The Best of Macau
Crickets are a symbol of good luck in China. They are kept as
pets and valued for their singing. And for their fighting qualities. Cricket
fighting has been a tradition in China for over 1,000 years. In the 13th
century, Jia Shi-Dao was known as the Cricket Minister. Not because he headed a
Ministry of Crickets but because he neglected his actual ministerial duties in
pursuit of his obsession with cricket fighting. Countless stories, poems and
legends attest to the bravery of these plucky insects and when they died,
either in the ring or of old age, they were mourned and buried in little silver
coffins.
Or more recently, as in Macau, preserved in formaldehyde and
displayed in glass jars.
And there’s
a lesson in that, I thought, as I studied the labelled jars containing the
preserved bodies of some of Macau’s champion crickets. You can enjoy all the
fame and fortune of this world while you are alive. But at best it leads to a
glass jar in the Museum of Macau, to be gawked at by tourists, and at worst an
unmarked moment in the cycle of regeneration.
A lesson in mortality is always good for the soul. It makes you
appreciate your blessings, even if you don't welcome it at the time.
They say that people who suffer from seasickness start out
thinking they are going to die and end up wishing that they will. I didn’t think it was possible to be seasick on
dry land, but now I know better. Seasickness is the result of vertigo; that
confusion of the balance mechanism in the inner ear brought on, in that case,
by the pitching and rolling of a ship. Some people are similarly affected by
the motion of cars or aircraft. And most of us have had the experience, more
often in youth, until we learn better, of the room spinning around after one
too many lagers at the pub. I know I have!! Well that’s a form of vertigo too.
But it isn’t
one too many lagers that causes my world to spin. It’s all in my head. Which
would be funny if it was not so unpleasant.
I like Macau, both the old and the new. The old with its
charming fusion of Chinese and Portuguese culture. Mosaic tiled pavements,
baroque churches, neo-classical public buildings and a thick walled Portuguese
built fortress sharing the old centre of the city with Chinese temples and
street markets. And the new with its Las Vegas inspired (and funded) glittering
temples to luck and consumerism. In some ways the Venice in Macau is better
than the real thing. The canals don’t smell, the streets are cleaner, the shopping is better (and
the prices the same), the weather is predictably air conditioned and it’s not
likely to sink into the lagoon. Oh and you can walk a couple of blocks to the
Eiffel tower and the best of Paris contained in a Louis XIV style palace. You
can’t do that in Europe!
The food is also one of the real pleasures of Macau. It’s all
there, from the best of Cantonese dumplings, noddles and seafood to Michelin
Star gastronomical elegance. And in between is the Macanese fusion of
Portuguese and Chinese cuisine which combines all the tastes and textures from
South Asia as well as those the Portuguese imported from their colonies in
Africa, India and Brazil. Which Mrs R. and I were very much looking forward to
trying.
It was a pleasant walk from our hotel on the Cotai Strip to
Taipa village, a cluster of narrow streets and lanes terraced with gaily
coloured, one or two story, colonial shop-houses. We promenaded along the busy
Rua da Cunha looking at the menus and fending of the vendors keen to spoil our
appetites with samples of their delicious Portuguese pastries. Then settled on
an aperitif of Portuguese lager in the Old Taipa Tavern before dining at Toca a
few steps away along Rua dos Negociantes. It was a warm evening but the sky was
clear and we decided to sit outside. A glass of crisp Portuguese verdelho from
the Douro valley made a very pleasant accompaniment to Mrs R’s African chicken (marinated, grilled and
served with a sauce of coconut, chilli, spices and tomato) and my roasted black
pork with clams, both traditionally Macanese.
It was a lovely meal and we had almost finished when the
restaurant table, the Rua des Negociantes and everything in it started to spin.
I knew straight away it wasn’t
the wine. A small bottle of beer and a glass of white do not normally set my
head spinning. But it was vertigo alright, caused by some mysterious
malfunction within those minute canals of my inner ear.
