Where Time Is and Was

As you come to Taipa House Museum, you may find yourself lost somewhere in Time, as you would comprehend in the movie “Somewhere in Time”. Fair ladies in 18-century apparel promenading by the seaside, and gentlemen in black suits drinking and socializing in front of the house.

What were they talking about? You may wonder. Did they worry about the water supply? The inflation, perhaps? Who were on their lips? Certainly not Bruce Lee, or Obama for sure. What songs were broadcast in the radio? Elvis Presley’s “Love Me Tender”? Was an extramarrital affair going on among the figures there? Who was the suspect of the alleged theft of a lost bracelet last night? All sorts of things that had happened then and would happen today.  Not the exact content though.

It is all these sporadic pieces of life that make up Human history as a whole. Those who lived in the houses then were once in a sense writers of the local culture inked with their individual lives. And we are doing exactly the same thing with ours this moment, this day. That is what “cultural heritage” denotes, I guess. Come to think of it.  We are reading it and writing it at the same time.   Sorry, there is no editing!

A view overseeing the casinos at Taipa House Museum

(click in to see slideshow)

Leal Senado through My Lens

The name change hasn’t altered much of the feelings towards the building in my mind.  Leal Senado is still what I am calling it even after its return to China for almost 10 years by now, though it has been given a more pragmatic title.  This Senate’s House stands to prove the intricate relationship between the Chinese citizens and the colonial administration along the long line of history of the enclave.  Besides this, it keeps marks of the mixed emotions between the Macanese and their homeland government before the Handover.

This pure Portuguese-style building is odorous of Southern European sentiments. You find yourself a vanishing point of changing perspectives as you walk through the arches, up and down the staircases, around the pillars, on the patios.  Though I have been into this building for many times before, I’ve never paid much attention to its structure until today.  It seems that my camera tells me to look more closely this time.  With the Christmas decorations on, the interior looks brightly colorful on top of its Mediterranean plainness adorned with marble murals and Portuguese ceramic tiles on the lower part of the walls.

The backyard of the building earns its own credits with a typical composition of a small Western garden. Surrounded by windows and small balconies of the front building, the garden counter-balances the closeness with bushes, trees and daisies (or whatever flowers they might be) along with stone statues, fountains and wooden benches.  The tranquility of the atmosphere is so dense in a way that you could almost visualize the canonized poet walking his famous sonnet, or the scholar aloud with his logic arguments.

Leal Senado rennovated

Fading out

The old part of Macau is fading out everyday, with the rise of a new era of the casino business. It is worth preserving the images of it for safe-keeping of memories.

A glimse of sacredness

church_corner, originally uploaded by 閒人自賞.

I walked into a church this morning. It’s one of those rare events I would ever do in my life. The mood inside was really awesome, with the light beaming through the windows brightening the interior softly. I discovered this corner and was immediately attracted by the composition.

The fog

The canoe

The canoe seems too impatient to wait for the fog to let up. The color of the canoe contracts with that of the remote back ground and livens the misty scene.

The difference is in the traveller’s eyes

Because of the resumption of interest, I have been glancing through quite a few photography blogs recently, especialy those with the theme of Macau.

Some of the bloggers are apparently advocate, or even, professional photographers themselves.  With their super-wide-angle and super-long-focus lenses, the watcher can often enjoy breath-taking extrodinary sights of landscape, cityscape or things that are normally present in our everyday life.  This is the magic of photographic technology coupled with the creativity of the human mind.  You can never imagine those things could be seen in such angles with your own eyes.  The appearence of our streets, our buildings, our landmarks, our memorials etc are greatly beautified and savored with color and light.  I love those photos too.  Nevertheless, I feel a little uneasy about the subtle surrealism in some of them.

Those bloggers, I presume, are mostly locals.  They are too familiar with the sights around them in life.  Without exaggeration or modification techniques things are just too ordinary to their eyes.  They always look for legendary or dramatic sparkles in those mundane realities, trying to reform them into fairy-tale delights for any eyes, sometimes by distorting them with their expensive high-tech photographic equipments and computer software.

As I passed by a shop this morning and saw a cat crouching on the counter, something stroke me of a missing sentiment that most of these photos lack.  It’s the localness in the eyes of a stranger.  A stranger is immune to the pale boredom or over-zealous nostalgia of a local resident, and thus would look at things more objectively and judge them with raw and original emotions, which are most precious in the image-forming of a city.

I am a local too, but from now on I will try my best to be a stranger when I see through the view-finder of my camera.

Free magazines in Macau

There are several free local magazines in the market these days.  In an attempt to look for an opportunity of working in this field, I have done a quick review of some the their past issues as well as their lastest ones.  Though each of them may have unique characteristics of their own, the main themes and target audiences are similar enough.  They all claim and do aim at middle-class readers.  The pages are mainly made up of news and stories about celebrities, entertainments, luxuries, fine arts, leisure ideas and the sort.  Some of them do cover  serious subjects, such as the economic environment, social issues etc.  Not many independent view points, though.

I suppose it is the common philosophy of running a magazine for commercial purposes–you must pamper your audience with what they desire.

However, I do doubt the middle-class would only desire all those pleasurely things.  I just felt something was missing in the pages.  Vaguely do I know what it is, but I am sure it will be something that would make one magazine more popular than others, at least in some way.

I guess it is not the layout or artwork of a magazine that keeps its readers read on.  It’s the contents that counts.

new_old on Flickr – Photo Sharing!

The new old and the old new

new_old on Flickr – Photo Sharing

The landscape of Macau has changed a lot recently.  It’s great to see some old buildings renovated.  However, it saddens me sometimes when I find things around are not so familiar anymore.

God’s address on Flickr – Photo Sharing!

When you think of it, it is really fantastic to see the religion footprints on such a small piece of land.  The facade of St. Paul’s is one of them.  Sometimes I wonder what the Jesuits would imagine their small church might come to be in 400 years.

God’s address on Flickr – Photo Sharing!.