Arts and Letters

In the East of the East

António Manuel Couto Viana

You arrive by sea. In the blue-tinted twilight, when the waves are short and the land unfolds the bright-coloured garlands of the myriad signs of enigmatic characters like a labyrinth of volutes and moths. The jetfoil from Hong-Kong came pitching and foaming in its skimming flight. It is then moored to a sudden, noisy quay, emptying itself of that high fever of betting and gambling which had inflamed it, as soon as the waters made the clear greenness of jade turn yellow.

You arrive in a city which faces you haughtily and despises you from the summit of its colossal buildings, like a cold and inaccessible concrete barrier hiding and defending the treasures of its true beautiful face, a unique face for the originality of its pale, rosy skinned profile, a mixture of West and East. And on that first instant, you are almost sorry that you did not arrive many centuries ago at the shelter of the welcoming seashore penetrated by legend, wearing the dirty rags of a 'cabaia' like the one worn by the fisherman who had the supreme joy of carrying divinity of A-Má in his own junk-boat and of seing her vanish in the thickness of the cliffs; her, who was later to assume her royalness upon the red and golden altar, appeasing the wrath of the typhoon, providing the fishermen's nets with abundance of fresh palpitating silver; blessing the land with her name, united to the name of the bay which ondulates at her feet. You are almost sorry that you had not arrived here towards the ends of the seventeeth century, on the ship which, sailing from India, was the bearer of the good new: the colony had been made a city, its christianity was confirmedit had, a long time before, shown the proofs of its faith in the Holy Name of God, building churches, catechizing the gentiles, irradiating the faith throughout the pagan empires, always submissive to the crosier of its shepherd of souls, a wise and pious prelate. You are almost sorry that you did not arrive here when another festive ship came all the way from the distant resurrected kingdom to announce the favour of the liberating monarch, awarding Macau for its loyalty to the flag of the five castle shields never stricken down from its ships and fortresses, not even during the Spanish rule on Portuguese soil.

And the very next day, because you miss that past of four centuries, you start looking for the stones that can still tell you something about heroism and devotion.

You go out into the hesitant morning, soon as the waters of the Pearl River put on their mother-of--pearl coat, and you listen with surprise to a sweet sharp twitter penetrating the lukewarm, humid air. It does not come only from the groves which cover the hills; but it mostly arises out of the fine bamboo bird-cages suspended from the flowery branches in the gardens or laid upon the thick sills of the riverside houses, all birds singing with a sweet illusion of freedom which softens their captivity. Then, you can see in the brightest light that an elegant and exquisite dance made of acrobatic gestures takes form in the morning ritual of tai-chi, and then you start to feel and understand how the soul of the East is spread around here. And, fascinated, you follow the unrhymed song sung by the sensitive hands of these Chinese, walking to their Yam-tcha drunk and chewed in ancient rooms of tall arcades, among wavering wings. Out of the exquisiteness of a milky china cup, you too begin to absorb the taste and the smell which will, in the picturesque bustle of the bazaar, when the sun is up, penetrate your tongue and your nostrils, floating out of the small market stalls, some of them the acrid smells and tastes of tropical fruits (mandarins, bananas, mangos, papayas, pinapples...); others, whizzing in the greasy mist, out of tiny bits of food of which you cannot tell either the ingredients or the seasoning. And, equally out of the big-bellied bags in the grocers' shops (dried fruits, spices, roots..., of what withered trees, what exhuberant flora?) which once gave zest to the insipid taste of the European navigator. Only some of those tastes and smells are kept, with science and respect, inside the inflated glass pots of the chemist's, with medicinal inscriptions and sentences, handed down through thousands of years of relief and cure. And the flickering spirals of the burning joss-sticks in the barroque and exotic richness of a budhist temple perturbs you too and urges you to mount up, with the solemnity of a priest, the short staircase, between two lions of ferocious grin. And you are then confronted with the sortilege which resides, beyond the massive opened up door, under the allegory of the egg and the dragons. But an impulse which springs out of the innermost corner of your heart imposes, first, a pilgrimage to churches peopled by saints and angels, faded pictures, and altars which display but sober ornaments, having, nonetheless, abundance of fervent prayers. Those were the altars at which Mass was celebrated by the annointed hands of the Jesuit missionaries who gave the city both spiritual strenght and architectural grandeur, peopling it with belfries, crosses, and the damask of canopies, the pallor of candles, the sparkling gold of the monstrances, the balsamic fumes of the turibles processioning along winding streets before both the wonder and the fear of the East and the bending knee and the saintly contemplation of the West.

