Home in Macau, Part 1
As yet I have no job, and no work permit to remain in Macau past 20 days, but I’ve signed a two-year lease for probably the most unusual apartment I’ll ever have. I’ll try to describe it.
I had quickly decided that I didn’t want to live in a highrise in the very congested main part of Macau, so I headed for Taipa Village on the first island connected by bridge. Without much of a clue as to how to proceed, I stopped to buy a bottle of water in a small shop on the first floor of a row of homes. The teenage girl who took my money started a halting conversation in English. I explained that I was looking for a small apartment. She said to wait a minute, and left. Some minutes later, she came back with a woman who had a connection with an apartment for rent very close by. We went into a building just a few houses down.
What has become my room in Taipa Village is a medium-sized light and airy room with a high ceiling. Two large doors open up into a long balcony with a bamboo rod high up for hanging clothes to dry. There is also a large window, and a hallway that includes another large balcony, a slab sticking out from the wall that I finally understood was my “kitchen,” and a small room with a squat toilet. There is a cold-water spigot low on the wall near the squat toilet and one at foot level from the balcony off the hallway. When I asked about a shower, the landlady said they could put one in for me next to the squat toilet.
There is another apartment off the hallway, and a stairway leading to a third apartment upstairs. Underneath is the unused first floor of the building, which once was an office but is now only used for storage. All space is shared with an infinite number of cockroaches and geckoes and one small mouse who comes home every night at 10 p.m. and goes directly into his hole.
Ah, the view! The view is best. I see green everywhere. From my second floor balcony, I look out upon a small, decoratively tiled public water area combined with a tiny Buddhist shrine across the narrow street. Behind these are some magnificent trees and luxuriant foliage climbing up the hill as only the tropics can grow them. Next to the shrine is a wonderful old, abandoned building that has been well reclaimed by nature with vines and flowers crawling everywhere.
When my new teenage neighbor, Bobbie, explained to the landlady that I had no furniture, I returned to find a table, chair, and what must be the very first version of a sofa bed in the room.
I only pay $100 a month, which is probably double the going rate for a Chinese person. As a foreigner, I never would have found this place without Bobbie’s help. I think I’ll be happy in this total Chinese environment. Actually, it’s much more like mainland China than Hong Kong or Macau city.
I’m ready for a modified “nest,” not unlike the several birds nesting in the eaves of my front balcony — not too permanent, but “home” nonetheless. But can I find a job with a work permit that will let me stay?
This is an excerpt from my book, Memoirs of a Middle-aged Hummingbird, written in my travel journal in September, 1992.
Tags: Macau, Macau; housing in Taipa, Macau; Taipa, Travel
October 16th, 2008 at 10:43 am
That’s a wonderful story. It’s amazing what you can do if you just talk to the locals. Were you able to stand all the cockroaches? I don’t mind them too much, but I don’t want them to get into my clothes.
October 17th, 2008 at 2:44 am
My first serious encounter with cockroaches was when I lived in New Orleans. When I was able to stop being horrified by them, I noticed how beautiful and shiny the big, flying ones were. To defuse my disgust of them, I wrote a letter to my parents from the viewpoint of Goose-A-Belle, matriarch of the generations of cockroaches who inhabited the place I was living. I got used to keeping just about every type of food in the refrigerator, and never ate off of anything I hadn’t washed first.
So, I was somewhat prepared for coexisting with cockroaches in Macau. It’s rather difficult to describe my shower in Macau, but there was a big, high ceiling above it. One day in the shower, I somehow knew that one particular cockroach was going to divebomb me. And, to my horror, it actually did.
Where I now live in southern California is a cockroach-free area. I don’t miss them at all. But I notice I still keep the cup of water by my bed covered with a top because I remember the cockroach that drowned in my bedside cup of water in New Orleans.
I have absolutely no doubt that, whatever happens to this planet of ours, the cockroaches will be the survivors.
October 17th, 2008 at 6:54 am
You wouldn’t recognize Taipa now. I lived in Taipa for two years in the early 90s. There was only one medium-rise building. Except for the University, all of the other buildings were low-rises. Now there are highrises everywhere you look. When I was living there, I had to cross the bridge to buy groceries and use an ATM machine. Now there are large supermarkets, scores of restaurants, car dealerships, you name it.
Oh, those were the days…
October 18th, 2008 at 4:59 am
I have been back to visit Taipa after I moved away in 1995. It was already changing drastically with highrises, often mostly empty, everywhere in Taipa. Because the little village area in Taipa was famous for its good restaurants, both Portuguese and Chinese, there was some agreement that at least the restaurant area should remain as a tourist attraction. The rows of small houses like the one I lived in were also considered worth saving. I was rather surprised to see that the very narrow street my house was on was still basically the same. But it was just about buried in all the new building going on. The rest of Macau, including the once-quiet and scenic Coloane, was a jumble of everything. Land was being reclaimed in order to have something new to build skyscrapers on, and new bridges were being added. I haven’t seen Macau since the U.S. casinos, a la Las Vegas, were built. However, we knew some years back that Macau, which had legalized gambling years ago, would become a booming gambling playground for all of Asia once it was returned to mainland China in 1999. Yes, I too miss it the way it was. So glad I lived there when I did.
October 18th, 2008 at 8:43 am
When I was living in Taipa, there was a tiny little temple nearby that was in disrepair. An elderly Chinese gentleman went there every morning, opened the front doors and swept it. Every night, he went back and closed the front doors. As I recall it, the roof had fallen through… it was poignant, and poetic, the way this elderly man carried out his daily ritual. I left Taipa and didn’t return for several yeras. When I did, the temple had been spruced up. The front doors had been painted. The facade was attractively lit up at night. The roof had been repaired. The was also some type of plaque. THe once non-descript little temple seemed to have been turned into a sort of mini tourist attraction (though I doubt many tourists stumble across it). I was happy that it was still there. I’m sure that when the old man passed away there would have been no one to carry on his ritual … At least it hadn’t been torn down … It could have experienced lesser fates .. either crumbled slowly and returned to nature (less likely) or torn down and replaced with an apartment block (more likely)… I felt happy for small favors.
October 20th, 2008 at 1:10 am
I remember the small temple you are referring to. I loved that temple in disrepair because of the huge tree that hung suspended where the roof had been. Looking up through the tangle of roots that still somehow held up and nourished a very alive tree was very spiritual to me in that little temple. I even have a photo showing how we could see the tree from underneath its roots. Although I’m glad Taipa did not allow that temple to crumble away, I will always prefer to remember it as it was when I first found it. In fact, Taipa and Coloane had many little temples and shrines in unexpected corners of alleyways. These dust-encrusted temples always fascinated me.