Hong Kong Travels: Taipa

Taipa is a whole other island, gained later by Portugal similar to the New Territories in Hong Kong by Britain. So much is crammed into so small a space that somehow just manages to fit, especially with regards to the Rua do Cunha and surrounding Taipa Village.

It looks like a small area on a map, but the attractions within and around it can quickly eat up an afternoon. Again, I have Daisy to thank for helping me see more of the city than I ever would have by myself, and for knowing what food was essential for me to try.

Therefore, it is with great confidence that I recommend Sai Kee Cafe. It’s already a famous cafe, 60 years old ans still going strong, judging from the queue outside when we visited in the morning. From first look, it appears an inconspicuous cha-chaan-teng, a Hong Kong-style local eatery in modest surroundings next to the road. But the item people from far and wide come to try is the pork chop sandwich, with Hong Kong-style scrambled eggs as a requirement. The sandwich is served in a large, crispy bun that is still too small to contain the pork chop, and eating through it leaves a big greasy smile from cheek to cheek. A bit too fatty for me to finish completely, but more than enough to satisfy me for a good portion of the day. Remember to bring some money, though, or you’ll be stuck without an ATM and have to rely on the generosity of passers-by.

Such is the proximity of Taipa Village that buying a pork chop sandwich from Sai Kee Cafe feels like an entry ticket. The area very much plays into the touristy aspect of the area – a place for gamblers to reconnect with the outside world, and for people deliberately looking for something other than gambling to visit. You can spot these places, because the low buildings will be more colourful: reminiscent of Burano – a rainbow of townhouses. Signs on the food street are clustered tighter than microphones of a politician’s podium. Only a few of them have Portuguese translations underneath. 

What was interesting (to me at least) was observing how dense the food street and later Rua Correia da Silva were with people compared to any side street.  The colours are slightly less vibrant, more stained, and some are abandoned in much the same way as others in Macau or Hong Kong. Staff on break carefully eat their noodles on foldaway chairs – no space for staff rooms in the shops, it seems.  In a way, these moments make everything feel more human. There are people behind the smiles and hospitality that are trying to get through the day. The alleys still have pretty lampposts and patterned, tile floors, but those small imperfections are more attractive to me on a personal level than the carefully curated main streets. At least one ground floor residency on the main street, clothes drying outside just next to a massage parlour, is delightfully stubborn in its existence. I hope the owners never sell.

Something you may miss if you aren’t paying attention or do not realise is a public building is the Museu da Taipa e Coloane. It is the former colonial government’s headquarters, now converted into a completely free chronological story of the area from the neolithic through to the current day. It is painted a baby blue with white accents, and while it still has the traits of other buildings of a similar style, the columns are actually fluted this time! Inside, you experience much-needed air conditioning first and foremost.  A polished wooden staircase leads up to a very nostalgic meeting room that would be familiar to anyone that’s spent time in a building with too much history. Coats of arms and more bearded governors lining the walls; beards never go out of style. Elsewhere upstairs is a history of the fireworks industry in Macau, as well as a timeline of Taipa from its first mention as an island of “barbarians” until the 1999 handover and after. Downstairs is a glass floor with ruined foundations, and lining the room are cabinets showing those stone-age artifacts. It seems impossibly hard to tell what counts as a tool instead of a generic rock, but somehow the archaeologists have managed it. A lovely little museum that’s worth popping into when you’re in the area.

Just past the wall art that covers the stairs and across to the other side of the ridge from the church plaza is a view over the Wetland Pond, an unexpected blast of nature just before the Cotai Strip and its casino madness. On a hot day, it is better to watch the birds disappear and reappear from the shade, so the benches by the border may not be the best choice of seating. Perhaps it is for the best, then, that several houses for the old elite are in situ behind them. Painted in the same blue and white as the museum, these Taipa Houses used to act as an escape from the noise and suffocation of the city – now they look out towards the largest casino complex in Asia. Some are restaurants, others are art shops. One is a museum displaying the trappings of pre-electricity stateliness. A glimpse into the experiences of Macanese Portuguese families under Portugal is quite thoughtful, and I wish there had been more to learn. Living in the house pre-air conditioning sounds unpleasant to sleep in, if my experience is anything to go by.

One final comment on this area of Macau - unbeknownst to even Daisy – behind where we had parked, my curiosity carried me along a stone wall to the grounds of the ruined Yilang Fireworks factory. Ruins are always so fascinating. The idea of hollowed out and overgrown buildings having been bustling with industry and specialists and international deliveries not so long ago is so fun. But then everything becomes rundown fast in the local climate.

Of course, it would be madness to go to Macau and not experience the casinos. In the busiest part of the island, the Cotai Strip, every building is equally bombastic. A miniature Eiffel Tower, Big Ben (the Elizabeth tower, strictly speaking. There is no giant bell) and Rialto Bridge are crammed together outside their respective casino complexes, such as they feel like decoration for different rollercoasters, or gateways to different video game levels. 

Entering reveals a world inside a world. Were you particularly resigned from life, you could conceivably spend yours entirely inside one of these super-casinos and not want for food, entertainment, clothing, or of course, leisure.  

