Mimicry in macau
The following is a journey into the dried crust of pantomime. So let me begin with a pantomime joke.
When asked: Where’s Macau?
Respond: Out in the field and its plump udders need a good milking!
Bum. Bum.
Recently, I was in Macau.
Macau is 37 miles west of Hong Kong, across the Pearl River Estuary. The river: a vascular thread that spreads across Southern China. Ming China leased the Macau to the Portuguese as a trading port in 1557. It became a perpetual colony in 1887 and remained under their control until 1999, when it was returned to China.
Mosaic-tiled streets make it seem like Portugal. A pastel de nata, a lovely tart of sweetened scrambled egg and a pork chop bun, spicy.
The theatres, cathedrals and shop-fronts line the streets in an aging amber, faded in the humid sun. Portugal but for the Chinese characters. Colonialism is mimicry. The colonisers impose their cultural stamp in their ‘civilising missions’.
Infuse and stay.
Permeate into local traditions.
The Roman Catholic Diocese of Macau was established in 1576 and the settlement became a hub of missionaries and merchants. The façade of St. Paul’s Cathedral is all that remains, the rest of the cathedral destroyed by a fire and typhoon in the nineteenth century. A university: Colégio de São Paulo, the first Western university in the ‘Orient’ was also decimated.
Façade of dirt brown.
Figures of Jesuits: Loyola, Xavier, Borgia, Gonzaga. Angels surround the Virgin Mary who is curb-stomping the heads of the Hydra, fork tongues stretched out in agony. The women of the apocalypse. Stella Maris, Star of the Sea, guiding the wind-battered ships in to coves. The devil with female features tempts man into doing evil. Triumph over the skeletal grips of death, hooded. Above: a dove, wings sprayed outwards.
In Macau’s Museum of History, I stood watching crickets wrestling in a bucket on an old cathode-ray-tube television. A bizarre traditional sport. A static fuzz over a bucket. A mimic duel similar to schoolyard conker bonking but instead, conkers were replaced with yapping insects of the Gryllidae variety. Leggy-brawl in a bucket for glory, fed and loved and minded by owners.
Ave, Praeceptor, morituri te salutant!
(Hail, Master, those who are about to die salute you!)
Thousands of Patacas on the line. Champions treated as heroes. In death, they gloriously died.
Dulce et decorum est in bello gryllus mori.
(It is sweet and honourable to die in a cricket fight.)
Like a small-scale Damien Hirst installation, ex-champions float in formaldehyde. A cricket tomb and a coffin fit for crickets. A diet of rice-larvae and chestnuts and steamed fish rice. Beside the mausoleums of deceased crickets was a fat-bronze-cast bell.
Inscribed on this bell:
SONET VOX TVA IN AVRIBVS MEIS
(Your voice resounds in my ears)
Down the line: a thick cannon in honour of Saint Lawrence. Lawrence was a deacon of Rome under Pope Sixtus II in the third century. The Roman Emperor Valerian murdered the Pope and persecuted the Christians. Lawrence took the crowns, the jewels and papist pearls and gave them to the poor, the crippled, the blind and the suffering. A Valencian Robin Hood. For his acts of charity, he was sentenced to death — by gridiron.
Hot coals underneath. Placed on top like a lump of beef.
When asked for some final words, he said:
“I am well-done on this side. Turn me over!”
Bum. Bum.
Flipped him. Later, Saint Lawrence said:
“It is cooked enough now”
Bum. Bum.
And died a martyr’s death.
For this he is the Patron Saint of Chefs, Cooks and Comedians. A real comedic masterclass. Some killjoy historians dispute this, putting it down to an apparent spelling error. The main account says:
Assus est
(He was roasted)
A missing ‘p’, perhaps?
Passus est
(He suffered)
Some stories are better left unexcavated and bereft of scrutiny. Why try and dismantle this yarn of comedic gold?
There is a Church dedicated to Lawrence in Macau, overlooking the expanding sea. Originally built in 1560. Egg-yolk-yellow walls. Steps at front where parishioners slide rosary beads through their fingers, praying the return of their seafarers. Lawrence is up there now. At that great watercooler in the sky, telling crap jokes to thirsty peers.
