About us

No1lovesu, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Portugal established a trading post in Macau in 1557 which grew and flourished to become a hub of international trade in East Asia. The Portuguese who settled there developed their own unique culture, calling themselves Macaense (in English Macanese). They survived many crises, including  an invasion by the Dutch and extreme hardship during World War II.  In time, Macau’s economy declined when it was overtaken in trade by nearby Hong Kong with its magnificent harbour.  After World War II most Macanese dispersed to seek better opportunities elsewhere – in America, Canada, Brazil, Australia and Portugal.  Their culture that evolved over four centuries is in danger of obliteration.

This website was created for the descendants of the Portuguese who had lived in Macau, in the hope that they might be stimulated to learn more about the history and culture of their forebears, to preserve some vestige of their heritage.

Recipes

Bulletin of Lusitano Club Hong Kong

Cooking is central to the culture of every ethnic group.  Macau’s cuisine was enriched by the tastes, ingredients and influences of  the many countries where Portuguese travelers and traders had settlements, spanning half the globe from South America to Japan.  We find hot chillies from Brazil, curries from India, coconut, strong shrimp flavours from Malaysia, the wide variety of dishes from China and, from Portugal, bacalhau (salted cod), olive oil and bay leaves.

The traffic has been not been just one-way: the famous Chinese tahn taht (egg custard tartlets), available today in all Chinatowns, is derived from the Portuguese pasteis de nata and there is evidence that the Japanese tempura originated from the food eaten by Portuguese missionaries during Lenten fasts. The Macanese miço cristam, a paste made from soy beans, appears similar to the Japanese miso.

UNESCO has recognised Macanese cuisine as the world’s first “fusion food”, and in 2017 nominated Macau as a Creative City of Gastronomy.

Beef    Fowl    Pork    Seafood    Side Dishes    Sweets     Vegetarian

Culture

Hong Kong Baptist University Library

Over more than 400  years, the Portuguese  who settled in Macau as merchants, traders, soldiers, administrators and evangelists — initially almost exclusively men — developed there a society with distinctive characteristics.  There evolved a dialect of Portuguese that incorporated words, phrases and grammar initially largely from the Malay peninsula but later increasingly from China.  Similarly their cuisine fused the tastes and ingredients from many countries. Their descendants became proud of their ethnicity, calling themselves Macaense (Macanese), nossa gente (our people), filo Macau (son of Macau) and even balichão (after their favourite condiment).

Arts    Cuisine       Music         Patuá (Dialect)

Genealogy

The family trees of 60,000 Macanese and their spouses has been compiled and loaded to the Macanese Families website. It has indices of surnames, given names and nicknames, and charts of some chosen ancestors.  If you had a Portuguese ancestor born in Macau, there is a good chance that your family tree is also on that website. Access to it may be given to descendants of Macanese and their spouses. To register for that website, click HERE.

Here we present only a small selection of Macanese families.

Surnames               Given names              Nicknames            About nicknames

History

The Portuguese explorer Jorge Alvares arrived in Macau, a small village on the mouth of the Pearl River in southern China around 1513, opening up maritime trade routes between Europe and Asia.  In 1557, local Chinese authorities gave official Chinese approval for a trading post there, the first European settlement in East Asia. It grew and flourished and for a time Macau had a virtual monopoly on trade with China and became fabulously rich. Known as the “Pearl of the Orient” it was an attractive European haven in the Far East, a vital hub for international trade between China, Japan, India, and Europe. It was also an important Catholic missionary centre.

However, by the 19th Century its economy declined when it was outmatched in trade by nearby Hong Kong with its magnificent harbour; many Portuguese sought employment in Hong Kong and Shanghai. Then after World War II there was mass emigration from China to other countries – the so-called diaspora.

Topics        Biographies        Books          Honours        Religion        Cooking        Authors

Articles

Anecdotes         Culture        History        Religion         Patuá  

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