across the border (Zhang Wenqin, 2003: 28-9). This is indeed a picture of peace and prosperity. There are still many people crossing the border every day now, but they are either simply doing their own personal shopping, engaged in some kind of recreation, or just doing some very limited business between the two places. Large scale transactions are conducted by other means, using trucks, ships and airplanes.
Cultural Exchange and Social Interaction in Macau
Like Kangxi the emperor, Chinese scholars also much appreciated Western music. Here is Liang Di (梁迪)’s description (1718) of a Western musical instrument, the organ:
奏之三巴層樓上，百里內外閑聞聲。…… 幽如剪刀裁繡閣，清如鸛鶴唳青冥。和如鶯燕啼紅樹，哀如猿猱吟翠屏。…… 或如寒淙瀉三疊，水廉洞口流璁琤。或如江濤奔萬馬，石鍾山下聞噌[口+宏]。……或如龍吟水晶闕，老魚瘦[蟲+交]舞縱橫。……或如蒲牢敲百八，振盪心魂群動醒 (Zhang Wenqin, 2003: 104-9)。
The sound of music from St. Paul’s Cathedral is described as being heard many miles away. Sometimes it is like a bird singing, or monkeys calling. At other times it is like a waterfall rushing down several layers of rock, like ten thousand horses running. The sound touches one’s heart deeply.[1]
Wu Li, the poet we mentioned earlier, came to Macau to study religion. Here is one of his poems regarding that experience:
關頭粵盡下平沙，濠境山形可類花。居客不驚非誤入，遠從學道到三巴。
Passing the border, I come to the end of Guangdong to the sands of Macau. The mountains look like flowers. People in Macau need not be surprised: It’s not a mistake that I am here. I have come from afar to St. Paul’s to study your religion (Zhang Wenqin, 2003: 14-5).[2]
Wu Li also discusses his life at St. Paul’s, especially the cultural differences. While in China one would sit up late till the rooster cries in the morning, but in Macau, it is the chime clock that would tell you the time (Zhang Wenqin, 2003: 29):
紅荔枝頭月又西，起看風露眼猶迷。燈前此地非書館，但聽鐘聲不聽雞。
In the following poem, he discusses the difficulties of learning a foreign religion from a Westerner and of having to communicate with each other in one’s own language. Chinese was written from top to bottom and right to left, but Portuguese was written from left to right. However it was written, it was difficult for them to understand each other (Zhang Wenqin, 2003: 34).
燈前鄉語各西東，未解還教筆可通。我寫蠅頭君寫爪，橫看直視更難窮。
“We speak different languages and cannot really understand each other. So we use their pens. While I use a brush to write Chinese characters, they use a pen to scratch down something like the claws of a bird. However we look at what we write, we still have difficulty understanding each other.”
In a long poem, Li Xialing (李遐齡, 1766-1823) describes an encounter with a pretty little girl of eight years old (most likely Portuguese). He describes how cute and smart this child is. He even carries on a conversation with her, asking her what she plans to do in the future, etc (Zhang Wenqin, 2003: 201).
The above literary descriptions tell us much about life in Macau and the social interaction between Chinese and Portuguese in the old days. We see a prosperous Macau where people from different ethnic groups seem to have enjoyed each other and each other’s culture. This indeed is a counter-argument against the clash of civilizations theme.
But, of course, that’s not the full picture. It reflects on a time during the late Ming and early Qing dynasties when China was fairly strong and could accommodate foreign cultures to a great extent. The Chinese government was largely able to control political, economic, and social matters regarding Macau. However, things changed especially after the Opium War in the 1840s, when the Portuguese government gradually obtained almost full control over Macau. Later literary figures’ descriptions of Macau also changed. Is it perhaps true that the more people interact with each other, the more they find to dislike about one another?
Political Concerns about Macau and China
Chen Zhengwen (陳徵文), a scholar-official in Xiangshan between 1875 and 1889, wrote the following poem reflecting on the perpetual occupation and management of Macau by Portugal after the Luso-Chinese treaty in 1887.
竟許西夷受一廛, 遂令聲教阻南天。可憐臥榻旁餘地，酣睡他人四百年。
He apparently resents the occupation of Macau by the Portuguese over the past 400 years, lamenting that the orders of the emperor and teachings of Confucius could not reach Macau (Zhang Wenqin, 2003: 116).
Qiu Fengjia 邱逢甲 (1864-1912), another poet and scholar-official, after witnessing the loss of Taiwan to Japan and fighting for its survival but failing, also wrote about his unhappiness with the Portuguese occupation of Macau, and contemplating whose fault it was (Zhang Wenqin, 2003: 219). It is he who wrote宰相有權能割地，孤臣無力可回天 (while the ministers have the power to cede our land to others, we lonely lower-level officials have no power to turn the tide). He was talking about Taiwan. The Qing government ceded Taiwan to Japan after losing the war in 1895. Just like the full colonization of Macau a few years earlier, the Taiwan cession is another indication of the government’s inability to protect its own land and people. That is what the poets were lamenting about, and this feeds into the development of Chinese nationalism.