On the sixteenth century Fortaleza do Monte retired cannons point at casinos — glimpses of dystopia. The fort was built in the early 1620s to keep out the Dutch, who were competing for superiority in the region. Later the Dutch took the Strait of Malacca off the Portuguese, but never breached the high-fort-walls on the hills of Macau.
High on the fort: sipped a dripping-condensation-cool can of Tsingtao strangely and manoeuvred awkwardly on a hammock too short for my legs.
Complimentary biscuits. Of ginger, of orange blossom, of sweetened pork. Slivers of seasoned jerky cut with scissors.
After the orange blossom,
After the sweetened pork,
After the seasoned slivers:
A meal of Leitão Asada no Forno: suckling-crisp-pork on a chip bed in a Portuguese relic of a restaurant called Fernando’s.
Overlooks a black sand beach.
A plump jug of sangria.
A glass of chilled Vinho Verde.
Mosquito-bitten but happy.
It could be Portugal. It certainly feels like it. But it is not. 442 years of Portuguese rule came to an end, but their footprint has remained in the sand. When Macau goes under complete Chinese sovereignty in 2049, will the tide eventually wash it away?
Full and sweating, I embarked on a post-prandial, jarring journey into a cavernous rotunda of intense mimicry.
On approach, a mirage: Venice across the water.
The Doge’s Palace, smaller than I remember.
The Rialto Bridge, more cartoonish than I remember.
St. Mark’s Campanile, brickwork cruder than I remember.
And the canal, less green and brown drudge and there was no stench, more chemical blue than I remember.
Attached to the tip of an ionic column a speaker sang cheap sounding opera: I was reminded. Hold on! What is this place?
Mimic!
Mockery!
Parrot!
Polly want a biscotti!
THE VENETIAN HOTEL MACAU.
A casino. One of many in Macau. Entered through swing doors. Once in. There was no escape. Sad coins clunk into cordial slots. Gambling is legal and the annual turnover of 24 billion US Dollars is seven times that of Las Vegas. 68% of the visitors come from mainland China. An enclave for the gambler.
The Canal Grande: a disinfectant-chemical-tinged-teal.
Home to gondoliers in wide-brimmed boaters and tight-penguin waistcoats and bellowing heartsick shanties from their perch. A gambling themepark, for winners and losers alike. The ceilings are painted like the sky. Blue and white clouds.
There are no clocks. There is no such thing as a clock in a casino. There never is. There is no escape. What time does this place close? It never closes.
O my ducats!
O my patacas!
After wandering along the canals, I made it to Piazza San Marco. A dim night sky here. Does time pass quicker in this cave? Or does it pass at all? The Astrological clock was not functioning, the signs of the zodiac in a plastic-gold leaf on an ultramarine face. The floor was varnished so it appeared as though rain has fallen recently. Knock-off stars reflected back at us off the floor.
Where are the pigeons? Maybe they should consider inventing a form of robotic pigeon that could mimic the real deal?
Napoleon Bonaparte described the real Piazza as the drawing room of Europe. A place of real beauty.
I was first in the real Venice in 2001. New Year. The Euro had just come in and it was a strange limbo period where Lira and Euro were both accepted and people were justifiably confused. A perishing-cold, so my parents bought me a fringed suede jacket. Worthy of John Wayne or Butch Cassidy or the Sundance Kid. Our guidebook of choice was a book called ‘Venice For Pleasure’ by J.G. Links. It features sketches of all the campaniles and churches and astrological clocks and edicolae — small shrines on street corners or above doorways.
We stayed above a Nintendo shop and we made a deal. If we ticked off all the campaniles, walked to the cathedrals, across the bridges, saw glass blowers on Murano and made a pilgrimage to the bones and the spit of the dragon slaughtered by St. George then, and only then, could I get the Looney Tunes game for my Gameboy Advance.
The bells, the bells, the bells peeled loudly at the top of the campaniles.
Vibrating:
SONET VOX TVA IN AVRIBVS MEIS
The voice of random memories resounding in my mind:
Freezing cold we heard an American child with clear trust issues ask his mother loudly:
“Moooom, is this eyetalian eycecream?”
In an apothecary of mahogany cupboards, a white uniformed chemist danced enthusiastically. A German man tried to sell us some crude watercolours of flowers on the balcony of the Doge’s Palace. Beside a Boche de Leòn, a Lion’s Mouth.
