Accessing the Macanese Diaspora

Readers will recall that earlier (JTM-June 2) we outlined the various elements of Macau’s culture: language and its origins, religion and its effect on education, as well as culinary traditions, social temperament, families, communities, and institutions. These elements have become representative of Macanese cultural identity, and are part of recognized cultural assets that should be preserved. Many people tend to identify with a culture based on familial or nationalistic ties. In Macau there also have been recent attempts to link cultural identity to international communities and commercial markets.

Securing cultural assets, the basis of identity and connections to Macau, is often a long and difficult process. The preservation of such assets is not only related to historic sites and buildings, called the “tangible” forms of culture. The difficulty is in identifying what should be included among “intangible” forms, which we described as “elements”. The process of inclusion and exclusion of cultural elements presumes that whoever is making those decisions will have a historically accurate understanding of how the culture originated. This is especially difficult in Macau, where historical materials and records are often incomplete. But without a comprehensive and inclusive picture of Macau’s history, it has been difficult to promote cultural identity among permanent residents, and even more difficult to maintain ties with those outside Macau.

This is especially true in the case of the Macanese Diaspora. As we mentioned earlier, local history is not taught in Macau’s elementary schools, nor is it a required course of studies in most universities. Moreover, the collective holdings of government archives do not hold critical information on the region’s history of migration and cultural blending before and after Macau was founded, which is apparently not well known to local authorities. As a result, research on Macau’s cultural diversity based on these migrations, the origin of the Macanese Diaspora and international communities, has not been included.

Despite this omissions, the preservation of culture in both tangible and intangible forms, and the use of culture as a gateway to commercial relations, has been attempted several times with limited success since the 1999 handover to China. Here are a few examples.

Inside Macau, the Conselho das Comunidades Macaenses (CCM), founded in 2000, successfully convinced Beijing that the Portuguese legacy was worthy of preservation. Their initial proposal was to assist in the conservation of the Historic Centre and to maintain on-going contacts with the Macanese Diaspora, which was confined to Portuguese Eurasians, but not ethnic Chinese, Indians, Southeast Asians, English, and Latin Americans in several overseas communities with familial ties to Macau. These new relations were meant to focus on tourism through cultural links with those communities, and to develop commercial and educational exchanges that involve younger generations in the future. After more than 15 years, however, little seems to have been accomplished.

Outreach to the Macanese Diaspora has been confined to thirteen (13) officially recognized Casa de Macau groups, most of which consist of retired members with limited commercial involvement in their respective countries. The registered membership of all these groups is currently about 6,000, and usually does not include younger family members. Many others in the Diaspora also are uncounted because they are unable to document Portuguese links to Macau. Current genealogical research, on the other hand, has identified at least 50,000 possible names, while additional historical, anthropological, and survey examinations of the Diaspora around the world indicate that there may be over 1.5 million with familial ties to Macau in at least 35 countries. Only a small portion of those possible contacts have been included in recent programs.

In 2003 the Chinese government attempted to utilize the Portuguese connection to Macau by signing a trade agreement with seven Portuguese speaking countries (Angola, Guinea-Bissau, Cape Verde, East Timor, Mozambique, Brazil, and Portugal) through the “Forum for Economic and Cultural Cooperation”. This agreement, however, is based on a shared language, and not necessarily a common culture, which has limited its effectiveness. In addition, most contacts are between government agencies, instead of business representatives, in those countries.

In 2005 Macau was given a tremendous boost when UNESCO designated the Historical Centre of Macau as a World Heritage Site. The U.N. soon began working with the Macau and Chinese governments to preserve physical structures and Macau’s cultural heritage. Part of the latter is an on-going plan called “the Macau Memory Project”, which was begun by Fundacao Macau around 2008 to collect historical materials from local and overseas Macanese. Since then the project has met with limited success due to a lack of clear guidelines and low participation. Moreover, data and information accumulated by the project is currently not accessible on-line, nor has research been published outside China.

There have been other initiatives as well, including the extensive holdings accumulated by Macau’s Institute of Culture. There also are a few contemporary studies by the University of Macau, and historical research being conducted by the University of St. Joseph and the Macau Ricci Institute. But much of that research is limited to academic discussions, or is reserved for government use, or retained by the Catholic Church. In each case, the data collected usually does not include information on migrations prior to and following Macau’s founding, nor the existence of Macanese settlements throughout Southeast Asia since the 16^th century, which would more fully illustrate Macau’s rich legacy.

