Inteligência Artificial

REPORTAGEM que publiquei na Revista Macau sobre os sistemas de tradução automática que estão a ser desenvolvidos pela Universidade de Macau e pelo Instituto Politécnico, com colaboração de instituições portuguesas.

Barcos Dragão

APÓS mais de sete anos a trabalhar em inglês, volto a escrever reportagens em português. Esta é sobre as regatas de barcos-dragão de Macau, que culminam amanhã com as equipas internacionais.

Column: A puzzled chinese man in love

Nam Van Lake

I met him at a coffee shop near the Nam Van Lake, where he asked my permission to sit at the table. I thought it was an atypical request, given that most people here seem to be foreigner-shy (unlike in other parts of the country), and I continued reading the newspaper until he began the conversation.

He looked like a Korean – as many Northern Chinese do – but told me he came from Shenzhen and was aged 30, although with a much younger appearence. An “uncle” – which I guess means a boss in Cantonese entrepreneur lingo – brought him to Macau to work in a restaurant. Just to do the “easy stuff,” he said. 

(Read more here)

Is Hengqin An Empty Promise For Macau?

HENGQIN Island has undergone massive development over the past few years. When I first visited the neighboring island in 2009, there was almost nothing there besides some rustic restaurants serving tasty oysters.

Eight years after that visit, Hengqin’s development is quite visible from Taipa and Coloane. It is actually almost oppressing to see residential towers growing in Hengqin’s shoreline adjacent to Macau, almost like they are trying to keep up with the Joneses.

(My latest column, read more here)

ªMACAU was on the tip of the peninsula, and in ten minutes you could walk from the Praya on one side to the beach on the other, and in twenty minutes from the center of the town to the frontier across the peninsula neck, where you could see the Red China flag flying down the road - though of course in that heat you never did walk, but took trishaws everywhere. Macau had flourished for centuries as the gateway to China, but now the gateways was closed and there was no trade any longer, no industry, no business - nothing to keep the town alive except opium and gambling and girls. And at the hotel where we were staying you could get all three - the gambling on either of the two floors devoted to casinos, and the opium and girls in your room by pressing the bell and asking the floor boy. And for that matter the floor boy would also provide a go-between with the casino, so that if you believed in doing things thoroughly you could gamble and smoke opium and have a girl at the same time."

"The World of Suzie Wong" by Richard Mason (novel published in 1957)

AUTHORITARIANISM AND PARANOIA

MY latest column is partly about the electoral campaign in Macau. 

Praia Grande

FUI almoçar à sede renovada da Associação dos Macaenses (ADM) – onde se continua a comer muito bem – e reparei neste magnífico painel que retrata a Praia Grande. Desde que cheguei a Macau, esta é a zona da cidade a que me sinto mais ligado, até porque sempre vivi nas imediações do Lilau e de São Lourenço. Mas, logicamente, já não conheci a Praia Grande assim (alias, já não conheci a praia), antes a versão com o delta do rio domesticado (e transformado nos lagos Nam Van e Sai Van) e as torres habitacionais de gosto mais do que duvidoso. Mas há ainda elementos reconhecíveis, como o Bela Vista e o palácio do governo. O Miguel Senna Fernandes, presidente da ADM, disse-me na semana passada que a Praia Grande retratada neste painel deverá remontar aos anos 20. Imagina-se o que seria esta zona se tivesse sido mantida a traça apalaçada dos edifícios naquilo que se construiu de novo e se ao largo ainda estivessem juncos e outros barcos, provavelmente já não de pesca, mas de recreio… Mas, naturalmente, foi este o preço a pagar pelo progresso.

DC-3 World Tour

UMA aventura aérea, daquelas que fazem sonhar pequenos e graúdos, passou por Macau. Gostei de escrever esta história:

Boarding the Douglas DC-3 is like returning to the era of black and white movies, when commercial aviation was making its first steps. A model of the twin-engine propeller plane, which revolutionized air transport in the 1930s and 1940s, arrived at the Macau International Airport on Sunday as part of the Breitling DC-3 World Tour.

A RTP está a fazer 60 anos e abriu parte dos seus arquivos. Entre outras coisas notáveis (como o telejornal na íntegra do dia 25 de Abril de 74), há lá imenso material fascinante sobre Macau. Por exemplo, o documentário "Macau 70", que já vi várias vezes. 
Filmado em 1971, o documentário evidencia a alteração brutal que se registou em Macau nos últimos 40 anos. As imagens mostram uma cidade que já não existe, mas que ainda consigo imaginar. Alguns aspectos que destaco: 
- A zona do Senado, muito pacata, quase sem carros e com muitas bicicletas
- O uso generalizado de riquexós para funções quotidianas (e não para turismo… aliás, há uma total ausência de turistas).
- Muitos chineses com vestes tradicionais, coisa que já pouco se vê.
- A pujante industria têxtil, com imagens de centenas de operários a trabalhar em fábricas.
- O Casino Lisboa acabado de abrir (em 1970) e a Ponte Nobre de Carvalho ainda em maqueta.
- As imagens do interior de um casino (penso que será o Hotel Central) que parecem ser do sec XIX, muito longe da sofisticação actual.
- O episódio do funeral, com típicos carros chineses engalanados (já não se vê nada parecido)
- A Taipa ainda sem a ponte, quase deserta.
- A rusticidade de Coloane, com os seus pescadores e putos de pé descalço.
- Uma certa hostilidade no olhar das pessoas que encaram o “cameraman” português. Apenas algumas crianças sorriem. Estávamos ainda em tempos de Revolução Cultural (como se nota pela efígie do Mao num edifício) e pouco depois do incidente que ficou conhecido como “1,2,3”.