The Venetian in particular was quite affecting for me. I had never been inside a casino until then, so for my first experience to be the second largest casino in the world was a baptism by fire. Even the sky is painted onto the roof, so our recluse may not miss anything except sunlight, easily replaced by the lamps. The central hall has an incredibly high ceiling covered in neo-classical paintings of cherubs and angels reaching down from heaven. The central scene, of gods on a cloud above mortals, also has an angel crowning an emperor. Interestingly, you must descend escalators to access the casino, away from them. Deliberate or not, it sends a signal about the activities you find below. 

After going through the equivalent of airport security to enter, the patchwork quilt of gambling is incredible. Every game you can associate with gambling is present and was jammed with players during my visit. Blackjack, poker, roulette, craps, and others I had never seen before are all available. There is even a game where you just roll dice and bet on the outcome. Maybe if I had looked for longer, I would have found coin-flipping. No photography is allowed, but they do offer free refreshments. As someone who has never entertained the thought of serious gambling, it was all rather overwhelming. Looking over the shoulders of people risking thousands of dollars on a card flip, seeing a man take out $5000 to exchange for chips as casually as buying a bottle of water was equal parts fascinating and incredulous. Watching people hunched over slot machines and endlessly spinning did make me feel better about playing games for long periods, as at least I don’t lose money as well as time. But then, you do not build a palace without donations.  

A good portion of the rest of the public area, the shopping loop around the building, is a model of Venice complete with canal and gondolas. Venice was one of the earliest trips I recorded back in 2018. It was cold and raining on that occasion, but the unfriendly weather meant plenty of privacy in the evening to explore the streets. 

This facsimile of Venice has the aforementioned painted sky, so no chance of any weather other than slightly cloudy. The water is an unnatural blue. High-budget brands with no customers inside are broken up by the promise of exquisite food. The facades of the walls are an imitation of the buildings in Venice, except the uniformity surrenders the authentic ageing of reality for a modelled consistency. It extends to each of the casinos around the area – purpose-built; it’s a tourist sink relying on other ideas to make themselves more appealing. The Grand Lisboa feels infinitely more like it belongs, but it is not what we visited on the trip. It was nice to dance in the garden by the Eiffel Tower though.

Daisy’s partner, when he came to pick us up later in the evening after drinks, explained more about what life was like before Macau was handed back to China. Unsurprisingly, the fun, modern presentation of egg tarts and extravagant gambling does not represent the total lived experience of many Macanese under Portugal’s flag. I asked him what life had been like for him before the handover. He said he had to learn Portuguese back in school (unlike English in Hong Kong, he’s not sure the language is still taught (it is though at special institutions)) but never really picked it up himself. The lifestyle of the Europeans always seemed apart, and he felt like a second-class citizen right up until they left. He remembered the uniforms of the police officers. He much prefers it now: there was no sense of inferiority, no assumed deference to a different class, and he had never entertained the idea of living anywhere else.   

The last part of the trip both in mention and chronology was to Coloane Village. So close to China that you can swim to the customs office in a few minutes, if you are a slow swimmer. Place like Coloane really make you appreciate the meaninglessness of international borders. If I dived too far I would have entered China illegally. 

The town feels like the epitome of escapism in Macau: quiet, townhouses, seafront views, plenty of countryside to admire in the distance, but still has egg tarts and fish to purchase. Coloane also continues the tradition of the occasional collapsed terrace houses full of detritus and weeds between perfectly maintained ones. It’s becoming one of my favourite features of this part of the world, honestly.

To wander around Coloane is such a contrast to what I had seen before. There are spaces for interests to breathe in a less competitive, loud environment. There are still the artisanal coffee shops, but they can also be part of larger knick-knack shops filled with Macau paraphernalia. The upstairs of another coffee shop has a record shop with cats all over the walls, as if a very cool cat lady lives there. And in another space, in an alley covered in original wall art, is a local artist’s gallery/hostel called PENSAO"COLOANE 1". Everything is for sale, and the staff are happy to talk to you about the story behind the shop and the one man who paints everything. It makes you wonder how long it took him to fill out the walls and tables, never mind how they can sustain themselves doing it.  It seems studios-cum-hostels are more common than you’d expect. Somehow, there is still room to squeeze in a space downstairs for antiques, and a private restaurant to.

The cluttered paints and unfinished canvases remind me a lot of my grandfather’s studio in his house, which was converted into a bedroom for my siblings and I once we got too big for the sofa bed (which we called the “magic bed” since we were too young to understand what was happening to it).

For food by the water, Daisy recommended Lord Stow’s Garden Cafe, a worthwhile stop for the egg tarts alone. The stories included behind each of the different dishes reminded me of the restaurant in Sofia that did the same, although less charming.

And so (after 2 months of trying to write this up, it’s now 8^th June (and typing it up, it’s now 10^th July!)) ended my time in Macau. While I can say it was a fun experience, I can’t say I’m in a rush to return. This is mostly because Daisy was such a good host that I feel I have seen mostly everything there is to see in the city. My feelings on the casinos and their impact on the aesthetic of the area distracted me a lot from more positive qualities, and in hindsight I may have judged parts of the city too harshly as a result. Overall Macau feels like a Portuguese-flavoured annex of Hong Kong. Good for a weekend, but unless you are planning something specific, that’s really all the time you need. Best to spend time in Hong Kong instead, that’s where all the cool people live anyway.