A Day Out in Macau

Tuesday was a wonderful day. Yining and I started the day out with early morning panels. We actually decided to go to the same panels for the 9:00 session and found ourselves in an early morning discussion on food in Asia. It was very interesting. The first paper was about the changes in temple food in southern India in terms of modern adaptations. For example the use of plastic take-out containers for blessed dishes instead of the traditional banana leaves. It was one of the more interesting presentations I’ve heard so far at the panel due to the fact it didn’t take itself so seriously. There were light hearted moments and I greatly appreciated them. The next presentation was about Taiwanese food culture. We did not stay for the last presentations because while we wanted to hear more about food in Asia (who wouldn’t?) we also wanted to hear our new friend, Harlan, talk. He was discussing a Taiwanese author named Li Ang. This author is a bit of a trouble maker and seems like an incredibly interesting read. Her book The Butcher’s Wife is available on Amazon and it may be one of my next for fun reads (Thanks Kristen and Brett for the Amazon gift card! It shall be put to good use).The book Harlan was actually discussing, Mi Yuan, is not yet on Amazon so I will have to wait to read it and discover if his feminist take on the novel is spot on or not. However, from what I’ve gathered about Mr. Harlan I trust he is correct. I also have learned about some interesting Indian novels that also have interesting feminist readings that I will have to check out: The Red Box, Anita and Me, The Namesake, and Brick Lane. You know… after I read the 100 books for my comprehensive exams.

Macau

The real fun of the day came at 13:00. We went on an excursion! The conference had set up free daily excursions to Old Town Macau and we signed up for it. It was a bit of a pain: started 20 minutes late, people were selfish and decided to sign up for the excursion even though they knew they had to be back early to catch the ferry and expected the excursion to end early for everyone because of it (rude!), and people kept interrupting the tour guide. However, the majority of the excursion was free time and Yining and I made the most of it.
We started the tour by getting off the bus near the old Portuguese fortress and walking down cobblestone streets filled with souvenir shops. The guide, Vincent, informed us the cobblestone had been brought all the way from Portugal. Which, to me, seems excessive but hey it was lovely. We made our way up to the Fortress and were give 15 minutes of free time to walk around. Cut a bit short by the fact we started late and we still had “more iconic” landmarks to see.

A canon overlooking Macau and across the river mainland China

After the fortress it was a very short walk to the ruins of St. Paul’s and Senado Square. They are very beautiful. The ruins of St. Paul’s is Macau’s main landmark and has been standing as the facade of the church for nearly 400 years. The front of this church was made of stone but the rest was constructed out of wood. During a particularly strong typhoon season a candle was blown off the alter and burned down the back section of the church. The front, stone section was left as is ever since.

The Ruins of St. Paul’s

Cantonese Opera Advertisement

While at St. Paul’s Yining and I heard a wonderful thing. Gongs. Not just any gongs, the gongs of Chinese Opera. Oh yes. The temple next to St. Paul’s was hosting a performance of Cantonese Opera. Which was, as it usually is, stunningly beautiful. I love Chinese opera. Give me a good yueju or jingju or any kind of ju and I am a happy, happy girl. I am not sure on the particular story that was being performed since my knowledge of the Cantonese Opera canon is non-existant and I could not read the Cantonese. However, I did not need to know exactly what was going on to enjoy it. I just enjoyed it. Here are some more photos. Hooray for a photo heavy post. There are just so many beautiful ones. Thank you again to Laura for donating her old camera to me. I have obviously been using it on this trip. Love my little sister.

My favorite picture of the trip so far. Also I want this whole outfit. Headress to shoes.

More Cantonese Opera

Next we, sadly, left the performance because the group was moving on down the road to Senado Square. We actually missed the group moving on and were left behind with the Russian family I had met early. I scared the crap out of their son/grandson by asking him in Russian what game he was playing on his phone. The look on his face was PRICELESS. He was so confused that someone was speaking Russian to him in China. Made my day. I then introduced myself to his mom and grandma in Russian. We I guess missed the group leaving St. Paul’s by a minute or two. Damn beautiful Cantonese Opera. So I discussed a bit in Russian a bit in English with the Russians and in English with Yining and we made our way down the road because luckily Yining and I listen and knew Senado Square was next on the list. We did luckily find a couple Yining knew from an earlier panel discussion and they informed us we had till 4:30 for free time in the square. This is a beautiful Portuguese style square with colorful buildings, a bright yellow church, lots of shop, and beautiful cobblestone from Portugal. We walked up and down the square and then back to the bright yellow church at the end of the square. St. Dominic’s is beautiful and they have a, bless them, air conditioned museum of Portuguese and Chinese antiquities.

Senado Square

St. Dominic’s Church

Our little rain haven

After the church we walked around a bit more taking in the beautiful architecture, people watching, looking in cute shops and expensive shops we couldn’t purchase anything in even if we combined our money, and becoming increasingly warm and covered in what I like to call the lovely humidity blanket of sweat. After walking around for a bit we decided to stop in a small cafe for a drink. It had been a while since we had anything to drink at all. So we stopped in an adorable cafe with pictures of Audrey Hepburn on the walls. We had milk tea, which I love, and they even gave us free water with lemon AND free refills of water. Which is just unheard of here and amazing. As we sat down, continuing our good weather luck on this trip, it started to pour. When we were done with our milk tea it had all stopped. Loving our weather timing this trip. It was then time to head back to meet the group and walk back to our bus.
Next on the agenda was the ICAS 8 Book Prize announcement where they give out prizes for top-notch publications and dissertations as well as the keynote address. Both were interesting but the real treat was the gala dinner following the keynote address. There was just tons of food. It was also a nice time to pick a random table and meet new and interesting people while everyone stuffs themselves till it is hard to get up and walk back to your hotel room. They had: sashimi, mushroom soup, lamb, prawns prepared two different ways, beef in a Chinese style, fried rice, baked cod, steamed and baked vegatables, cheesecakes, creme brule, chocolate cake, sweet dumplings, tapioca, mango pudding… just so many wonderful things. I had three helpings of meats and veggies, a bowl of mushroom soup, and a helping of sashimi. As well as two plates full of desserts. Followed by a cup of coffee and a cup of tea. I was quite full by the end of the night. It was a good choice to go on our excursion that day because we built up an appetite so we could fill ourselves to the brim with gorgeous food.
We were then too full to really do anything after than and went back to our hotel. Back in the room I took a lovely bath in the huge soaker tub which was just amazing and then we chilled for a while because we were beat and full. It was really nice. We haven’t really stopped moving since Thursday so the time to just relax and watch strange TV shows we had no idea existed (ie: Suburgatory) was so nice.

More on interesting panels, hot pot buffets, and egg tarts later. For now here are some more photos.