Song of hope still heard in modern Macao
- Source: Global Times
- [23:27 December 20 2009]
- Comments
Illustration: Liu Rui
The reasons are simple. Macao can not live without the Chinese mainland. The mainland has been providing Macao with a lifeline, from food to water, for years. For a tiny little place like Macao, land is the most crucial priority for any further development.
Recently, the central government has not only approved Macao's land reclamation proposal, but also let the University of Macao build and later administer the Hengqin Island campus, located in the neighboring city of Zhuhai in Guangdong Province.
You do not have to ask a politician in Macao or any of the so-called pro-China camp members to get these answers. Taxi drivers, hotel clerks, casino managers and small business owners will all give you the same answer. They even end the conversation the same way, "We are all Chinese, you know?"
It used to be considered a compliment to Macao when you praised it as the Las Vegas of the Orient. However, today's Macao is not just aspiring to be an imitation of somebody else, but has dreams of its own.
Yet it understands whether that attempt is successful depends largely on its relations with the mainland. It needs mainland tourists. It wants to be a financial hub and having more access to RMB business is therefore essential.
It needs talent and technology, a lot of which can come from the mainland. It needs its own identity of being a crossroads between East and West, instead of being just a glorious piece of the Mediterranean being tucked away on the South China Sea.
The logic is obvious and beautifully summed up by the little girl who sang that song, and who feels the lyrics were beyond comprehension 10 years ago, but closely relates to them now. But local thinking is not just limited to that.
Over a glass of Portuguese wine, they will give you another list, which you might not hear often in the 10th anniversary press campaign, made up of issues that they have di£ficulties resolving for more than 400 years.
They wonder how to come up with the right strategies against corruption and how to have a more powerful legislative assembly, and hope for a press that can speak out more loudly than ever before.
But they say they finally have one real thing to hold on now, hope.
Tian Wei is the host of “Dialogue” on CCTV's English Channel, and the main anchor of CCTV's special coverage of important domestic and international events. Previously, Tian worked in Washington D.C. as a correspondent, and covered the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Her blog is http://blog.cctv.com/html/09/960109.html. Reach her at tianwei.gt@gmail.com
