THE MACANESE CONDITION

THE CELEBRATION OF DIVERSITY

As a Macanese, I have always been resolved in terms of my identity. I am Portuguese first and then Macanese. Portuguese because, geographically, I will be one of the maximum extensions of Portugal, something few outside of Macau understand. Macanese, because I was born here, from here are my parents and grandparents, on a path that goes back eight generations. This is the city where my children and grandchildren were born, making it ten generations. For my part, I would never speak of Macanese out of necessity, because being it, I have nothing more to say.

But the Macanese condition leads me to sympathize and also to seek to understand my countrymen, now in the person of Elisabela Larrea.

I  always said that being Macanese is belonging to a nation of genetically speaking individuals. Neither of us have the same genes as the other. Each individual is a genetic story. What unites us and distinguishes us is not only the love of Macau but the way we love Macau. Finally there is the contingency of generation, that is, of Memory.

What Elisabela tells us is that she would like to experience more of the Past, the Memory of the days spent with her grandparents, in an irreplaceable Macau. I carry this Memory according to my age.

We meet when she dedicates herself to Namyaam, the sound of South China, sang in Cantonese. I remember The Thunders and The Grey Coats as well as Yam Kin Fai, Ng Kwan Lai, Fóng In Fan. From the cradle, she and I, generationally separated, we speak Portuguese, English, Cantonese. She writes Chinese I do not. But this condition of bridging both worlds should lead us to universalism, because this is the most powerful condition of the Macanese. To be able not only to conjugate worlds, but also to exist in the world.

The right to differences, to cultural options, and to the way each of us manifest them, fall into our condition, for it is in diversity that the richness of the Macanese eclecticism is manifested. To be more Portuguese or more Chinese is a choice dictated by circumstances, but it is in the language of which (Elisa)Bela refers to that resides the important anchorage of the Macanese.

Being Porto my second city, I sought to study the Portuenses (people from Porto), love their accent, the city, its pleasurable environments that remind me of bygone days in Macau. My first adolescence was spent in a boarding school on the Estoril line, and later in Lisbon as a young man after military service. I love Lisbon as I love Porto and how I love my city of Macau.

I believe that I and (Elisa)Bela, and all my countrymen would like that other communities would intercommunicate more. To be Macanese is also to be that conjugative element between communities that exist in the land that saw our birth. Because it is in sharing that resides the enrichment of the experiences of all who contributed to this generous land.
When one exists here, confined to one community, one waists precious days of their lives.