SECRET DENUNCIATIONS
AGAINST ANYONE WHO
WILL CONCEAL FAVOURS
AND SERVICES OR WILL
COLLUDE TO HIDE THE TRUE
REVENUE FROM THEM
A gaping mouth, into which suspicious citizens of the Venetian Republic, la Serenissima Repubblica, could sell-out a neighbour or a foe. Tip off. A police state of fear. Imprisoned in the prison of the Piombi. Piombi meaning lead. The roof had slabs of lead on it making it hotter in summer and colder in winter, so conditions were unbearable for those locked inside. From the Doge’s Palace into the Piombi, inmates would cross Il Ponte dei Sospiri - the Bridge of Sighs. A small window frames San Giorgio across the small spit. A final sigh at the beauty of the outside world.
The zodiacal devices of the astrological clock tick and tock over an arch way like the worrying cranks of the elevator to the top of St. Mark’s Campanile. On top there is a plaque:
GALILEO GALILEI
WITH HIS TELESCOPE
FROM HERE ON THE 21 AUGUST 1609
WIDENED THE HORIZONS
OF MAN
Arsenale, the first modern dockyard in the world, the birthplace of the fleets that controlled the Adriatic for so long, is stretched along the promenade. The widened horizon behind it, beyond the lagoon. No throwing coins from the bell towers.
Down they would fall.
Down to the Basilica.
Down to the Portrait of the Four Tetrarchs. A porphyry sculpture from 300AD. Fixed to the corner of the façade of St. Mark’s Basilica. A symbol of Venice’s interaction with the East, with Byzantium. Bound together in a tight embrace.
Venice was an independent Republic from 697AD to 1797 and was the entrance to Europe from the Levant.
The Venetian Marco Polo sailed and travelled deep into Asia and would have sailed by Macau on his return from China at the end of the thirteenth century. Leaving the South China Sea through the Strait of Malacca, in Indonesia, Marco Polo seemed quite disappointed in the ‘unicorns’ he discovered:
“…hair like that of a buffalo, feet like those of an elephant, and a horn in the middle of the forehead, which is black and very thick […] The head resembles that of a wild boar. They delight much to abide in mire and mud. ’Tis a passing ugly beast to look upon…in fact, ’tis altogether different from what we fancied.”
He was observing a rhinoceros. This, to be clear, is not a case of rhinoceros-mimicry. But simply Polo’s skewed perception.
Back to Venice at midnight on New Year’s Eve. 2001 over. 2002 was welcomed in.
Buon Capodanno!
Happy New Year!
We watched from a rickety boat on the lagoon. Ahead of us.
Roman candles of which St. Lawrence would’ve been proud. Burst and soared out away up into the sky above the city.
The steeples, up, up, up.
Fireworks, up, up, up.
The city our muse.
Spanking-white of San Giorgio reflecting the excitement. Higher and higher, almost out of sight, leaning back. Divine. Entrancing.
Phew!
Red rain gold strains and cords from the centre.
Phwaw!
Falling, down, down, down.
Back on terra firma in St. Mark’s Square. Broken glass of a thousand Prosecco bottles: green shards on the cobblestones, crunched under the boots of drunken revellers, madness in their eyes and big toothy grins.
Buon Capodanno tutti!
The square was spotless the next morning. Same as it ever was. Gentrified and friendly pigeons eating seeds.
In Jan Morris’ ‘Venice’, she writes that Venice “was born dangerously, lived grandly and never abandoned her brazen individualism.” It is this brazen individualism that makes it so appealing to visitors. Since Napoleon invaded in 1797 and put an end to the Republic, handing the city state over to the Austrians, it has been invaded by a new force of influx. Venice “has been chiefly a museum, through whose clicking turnstiles the armies of tourism endlessly pass.”
Giovanni Antonio Canal, or Canaletto, had an appropriate name for a Venetian. Like a purveyor of loaves and breads being called Jonny Baker. A huge landscape of the Canal Grande with Santa Maria Della Salute towering over the flowing waters. I ate my first bowl of tortellini in brodo just off the steps to the right. Little ears bobbing about in the shallow broth. When I looked at this painting, I overheard an art historian say Canaletto’s paintings of Dresden were used to rebuild the city after World War II. Such is the extent of the precision of his proportions.