Mais informação nos arquivos está disponível no Macau Daily Times. 

Column: The Monetary Authority of Trump

DONALD Trump’s unexpected rise to the US presidency sent waves of shock worldwide and Macau’s response was no exception. On November 9, the day the result was known, the Monetary Authority of Macao issued a statement that apparently reacted to Trump’s win without mentioning it. (Read more here)

“Politicians don’t talk. They make sounds. It’s just noise.”

Character played by Robert Redford

“The Candidate” (1972)

Insight: Alert in times of abundance

THE report on the mid-term review of the city’s gaming industry is a precious tool for the analysis of the status quo in Macau.
The 280-page (Portuguese language version) document was efficiently presented in May by the Secretary for Economy and Finance, Lionel Leong; the director of the Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau, Paulo Martins Chan and Davis Fong, the director of the University of Macau’s Institute for the Study of Commercial Gaming, who compiled the commissioned report.
(Read more here)

Insight: Missed opportunities

MY column this week: "In Macau’s politics we often see the application of the principle articulated by the writer Tomasi di Lampedusa in his novel “The Leopard”: “If you want things to stay as they are, things will have to change.” But with a local twist: sometimes things will not stay as they are… they will get even worse."
(Read more here)

MACAU AND THE SUBVERSIVE POET BOCAGE

BOCAGE, one of the most celebrated Portuguese poets of all time, arrived in Macau at the end of 1789 and lived here for approximately six months. His presence in Macau was marked yesterday during a session held at the Old Court Building and included in the Macau Literary Festival.
With an unusual talent for improvisation and irony, Bocage was a “first class poet” and “a transgressor in social, political, religious and sexual terms,” explained Daniel Pires, a researcher of his work.
Arriving in Macau from Guangzhou (or Canton, as the Chinese city was known at the time) after having deserted the army in India, Bocage described the city in a poem: “plenty of poverty, many vile women, one hundred Portuguese, all [living] in a pigsty.”
Daniel Pires noted that, as was common in the XVIII century, he also had to write elegies for his Macau hosts. “That was normal at the time, a poor poet needed to express his gratitude.”
Back in the motherland, the short-lived poet, who died when he was forty, faced the hardships of someone “who decided to live on the margins of society and paid dearly for his choice, going through phases of extreme poverty and ‘uncertain dinners’,” Pires said.
Persecuted by censorship and the Inquisition, the poet was arrested several times. His bohemian lifestyle meant that he became famous for his romantic adventures and thus provoked many anecdotes both in Portugal and Brazil, where he also lived.
Bocage was born in September 1765. Celebrations are still being held this year to mark the 250th year of the poet’s birth.
(PB, Published in MDT)

INTERVIEW with Paulo Cardinal, legal adviser at the Macau Legislative Assembly. People who are interested in Macau should pay attention to what he says here.

LUXO: O Robert Wilson, encenador do Black Rider (com música do grandioso Tom Waits), vem ao Festival de Artes de Macau. E não é apenas o encenador do monólogo “A Última Gravação de Krapp” de Samuel Becket. Vai também actuar, coisa que já não fazia há 16 anos. 
Agora só preciso de arranjar bilhete, isto é imperdível.

