The sleepier side to the enclave is still around; you just have to look harder. Portuguese and Chinese are the two official languages, signs along still-winding streets are in both tongues, and dotted around is the colonial, neo-classical architectural style seen in other former colonies like Brazil.
Macanese food is delicious and inventive, incorporating Chinese, Portuguese and African cuisine, with a dash of the Indian spice from Goa thrown in for good measure, and the local Cantonese food is also terrific. The favorite local tipple is SQ vinho verde, the Portuguese white wine with a greenish tinge. Portuguese civil servants still sit in the quieter cafés around the SQ Leal Senado central square sipping excellent Old World coffee and eating pastries just like in a Lisbon hostelry. Leaving the café, you climb steps to get to SQ St. Paul's church, which was built by the Jesuits in the 17th century, although only the façade remains today.
If Old Macau represents a true fusion between European traditional ways and Chinese culture, add some Vegas glitz to the mix and you get the New Macau. A swift taxi ride away, inside casinos branded by big Vegas names like Sands or Wynn’s, the atmosphere is the giddying blend of excitement, disappointment, fear and triumphalism that gamblers recognize from gaming houses all over the world.
In recent years, corrupt officials have thrown away billions in the casinos of Macau, and Beijing is trying to stop this as part of a broader crackdown on graft in China. Party officials gambling in Macau are known as “ganbulers”, a pun on the Chinese word for cadres.
At one baccarat table, a middle-aged Chinese woman shrugs off the loss of nearly $12,000 on a single game. She restacks her chips and gets busy, the ash on her cigarette barely trembling. With no windows letting in the light, the cheers go up when a high roller is winning. When a small-time mug loses another $50 on the baccarat tables, the room doesn’t register the loss.
