May 24, 2005
Wanted to write from Macau, but instead I can write about Macau. We took the jetfoil from Hong Kong and went about 30 miles (Macau is at the west end of the Pearl River Delta and Hong Kong on the east), but went from Britain to Portugal and from 2005 to probably 1960. Portugal controlled Macau from 1511 until it became the last bit of foreign territory to return to its Asian owners in 1999; it was almost the first, and certainly was the last bit of Europe in Asia.
I had been to Macau before, but only once overnight, and not since 1997. It still has some charming Portuguese style buildings, colored in the pastels of the Mediterranean. Its other claim to fame is that it has legal gambling, and the Chinese love to gamble. The problem for Macau, economically, is that other Asian countries are now permitting gambling (Malaysia in the Genting Highlands is one that comes to mind) and so Macau is more open to Chinese tourists from the Mainland than it was a few years ago.
The highlights of this small (less than 1/2 million people) special administrative region (besides gambling casinos):
1) The wondrous Portuguese architecture, the most prominent being a 
church that was destroyed except for the facade. Fr. Xavier, of the Jesuit order, preached here, and Macao was one of the early entry points for mission work in China.
We had dinner at the 1870 former military club, which featured African Chicken and roasted codfish, Portuguese dishes, and incredible ambiance. The women in our group dressed in the clothes they have been buying and looked super.
2) Portuguese is still one of the official languages, though there were only 5000 Portuguese at best, and it was not required in the schools.
3. Several years ago, I stumbled into the temple where. in 1844, the United States signed the first treaty with China, one that gave us most-favored nation status–the right to have special treaty ports like those the British got in the Opium War.
4) a great Scout shop. JR and I made it there and if there is a cobra patrol, we have Macanese patches! Wait till you see the ASM epaulets!
After JR and I got back from the Scout shop (housed in the former coast guard building; it fronts the ocean and has cannon–I doubt the Bloomington shop will duplicate it–hafta show you pictures), we began the long and tortuous journey to Beijing.
We got on a bus, which took us to the border. At the border we had guide #2 who took us through a terminal (exit from Macau) to another terminal (entrance to China) where we got guide number 3, who took us on a bus for an hour to Zhuhai, one of the special economic zones north of Macau, airport. It is a domestic flight from Zhuhai to Beijing, but an international one from either Macau or Hong Kong, both much more expensive. We spent about 8 hours between waiting for the bus, customs, and the plane (in an un-air conditioned airport, I might add), but the upside was getting to visit Macau, whose return to China, as I said, ended five centuries of European rule in parts of Asia.
We are in Beijing now, having toured the Forbidden City and the Temple of Heaven, but I’ll tell more about that probably tomorrow.