More recently, the “Macao Heritage Law” was enacted on March 1, 2014 to protect both physical structures and Macau’s “intangible cultural heritage”. The latter is intended to be collected, preserved, and communicated to new generations through education. The law has made notable strides in preservation, but has not made information on overseas settlements available or incorporated it into a narrative of Macau’s cultural history. Also, little seems to have been communicated through education, nor is the data available to researchers outside China. While saving historic buildings can be applauded, the promotion of Macau’s cultural heritage, which could enhance cultural identity among all Macanese, seems to have stalled.

Unanswered Questions

In each case, the underlying attempts to use Macau’s cultural connections to enhance economic relations overseas have been tentative. Again, the reason may be because general information on Macau’s cultural history continues to be lacking, thus raising two related questions:

• If the intention is to preserve Macau’s cultural heritage, how is that objective possible without a better understanding of Macau’s origins, including the history of migrations that were critical to its development?
• Also, if an underlying purpose of preservation is to utilize Macau’s culture as a bridge to economic diversity, why has Macau not connected with an estimated 1.5 million international descendants, many working in countries with highly developed economies, who may be a resource for expansion in the future?

These questions paraphrase those posed by government officials and academics that I interviewed on recent visits to Macau in 2013, 2014 and 2015. Many expressed varying levels of frustration that past initiatives have produced few business and educational exchanges since 1999. Some are beginning to work with international groups on new initiatives.

Time for a Different Approach

My own research on the Macanese Diaspora also suggests that current strategies should be refined. What seems to be missing is an understanding of how cultural identity among Macanese may actually work. As the basis of most connections, one’s identification with Macau’s culture is usually maintained through family, often through language, food, or religion, as we indicated in an earlier article. Recent findings also make it clear that cultural identity may be physically represented by “cultural materials” preserved by families that connect people to Macau from all over the world. These materials can include old photographs, diaries, family histories, eulogies, first-hand accounts, nostalgic commentaries, on-line blogs, news articles, old government reports, books, and other objects of personal significance. Many items provide important historical details about Macau’s past that cannot be found anywhere else.

Preserving these materials, or even obtaining digital copies, may be nearly impossible given time, distance, and the sheer numbers of items that turn up. However, an analysis of individual stories associated with many personal items reveals a deeper and more important connection to Macau. Many family histories supported by documents, photographs and other items indicate multiple migrations over several generations, as well as commercial activity that follows Macau’s rise as a trading port and cultural center. Two prime examples presented earlier were the migrations of the Barretto and Alvares families from the 16th through the 20th centuries.

I also discovered early in the research process that collecting contact information from those submitting materials can be beneficial in learning more about Macanese searching for their cultural roots. Recent follow-up surveys, for example, indicate that many young Macanese living inside and outside Macau are working professionals and entrepreneurs interested in developing commercial contacts. Gathering those contacts has been critical to future engagement.

Culture and Commerce

Some will question how networking with young professionals for cultural reasons can lead to international business. In fact, these types of connections are standard practice around the world. The governments of China, India, Australia, Portugal, Great Britain and the United States, among many others, each have cultural and commercial exchange programs. I was part of one recently at the University of Macau sponsored by the U.S. J. Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board. Marketing in the age of the internet and social media has made such programs even more effective in reaching across international borders.

The first step is to begin collecting information on potential contacts as early as possible. That information then can be filtered into different categories, including the skills and experience of potential business partners, the companies they work in, and the specific sector in each respective economy. The collected data ultimately will become the foundation upon which many future projects will depend.

Use of this information, for example, will allow the on-going engagement of many ethnically diverse Macanese descendants across the globe, something that has not occurred in recent years. Engagement using various internet platforms will be the basis of cultural, commercial, and educational networking that can be utilized by many different organizations inside and outside Macau. The information also can be used to match potential overseas business partners with SMEs and larger companies in Macau and mainland China. The way the information is used also can be tracked and evaluated to improve performance over time.

Thus a five step process is proposed: 1) the collection of information, 2) the engagement of Macanese professionals, 3) the creation of a network of likely participants, 4) the matching of them to business partners in Macau, and 5) the analysis of how those contacts are deployed.

In each case, use of this information will allow Macau’s business, government, and educational communities to reconnect with Macanese descendants in economically developed countries, some who will have the talent, experience, and the ability to attract capital necessary to diversify Macau’s economy beyond gaming. In the final analysis, it is a strategy that is not only feasible, but one that Macau cannot afford to ignore.