Macao finds a stronger identity in mainland ties

• Source: Global Times
• [22:30 December 27 2009]
• Comments

By Tian Wei

Sitting in the movie theatre with a few friends from Macao, I heard their simple comments after the screening of Diago, a film made to reflect the emotions and confusions of many in Macao right before it returned to China.

"Identity for you guys is an easy thing, but not for us,"they told me.

The eponymous Diago is a policeman in Macao. His father is Portuguese, but they have never met. Days before the return of Macao to China, Diago travels to Portugal, a place he had always longed for, to seek his roots. At the end of the day, however, he only found everything dearest to his heart in Macao, the place he was born and grew up in.

It takes Diago a long and torturous trip to Europe to find that out. In reality, it always takes a while before any one of us discovers some of the most important things in our life, as we don't want to settle for anything less than our dreams. However, once we find it, it isn't less, but it can be different.

Many ordinary people in Macao cried on December 20, 1999 when the fl ag of Portugal was lowered. The sadness was not because that the colonial legacy was gone but because they feared what they believed to be an unpredictable future.

Ten years on though, even one taxi driver I spoke to, half- Portuguese and half-Chinese, who had hurried to take out Portuguese citizenship 10 years ago, told me that he treasured his Macao identity more. While his Portuguese passport lets him live and work anywhere in Europe, the Macao identity card also lets him visit over 40 other countries visa-free.