And after the Cross, comes the Sword. And up the hills you run, stooping over so many walls out of which Boccarro's cannons peer, at intervals. They were cast here to defend the harbour with their deadly thunder, like bronze watchers, lest the fighting junk of the rapacious barbarian pirate or the trade ambition of the Dutch navy which sailed the Malayan seas should cannot resist it - your hand has the tenderness of pride, of gratitude, of reverence, when you touch its scars (Sword) congregating the arms for the protection of the land and the souls for the prayers to divinity (the Sword and the Cross). Recalling glorious deeds, epic impetuses, the crashing of battles, you then return to the heart of the city, which, towards the end of the morning, prodigalizes in sounds and colours. The tortured face of a church makes you stop for a while - the great fear of fire turned it into a spectre: all but soul gone. It is not a mere tourist attraction against the sky: it is, above all, the cut face of history, the perpetuiting symbols it displays: the caravelle of sea discoveries, the cult of Mary and of the Paraclete, the victory against the powers of evil through martyrdom. The day you visit it, the rompant and merry form of an immense dragon might well be crawling at the base of the temple of the Mother of God with much beating of drums and rattling of metals, so that the foot of the Immaculate may subjugate it. You shall certainly be amused by the primitive dance, by the fascinating winding image of that fabulous beast, and by the merry bursting of fire--crackers and, then, with a smile on your lips, you dive into the waves of hawkers and stall keepers who beckon to you, in a call of which you know only the intention and, before your eyes, they display suggestive 'souvenirs' of these lands, the lacy objects made of precious jade, the traditional rice-straw hats which shelter the tireless Chinese peasant from the rain and the sultry weather, the variety and the exquisiteness of blue-brimmed china sprinkled with transparent grains, the display of clothes in all colours and sizes; there is the squatting cobbler, expertly hammering new rubber heels; the pedalled slowness of a tricicle (a rickshaw in past days) carrying stiff shoppers surrounded by plastic bags; a toilsome boy eagerly dusts a car with his feather duster, petulant like a Hussar's panache; the old junk dealers - the 'tintins' - scattering the oldness of their goods upon out of date newspapers (worn-away coins, old records, a chipped cup which does not have the value of an antique, a lot of second-hand electrical appliances, the cracked wooden altar of a hospitable god, dust, ashes, nothing...). You stop, look again, judge the price of every thing displayed, then hesitate... and go on, your hands still empty, but your eyes casting a dazzled look at everything. Now, where do you go from here? Maybe to the end of this street which leads to a square crowned by a rude wide arch beneath which a multitude of people keep coming and going. There you are - at the 'Portas do Cerco' - the end of the territory covered by our flag: beyond that, China, vast and mysterious. Before that monument, of which the beauty and the grandiosity are not apparent, you withdraw within yourself for a moment and your memory brings you, your heart pulsing, the names and the dates of Portuguese dignity and bravery which these walls once witnessed, and which decorate with stars their steady chest, like that of a distinguished soldier. You escape their attention. It was also Boccarro who cast the festive sonority of the bells (the Cross and the coated with paint.

And now, where do you go from here? Maybe to another square, nobler in its palace-like atmosphere, where the vast façade of the 'Leal Senado' catches your eye. You bow your head in homage before the living meaning of legend and the crowned shield held by two angels who seem to want to take it farther on, always farther on. And now, where do you go from here? Feeling demands it of you - you go, a pilgrim of poetry, to the grot where the truth of tradition saw Camões, with Jau beside him, create some of the inflamed stanzas of 'Os Lusíadas' in reverberating fits of genial inspiration. There, you have no words left to say: nothing but tears of emotion. And they do not dry up while you visit the lyricism of other gardens, in European or eastern styles, embracing statues and placid lakes only to whisper some lines of Camilo Pessanha's, which belong so much to Macau, listening to their inner music, a faint, a discreet, but a profound music.

Eagerly looking for wind and water, for different landscapes unperturbed by the rhythms of the city or by the cadencies of a never-ending flow of hurrying people and honking cars, you cross the Taipa bridge, suggesting a stretching dragon rising from its sleep, after you have tasted a tupically Chinese meal at a round table, watching the continuous rotation of intensely perfumed delicacies which you season with hot sauces and with the help of the tips of your dilligent fai-chi. What open horizons around the islands of Taipa and Coloane! Your breath is freer, the sands of a sunny beach attract you; and you become familiar with the birds-you are almost one of them, in a volery the size of the forest; and you become familiar with sanctity when you bow before the bones of the christian martyrs who gave away their blood, their love, and their forgiveness; you become familiar with adventure, remembering pirates' deeds, suspect junks unloading spoils and hostages. You daydream. But the evening shadows are surrounding you already. You must go back to the tempting vibration of the city, to experience the pleasure and the disquietude of gambling, invade the voraciousness of the casinos and race-grounds, their rooms and benches replete with anxiety and desperation; fill your hands with cards and dreams, perturbed by the mist and lightning of ancestral superstitions, tips and visions, hopeful consultations with the obscure science of the fortune-teller, and the benevolence of the god of fortune; resort to the help of a pawn-shop upon an unfavourable hour, the dearest ring exchanged for some dirty notes, a handful of pearls for less than that in gold to flow off, later, between the barren fingers of addiction.

It is pitch dark now. You slowly withdraw from the green attraction of the gambling table, from the sophisticated jingling coin machines and their violent, iridiscent spasms, and walk towards the sea-side to purify your eyes crowded with figures and numbers. Then, cut against the dark sea, you can almost make out the vague outline of a ship, the last ship of the empire, her sails still full, the symbol of the homeland still waving astern, her proud stem pointing towards the threatening unknow... What steady hand holds her rudder? What look-out man peers at the top for the treachery of the sand banks, the final abysses of the deep sea? What angel will take her in his arms and carry her safely to the sands of Portugal? From the top of the hill, a beam of light flashes out. It was the first ever to guide the China sea navigators. Like Macau was the first Christian lighthouse in the East to civilize the East.

The light flashes from up there illuminating the ship in the ominous darkness to dispell the fear of reefs, opening up a safe way to a future of peace and success. How everything becomes clear now, everthing now resplendent!

And then you see that the day is dawning.

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