“We have to go,” I rasped
at Mrs R. through gritted teeth. But when I tried to stand my legs gave way and
I flopped back onto my seat. Normally, when I suffer such an attack an hour or two’s lying down with my eyes
closed is enough to stop the spinning, although sometimes with the added
discomfort of several bouts of violent vomiting. Just like extreme seasickness,
but from motion created entirely within my head. But where was I going to lie
down? The thought of lying in the gutter of the Rua des Negociantes, looking
like a pitiful, grey haired, drunken, tourist, filled me with shame. So I clung
to the table top, fixed my eyes on a glass of water and prayed for the whirling
to stop.
But it didn’t.
It got worse and soon I knew that falling off the chair was a distinct
possibility. Actually I wasn’t thinking much by then. It was Mrs R. who could
see from my shaking hands and pale, cold-sweating face that things were not
looking good. And so, bless her, she took charge. She ordered me to lie down on
the ground and with her strong arms around me we managed it. And there I lay,
sweating and groaning as the pavement heaved beneath me. The restaurant staff
were, at first, bemused by the sight of one of their customers collapsed
outside the front door. Food poisoning? Should we get him out of the way before
anyone notices? But when Mrs R. explained my condition they could not have been
more helpful. And they called the ambulance when she asked them to.
I heard the sirens though the swirling haze of my misery and
then two strong paramedics lifted me off the heaving pavement and laid me onto
a gurney. The movement overloaded my senses and I managed to projectile vomit
most of the short distance from the restaurant to the ambulance, no doubt to
the amused disgust of the patrons sitting outside the Old Taipa Tavern as I was
wheeled past.
The journey to the Hospital Conde S. Januário, known locally as the Hill Top
hospital because it’s on the slopes Guia Hill, was a nightmare. The whirling of
the ambulance was compounded by its rocking and swaying as the driver rushed
through the narrow winding streets of the old city, siren blaring. A white haired
old man, pale, clammy, sweating, groaning, vomiting and dizzy. I had all the
signs of a heart attack, or possibly a stroke.
On arrival I was rushed straight past the triage desk and into
A&E where the doctors took charge. With Mrs R. translating - in my
distressed condition I couldn’t
understand their English (it was perfect by the way as I realised later) - they
grasped that my life was probably not in danger; but they decided not to take
any chances and hooked me up to an ECG machine, inserted a cannula, took a
blood test and started a re-hydration drip. The way I felt I would not have
cared if they’d suggested shooting me.
But all bad things come to an end. The tests confirmed that all
I needed was a couple of hours rest to let the vertigo subside and I was
allocated a bed at the quiet end of a corridor and instructed to rest, while
Mrs R sat on a chair like a watchful guard dog. From time to time a nurse or a
doctor came to check on my progress.
As the night wore on the admissions continued. My end of A&E
was where the elderly patients were segregated and the adjacent beds soon
filled with wrinkled, grizzled men suffering the usual ailments of advancing
age. We lay patiently side by side, stoical, ageing comrades in life’s battle. We received the same
compassionate care, with one major exception, mine was delivered in English,
which most of the medical staff spoke fluently.
By three in the morning I was judged fit to leave. As we waited
for the car that the hotel had sent to collect us, Mrs R. was presented with a
bill. I was sufficiently alert to remind her to obtain a copy for the
inevitable claim on the travel insurance. When she came back from the cashier I
asked her how much it was for.
“Four hundred and forty
two.”
“That’s not bad,” I
replied, relieved. “Four hundred and forty two dollars, it would have cost much
more back home.”
“Patacas,” she replied.
“It was four hundred and forty two Patacas.”
Even in my still dizzy state I was able to estimate that the
total bill for the ambulance, the tests, the medication, the care and six hours
in recovery, had cost seventy five Australian Dollars. Less than the average
visit to our local GP.
On the way back to the hotel I glanced up towards the peak of
Guia Hill. Earlier that day we had walked to the top and visited the Portuguese
built fortress with its charming little church dating back to 1622. We had walked
past the hospital on the way, little thinking that I would need the benefit of
its services before the day was out.
Ahead of us the lights of the Cotai Strip still burned
brightly. I felt light headed, slightly nauseous and my head ached. But the
world was rock stable again and I could count my blessings. I wasn’t yet ready for a glass jar like those
champion crickets. I reached for Mrs R.’s hand. Together, we had seen the best
of Macau.
I like Macau.
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