I returned to Venice recently in searing heat. A queue for everything. Slowly walking through the streets slow as a heavy cannonball. Line up to see the sights. Waves and waves of tourists. Cruise ships stopping for a stare and then going on, leaving a trail of oil in the slosh of the slipstream. Venice: a victim of her own unique beauty.
As Patrick Kavanagh writes in ‘Advent’:
“And the newness that was in every stale thing
When we looked at it as children”
The Law of Diminishing Marginal Returns: the idea that the first slice of pizza is the best and it all goes down, down, down from there. As Galileo looked out across the Adriatic with his telescope, I too pointed my telescope into my memories. At age five, it was big, new, exciting. The telescope glazed over from the splendour, not able to see the world problem of tourism. Not able to see that I was a part of it.
It was winter time in 2001. Less hot, less stink, less crowd.
In high summer, the turnstiles rotate more, the alleys resemble a tin of sardines and the cruise ships storm and invade.
On the 2 June 2019, the MSC Opera, a 66,000-tonne cruise liner, blared its horns as it crashed into a wharf in San Basilio-Zattere. Hitting a smaller tourist vessel. Five people were slightly injured.
Locals take part in the No Grande Navi — No Cruise Ships — protests. During which they surround the monstrous vessels in smaller boats shouting from megaphones:
Fuori! Fuori!
Out! Out!
A Venetian Matteo Secchi told the BBC:
“Venice right now, is like Disneyland. If we don’t find solutions, it could be a Machu Pichu. A city with beautiful marbles but without a real life, without citizens.”
Marianna Purisiol, a local, said that she is often asked by tourists at what time does Venice close. This gives the perception that it is a museum, that like The Truman Show, Venetians are just a troop of actors in a grand roleplay for the benefit of the slowly moving crowd.
Locals believe this ‘Disneyfication’ is taking away the anima, the soul, of La Serenissima. The weight of the visitors’ stomps is a catalyst for the sinking process down, down into the shallow waters of the lagoon. Tourism is ripping away a culture due to the appetites of the fleeting visitors. I just watched Spiderman: Far From Home in the cinema. Peter Parker swings around the tight alleys of Venice and confronts a monster cyclone swinging fists of water, destroying campaniles and the Rialto Bridge. Butchers, bakers, trattorias and traditional traders and craftsmen shut for more and more shops dishing out rip-off-trinkets. In the coming years, how many intricate Carnivale masks and long beaks of plague doctors will be replaced by the red and blue masks of the friendly neighbourhood Spiderman? A Spidermanification.
My own experience in The Venetian Hotel Macau made me feel estranged from my own nostalgic visions and memories of New Year 2001. Morris, too, looks back at a different Venice.
“A dappled city, tremulous and flickering, where the sunlight shimmers gently beneath the bridges, and the shadows shift slowly along the promenade.”
Is it disappearing?
Is it destined to become The Venetian Hotel Macau?
Are we on a tram track towards a subterranean existence?
Walter Benjamin in his 1936 essay The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, argued that:
“…even the most perfect reproduction of a work of art is lacking in one element: Its presence in time and space, its unique existence at the place where it happens to be.”
This presence in time and space, Benjamin defines as the ‘Aura’.
Within mimicry, the aura is lost.
The Venetian Hotel Macau, a deeply impressive impersonation, lacks the aura that Benjamin defines. Mimicry on a mass scale. Is Venice itself becoming primarily a city with no children, a city with no citizens?
The constant circus of tourist rolls into town. Just a place to pop in and out and twist the turnstiles, to ogle at the beauties and leave.
If the cruise ships continue to crash and the weight of visiting feet sink to add weight, at least we have The Venetian Hotel Macau…
Indeed, if there was a nuclear apocalypse and all humans were forced to exist in a mud-world under the earth. In this existence of pulp, they thought in order to increase morale for an understandably grim life, they would plan to rebuild the cities of the past. To create memories of what was in their sunken subterranean mole rat kingdom.
The Venetian Hotel Macau — this piece of mimicry, this is what it would be like.
A faux-nostalgia for the future.
If the nuclear apocalypse comes and we are forced under the earth, a bunker existence — well, at least we have the blueprints of Canaletto to rebuild from zero.
SONET VOX TVA IN AVRIBVS MEIS
Echo. A mimic. Tolling for thee.
As Oscar Wilde observed:
“Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery that mediocrity can pay to greatness.”
Resounding and constant.