While they were talking about the loss of Macau, they were also concerned about life for the Chinese in Macau. Yang Yinglin (楊應麟) felt sorry and angry when in 1907, in order to expand the roads, the Portuguese government in Macau forced over 30 Chinese families to move out of their houses. When the latter refused, they were beaten. Their houses were later burned and they were only given token compensation. Many did not have a place to go. The poem describes elderly people weeping for their lost homes and is critical of the Chinese government which had abandoned its people (Zhang Wenqin, 2003: 324): [3]
禾黍龍田悵故闉, 楚人一炬竟燒秦。白頭野老吞聲哭，一樣中原有棄民。
Another scholar-official criticizes the Chinese government for allowing Portuguese soldiers to massacre the Chinese in the name of eliminating “bandits” or “pirates” in Coloane, in 1910 (see Zhang Wenqin, 2003: 330):
我有兒女我不哺，我有盜賊我不捕。任教異類戕同胞，更是喧賓來奪主。
Cai Qiu 蔡球 discusses the Portuguese government’s taxes on the Chinese and wonders whether there could be somebody who could save the Chinese (see Zhang Wenqin, 2003: 23):
鬼市抽人稅，民脂奉虜糧。誰為班定遠，生縛左賢王。
So when Shen Zhiliang assassinated the Portuguese Governor-General, Amaral, , in 1849 he was praised by these scholars. Liu Sufen 劉[火+肅]芬 praised him as a “just hero” (Zhang Wenqin, 2003: 94):
香山有義士，沈姓志亮名。少小抱至性，弱歲飛英聲。……
One wonders to what extent the above are political and to what extent they are cultural. If it is mostly political, is the cultural underlying the political?
Social Life in Macau in the Late 19th Century
There are also descriptions of social and religious life in Macau, which provide pictures we otherwise do not often see as vividly as we see in poems. Below are six such poems by Liang Qiaohan 梁喬漢 (1851-?) (see Zhang Wenqin, 2003: 249, 251, 252-3, 256-7).
賃車一月費金多，辛苦生涯力自任。度日有餘租不足，得償枵腹稅難禁。
One has to pay to rent a rickshaw, and the money one earns cannot cover either the food or the rent. Plus with taxes to pay, one often has to go hungry.
The following is a poem about prostitutes.
妓館迷離客棧旁，沿門依笑競時妝。年來衣飾翻新樣，錯認歌場即戲場。
Brothels are located near the hotels, and prostitutes are leaning on the door, in fashionable clothes and smiling. They change their costumes (often) and you may mistake a brothel as a theater.
The following poem is about gambling in Macau.
賭餉承充累萬千，番攤、圍姓藪淵連。草堆街畔人如蟻，燈火家家不夜天。
The gambling industry has to pay lots of taxes to the government, and various kinds of gambling businesses abound. People on the Rua des Estalagens （草堆街） are as abundant as ants, and lights are on in every house the whole night.
The next poem talks about the prosperous businesses of gambling, prostitution, and hotels.
往來嫖賭最豪奢，客棧租錢不慣賒。地段無多生事少，竟然消費十餘家。
People coming for prostitution and gambling tend to spend lavishly, and hotels do not let them stay on credit, either. In such a small place where there is not much to depend on for a living, there are a dozen hotels around. Rua da Felicidade, (福隆新街), was where the brothels, gambling houses, and hotels were concentrated.
Finally, the following two poems describe respectively Catholic religious practices in Macau and the Catholic tradition.
一年兩度出觀音，大廟迎來旅若林。扈從十分虔謹事，沿途經咒誦沉吟。
Every year the Church people parade on the street twice with the portrait of Mary (for whom the poet uses the word ‘Guanyin’, the Chinese goddess, to describe). Many people come to the church, (which the poet uses the word ’temple’ to refer to) and they are all piously praying and singing along the way.
.
風信名垂廟祀華，年年禮拜勤清茄。洋人數典難忘祖，姓字猶談嗎唎呀。
The poet is talking about the St. Lawrence Church, where people come and worship with music. Foreigners do not forget their ancestors (while in China), since they still use their names, such as Maria (Mary).
So despite all the political problems in Macau, especially beginning in the late 19th century, life went on. People had to make a living, one way or the other. These poems paint pictures of life of the working people, the prostitutes, the gamblers as well as the religious believers in Macau. They describe for us the political, economic, and social transformations. In these literary works, we see real people living real lives.