Welcome to the Year of the Monkey

IN the early hours of the first day of the Year of the Monkey (February 8), I visited the A-Ma Temple and witnessed a memorable moment. The night was misty and there was the occasional sound of firecrackers, which are thought to scare away evil spirits. The square facing the temple was crowded with families coming from their CNY-eve dinners.
People were buying joss sticks, altar candles and pinwheels from the stalls facing the temple and dutifully proceeding inside in order to pray and make wishes for good fortune, prosperity, and wellbeing.
For someone who comes from the West – where religion and superstition nowadays have, let’s say, more contained expressions – it’s puzzling to see grown men and women making their beautiful, newly-bought pinwheels spin around and around in the breeze inside the temple and bowing to the goddess.
Both tradition and faith say that praying brings blessings and that pinwheels may help “to turn one’s luck around,” or turn obstacles into opportunities. That’s why they are a revered symbol during the Spring Festival.
“Pinwheels are made with a number of pinwheels and auspicious elements affixed to a frame. As the pinwheels revolve in the wind, the individual pinwheels secure and multiply the states of being or the spiritual benefits desired by the worshiper. Those who suffer from bad luck, are dissatisfied with their living conditions, or are concerned about family and personal issues, hope to effect a change in their fortunes, or at least, an easing of difficulties, from the good effects of the pinwheel,” explains Janet Lee Scott in her book “For Gods, Ghosts and Ancestors: The Chinese Tradition of Paper Offerings.”
Those who believe in the benefits of the pinwheel are in the realm of magical thought. But who said that allowing ourselves a certain degree of magical thought every now and then is wrong or childish? It was precisely that eruption of tradition and superstition that brought about the fairylike atmosphere at the A-Ma Temple on the first day of the first lunar month.
My foreign eyes see the Chinese New Year as a blend of Christmas and New Year’s Eve. There’s the moment of family reunion, gift exchange (“lai see”), and also the countdown to midnight and passage to another season. There are promises of good luck and well wishes in the air, with cheerful people dressed in their best clothes, celebrating together with their loved ones, making wishes for a better future, shouting “kung hei fat choi!” In the fast-paced world we live in, where so many families are disrupted and greed rules, the brief moment of CNY benevolence is worth all the magical thought.
In Macau, the lunar year started with mixed feelings. On the positive side, the number of tourists who entered the region during the festive week totaled 908,000. The official data released by the Public Security Police Force indicates that this is an increase of 4.7 percent when compared with the 2015 CNY, but my impression when walking downtown is that there have been busier years in the past. Anyway, tourists, especially those from the mainland, still like to visit this “charming and quiet place,” as they say. Time to make a profit while that perception lasts…
The bad news was the fire at the main pavilion of the A-Ma Temple, rightly considered to be one of the city’s top attractions. According to the initial assessment, the damage is not irreversible and the major repair works will be concluded within three months. But those who are prone to the above-mentioned magical thought would certainly say that it is a bad omen for Macau.
(published in MDT)

O (meu) menino tentando captar os ventos auspiciosos com o seu moinho de vento de ano novo chinês. Como por aqui se diz, "kung hei fat choi"!

FAKE INTERNATIONAL

IT’s common to find in mainland China examples of what I deem the “fake international” model. To give a familiar example, in a newly developed area in Hengqin there is a line of restaurants next to a huge tourist complex. There you have a “Portuguese restaurant” decorated with the traditional tiles, next to several Southeast Asian eateries and other venues that feature some decorative aspects that may convey an international look.

What’s peculiar in these cases is that the food in these restaurants tastes almost the same. Even the menus are similar. I suspect that the “international kitchen” is centralized, serving all the restaurant fronts at the complex.

Places like these cater for thousands of mainland tourists that, in most cases, have never set foot outside China. Some of them have probably never visited Macau or Hong Kong. For them, the restaurants look “foreign” and thus give the appearance of an international environment. It doesn’t matter if the food is genuinely international or not. There’s no way to compare it with the real thing.

The same phenomenon is also on the rise in Macau, I’m afraid. Recently I visited a “Thai restaurant” that had just opened downtown and featured Thai flags at the entrance. The interior is decorated with wooden elephants, probably bought cheaply in Chiang Mai or even in mainland China.

The restaurant is managed and apparently owned by young local people, who are almost unable to speak any other language than Chinese and seem surprised when a “gwai lo” enters their establishment.

Once you are seated, the international façade/charade starts to fall. The food has some Southeast Asian inspiration, but you can hardly call it Thai. After consulting the menu, I picked a dish that is perhaps as famous in Thailand as the “African Chicken” is in Portugal.

In Macau we also have countless examples of “trattorias” where the risotto costs a fortune but would bring shame to any Italian tavern. Or the apparently sophisticated cafes that seem to be the only form of youth entrepreneurship in Macau, as some lawmakers recently pointed out during the Policy Address debate. It all looks very nice until you try the coffee and it tastes like dirt.

This “fake international” logic is understandably popular in some parts of China. But here in Macau, given the region’s history and the resources available, it’s possible and expectable to have genuine international influences. Nevertheless, we see that bogus logic growing and causing ramifications that go as far as heritage issues. This is the logic behind the “Parade Through Macau, Latin City,” for example.

The casinos also play a role in perpetuating the “fake international” model. Just look at the British Royal Guards greeting the guests outside a local casino, among many other possible examples, to see the point.

If Macau’s heritage is despised or commercialized, it risks becoming a façade and a ruin similar to St. Paul’s.  This logic will not contribute whatsoever to the proclaimed aim of setting up Macau as a “World Centre of Tourism and Leisure.” Like the slogan, it is a naïve pretense.

(Paulo Barbosa, published on MDT)

MY column this week:
One year after the Occupy movement almost paralyzed Hong Kong as it rallied against electoral system proposals, top representatives of the central government in the neighboring SAR have repeatedly made statements that question the foundations of the “one country, two systems” principle.

All of those statements seem to show an unwillingness from China to develop towards a model that upholds the major provisions of the Basic Law(s) in Hong Kong and Macau, namely the separation of powers (whereby the executive and the judiciary form separate branches), freedom of speech as a basic human right, and the consequent non-criminalization of dissent.

(Read more here)