Description
Abstract
Once the longest-standing Portuguese settlement in the Far East, Macau is today a Special Administrative Region of the People’s Republic of China (December 1999 – present). This paper aims to examine the aesthetic potentials of public-facing work in Macau, where Portuguese is one of two official languages. It investigates how government efforts and publicly funded initiatives are fomenting shared ways of seeing Lusofonia and encouraging popular gazes of a festive multicultural cityscape, in particular the political ambiance in the here and now. Our method is unconventionally conversational, as one reflects on her photography as a camera enthusiast and the other uses anecdotes to relate her public administration experience. The research asks how the Lusofonia is repurposed for modern public administration. Effectively, colonial-era symbols are used in city aesthetic production, and foreign elements are indigenized in Macau and fed into vibrant Lusophone crossings. Macau has not actively sought to erase symbols of non-Chinese history, rather the city has purposefully curated colonial symbols befitting a contemporary interpretation. The city identity of Macau today – bilingual, multi-ethnic, multi-faith, and architecturally blended – is in part history and in part contemporary politics. We encourage local-based scholars to make use of their own selves methodologically when studying the urban and the political. The discussion of urban-political relations is broadly applicable to postcolonial urban scenes, especially where international tourism is thriving, so as to examine from-the-inside-out the rehabilitation of foreign administration histories. The case of Macau challenges our understanding of the “postcolonial” city.
