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A very long time ago, around 1513, Macau was only a small village, or town, and were very behind on technology. Back then, China was still ruling Macau… but not for long. The Portuguese came, and took over Macau, and so it became a Portuguese colony. After a while, Macau became one of the main trading areas of China. The Macanese culture caught up on technology, and the Portuguese built trains and cars for Macau. The official languages for Macau are Cantonese and Portuguese. If you are wondering how Macau got it’s name, it’s from a goddess called A-Ma. A-Ma was a girl. She was very poor and she needed a ride across the river. She kept asking people for a ride across the river. They all said no because they wanted money. Finally somebody said yes. It was a poor man, he didn’t have much to sell, but he offered to take her over. When they were in the middle of the river a big storm came about. The storm was huge and everybody was tossed about. The host of the boat was flung across the boat and was struck unconscious. A-Ma took over the controls and she sailed it across the river with ease. When the man came back to his consciousness he saw that the boats were all messed up, except for his. He turned to thank A-Ma but she was gone. That is where they built a temple for A-Ma and it is called the A-Ma temple. The Chinese came and started to call the place A-Ma Gao. It means "The place where A-Ma dwells" When the foreigners came they started saying that name faster and it soon became Ma Gao. When they tried spelling it they spelled it Macau. That is how it was formed. For many years the Dutch tried to invade this great city, but failed. In 1986, the Chinese convinced the Portuguese to return the area of Macau to China in 1999, since the Chinese had became a very strong nation, and the Portuguese would not want to anger them. People take Macau as an entertainment place. A lot of people gamble in the casinos that are in the heart of the city. There is also bull fighting, which is Portuguese style. Every year there is a Macau Grand Prix, too. Macau’s economy is based on tourism, like Hong Kong. Without it, Macau would once again be a small town. See ya all later!!! Randy ....... |
As
you might know, Macau is a peninsula on the southwestern side of China.
There are two other islands near it, named Coloane and Taipa which are
also part of the Portuguese colony of Macau. When we first arrived at the
Macau ferry port, we packed our luggage onto buses, and traveled over the
bridge towards Taipa. From Taipa, we took another bridge to Coloane, where
the Westin Resort Hotel was located. I’ll give you a brief introduction
to Macau, and what we did there.