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WOW! - Macau Report 3
March 4, 1998
Church of Our Lady Penh 
You walk into the echoing corridor. You
stare at the unpadded, polished pews. The hard wood altar has a statue
of Jesus being cradled in his mom’s arms. The walls and architecture are
made to Portuguese standards. You have entered the Church of Our Lady Penha.
The church once served as a point of pilgrimage for sailors embarking on
a hazardous voyage. The chapel was founded in 1622 by the crew and passengers
of a Portuguese ship which had narrowly escaped capture by the Dutch raiders.
The chapel was completely rebuilt, along with the Bishop’s Palace, in 1837.
It was rebuilt again in 1935.
The view outside the church is one of the most spectacular of Macau. See
that pink building with the white trim? That’s the Governor’s mansion.
Because of it’s dominance on the hill, the famous British artist Sir George
Chinnery often featured it in his sketches. The statue of Mary is carried
from St. Dominic’s to Penha Hill each May 13th.
If you look around, you might find
some old caves from WW2. Hmm, did they hide prisoners, ammo, food, treasure…
Overall, this is a great spot for
kids to absorb some of the Portuguese culture. But remember, this is a
place of worship, so no clowning around. This is a must see if you are
in Macau and is a popular landmarks in Southeast Asia.
The Rua S. Paulo
Sean Fifer reporting
The Rua S. Paulo is the winding street leading
to the ancient ruins of the St. Paul's church. Initially you may think
that the walk will be a poor and unpleasant stroll through dusty and litter-strewn
streets. But actually when you take your first step you are shocked
to see an assortment of "a-to-z" accessories that are made of various materials
that have a unique style about them. As we walked slowly we glanced
to our right and saw bright and dark colors of lipstick and nail polish.
We knew we had found a cosmetic store. Then we knew that this
was an upscale little shopping district where you are sure to find something
to your liking. If you listen carefully you will hear old women chattering
amongst themselves and you might not be able to interpret what they are
saying if you can't speak Chinese or Portuguese, but that shouldn't bother
you too much because something else has already caught your attention.
 Continuing
with our stroll down the winding street, take a few steps forward and then
look to your right. You will discover craft shops with shades of
light and dark brown. The wood there is crafted by hand and is affordable.
By now you will have bought a couple of things or at least will have been
amazed with the standard of the products on sale. The feeling you
have tops it all off .... you feel comfortable, like you are in a place
where you can test and play with the different products and no-one cares.
The floor of the street is made of cobblestone tiles that gives it a European
flavor.
The Coloane Hike
Reported by Randy Ma.
March 4th, 1998.
9:05 A.M.
On the island of Coloane, one of
the three main islands that make up Macau, there is a long mountain walk
through the hills. The many trees on the trail were dripping with water,
because it was raining “cats and dogs” when we hiked through the pass.
 Before
starting the same hike, you might want to take a short walk to a garden
with many plants. Most of these plants are herbal plants. They are used
in medicine. There are practically herbs for every kind of sickness, cures
for asthma, colds, poisonous snake-bites, and also other illnesses. We
saw signs near each herb telling about the herb and their Chinese, Latin,
Portuguese, and Spanish names. I was very lucky. I am Chinese, so I could
read what each of those herbs are for, but my friends had a very hard time
trying to decide what the signs meant.
Once you start the hike, you might
think, “Wow. This path is long!” That is exactly how I felt when I started
to hike. It was still raining starfishes and sharks, so the path was pretty
slippery. Weirdly, Kelly and Elizabeth were counting the amount of stairs
we climbed and descended. They came up with an approximation of 1160 stairs.
That might give you an idea of how long the trail was. After we interviewed
Mr. Wetjen (a sixth grade teacher), he said that we traveled over two miles.
We walked three hours straight, with only around three minutes of rest.
If you ever go on this hike, I advise you to bring lots of water and a
raincoat, if it’s the raining season.
9:30 A.M.
While on the trail, you could smell
the fresh air. Most people forgot their raingear, and had to wear trash-bags
instead. After asking one of our parent leaders, I found out some bad news.
We had two and a half more hours to travel. More bad news. The rain was
even falling harder now. At a pavilion kind of thing, we stopped for a
while, and teachers pointed out things to us. They said that the land that
we saw way down near the foot of the hill was reclaimed land. That means
that the Portuguese/Macanese took the sea/ocean and filled it in, making
Macau have 30% more land than it did six years ago.
By now, kids were getting tired and slowing
down. I spent my time talking to my friend about video games… I had already
slowed down, and couldn’t talk to my friend anymore, so I just looked around
at the views. A few hundred meters back, I could still hear the jackhammers
smashing against the stone. Now, I could hear the rain splattering the
leaves and the mountain path.
10:03 A.M.
We took a short break to wait for everyone
to gather, and to make sure that everyone was there. I could hear people
in the background singing to cheer themselves up from this bad weather.
I saw a lot of mist and fog over on other high hills. We stepped into mud
puddles, since there were a lot of them.
10:45 A.M.
Oh, no!!! My raincoat ripped, and I had
to take it off, since it was of no use anyway. I got soaked eventually,
and felt really cold. Unfortunately, no one had an extra garbage bag… We
got another short rest, just to get everyone together, so they would not
turn the wrong way at the Y path.
11:00 A.M.
We got onto the Black Sand Beach, and walked
on the cement walk to go back to our hotel. I was still soaked to the skin,
and couldn’t wait to change my clothes. Whew… that was one long hike!!
Fortunately the weather had warmed to about 20 degrees Celsius, so even
though I was soaked and cold it was still bearable.
St. Dominic’s Church
By Cindy Chou
March 3, 1998
The island enclave of Macau
I stared at the building from the
outside. It was three stories high. As I entered the beautiful
church of St. Dominic, the first thing I saw was the carving of Jesus on
the holy walls. The sound of my friends’ gasps echoed in my ear in
their surprise at the beauty of this church. Our teacher told us
that this place was 500 years old and had just been renovated, so that
was the reason why it looked so heavenly. I could see that both the
inside and outside had a European symmetric relation as I recalled it.
The doors to the right were open, and suddenly, there was a gust of wind.
I noticed that there was a rust smell to the building, considering the
age of it. This whole place had a unique, sort of European taste to it;
the walls were a creamy-beige color. I walked down the aisle towards
the statue of the Virgin Mary, and I had an urge to touch it. Yet
I could not.
Although this place looks as if it were
to be fit for angels, it has had a dramatically violent past. As
the old saying goes, “Looks are deceiving.” In 1644, during Mass
(a church service), a Portuguese military officer who supported the Spanish
against the Portuguese was murdered in front of the altar. In 1707
when the Dominicans sided with the Pope against Macao’s bishop in the Rites
Controversy, the local soldiers tried to attack them. The friars
locked themselves in the church for three days and pelted stones at them.
These tragic events have caused an impact on our impression of the church,
even though when you’re in there you would never had imagined that murders
had taken place.
Next we were led upstairs, where
there was a museum filled with old antiques and statues, mainly of Jesus
and his things he did. Unexpectedly, something caught my eye.
There were parts of Jesus (the model) that had been cut off after his crucifixion;
his arms, legs, and a single head that had been chopped off. Although
it doesn’t sound very appealing, the figure had uniqueness to it.
Looking at the limbs of the body of Jesus, I wondered about the reason
why they were apart and the pain this man - this savior must have gone
through just to save us, the sinners of the world. Oh well, maybe
this is one of the things in the world I’ll never find out. There
goes my group down the street towards the ruins of St. Paul’s, and I’d
better catch up!
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