Hong Kong and Macau (6)
Macau: Around Town
Part 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8
March 1996
The Fetters family lives on the 15th floor of Hoi Fu Garden, an apartment complex. We went their Thursday night after a day-long excursion into China.
The apartment was a lot bigger than I envisioned. From what I'd heard, I pictured something comparable to a studio apartment--tiny, cramped. I was delighted to see that reality dwarfed my mental pictures.
The living room and dining room is one large area, off of which are three bedrooms, the kitchen, the bathroom, and a balcony. It's a nice place, very comfortable. Audrey gives piano lessons to some girls from the church there.
They thought that maybe, after a week in the Far East, we might be ready for a home-cooked American-style meal--pork chops, mashed potatoes and gravy, apple and blueberry crumb pies. They were right.
"People here are really hardworking and they put in long hours, and they don't spend so much time chasing leisure like we do in America," Audrey told us.
"But," said Luke, "the busyness takes its toll after a while. Here, if you take a morning off to relax, somebody, some Chinese person, will look at you and say, ÔAw, you're being lazy today.'"
Audrey nodded. "You do feel that pressure and you get caught up in it."
Luke continued, "It's probably good that we lived in Hong Kong for nine months when we first came, because Hong Kong was so fast paced, and you were on public transportation three or four hours a day just to get wherever it was you needed to be, that by the time we'd spent nine months in that situation and then came to Macau, Macau seemed like a real relaxed pace.
"Like a sleepy little town," Audrey agreed. "It's becoming more and more like Hong Kong, actually; it's becoming more prosperous and development is going crazy here. But still, there's a more relaxed smalltown feeling here in Macau. You do notice a drastic difference when you go to Hong Kong."
* * * * * *
Some tidbits:
- We saw scooters zipping everywhere. Luke, Jana, and Paul own scooters. Any part of the street not occupied by a car is Scooter Turf.
- In late afternoon, the city streets are filled with uniformed schoolkids. Most carry a handbag or backpack, one strap over the shoulder.
- On the sidewalks, vendors and the occasional beggar are mixed with pedestrians talking on cell phones.
- Macau is growing rapidly; lots of business coming to town, plus fancy buildings which, not too long ago, you would have seen in Hong Kong but not in Macau.
* * * * * *
Friday morning, we ate at the Hotel Royal with the entire Macau crew, Americans and Chinese.
Alaine Castor was there, too. She was taking six months off from Huntington College to serve in Macau, subbing for Jennifer Blandin, who was supposed to arrive in January but, disappointingly, found herself undergoing knee surgery and a lengthy recovery process.
The day before, Jana and Linda met her at the Hong Kong airport and brought her to Macau; she'll live in Linda's apartment. Stacey and Audrey, who hadn't met Alaine yet, each brought her a bouquet of flowers.
I ate a bite of barbecued chicken feet. Just one bite. Paul really likes it.
* * * * * *
Every afternoon, after school, the Living Word church sponsors a tutoring program. University students who attend Living Water Church come to help children with their schoolwork. The kids mostly come from three schools in that area, and range anywhere from grade 3 to grade 9.
Luke says the program is totally run by the university students. "They had a burden for doing youth ministry at Living Word church, so they started this latchkey tutoring program. Over the last year and a half, we've had two or three of those high school students come to accept Christ.
"It's a study room more than an activity room," he explains. "They come in there and they study. That's what kids do here. Kids go to school, then they come home, then they go to a tutoring program to study, then they come home and study some more, and then they go to bed, and get up and go to school again. Students who play are considered to be lazy students."
I was sitting at a table across from a young girl, probably fifth grade, who was reciting whole sentences in English. I asked Jana Hoobler about it. Jana, a member of the mission team since 1992, focuses much of her work at the Living Word church.
"She probably has a dictation coming up," she explains. She says teachers will read something in English, and the kids then have to write it, and lose points for any spelling or punctuation errors. "Sometimes they give them the passage ahead of time so they can prepare. I think that's probably what she's doing--she's memorizing this passage, then she'll go to school but won't be able to look at it. They'll just read it to her and she'll have to write it perfectly."
Students in Macau have considerable pressure. "Parents here spend two to three hours every night helping their kids with their homework," Jana says. "But most of these kids come from broken homes, or both their parents work and just don't have time, so they come here straight from school, sit down, and study for two hours before going home. Even at age three, they have midterms and final exams."
Not third grade, but age three?
"They don't have much of a childhood," Jana nods. She says they have a hard time believing her when she says that in the States, she didn't have homework at all in elementary school, and didn't start taking exams until high school.
Jana taught at Pui Ching before Paul Coy arrived. I ask her if the kids were really that much advanced, considering how much they study. She says they're often doing math and other work that American students don't get until college. But, she adds, "I think a lot of it is their language. Learning to write Chinese, you have to memorize every word, so that's part of it. And their history, a 5000-year history, with 2000 years of dynasties they have to learn. And we have a 200-year history.
"And it's just the society. Anybody you talk to, parents, teachers, principals, whoever you talk to says there's too much pressure on kids." But parents don't want their kids to fail, and teachers and principles are afraid to ask less of students, so the mad pace prevails.
* * * * * *
Macau doesn't have a bad section of town. I spent three hours Friday night walking across a big part of the peninsula, and I always felt safe. Stacey told about distributing fliers at night. "If I were in the States, I think I would be really afraid, but here you just feel really safe."
There is very little random violence in Macau. Most crime is associated with the triads, which Luke describes as being somewhat like the American Mafia and street gangs joining forces. Avoid nightclubs, prostitutes, and casinos, and you won't tangle with the triads.
* * * * * *
Most of the shops are very small--the size of your kid's bedroom, but harder to navigate. A jumble of merchandise is stacked wherever there's space. Nothing in Macau vaguely resembles a Wal-Mart.
It's disconcerting to be looking at medium and large shirts in a clothing store, and to have a clerk hand you an extra-large or XXL size--and it fits. This happened several times to me. We Americans sometimes felt like giants walking around Macau, compared to the locals.
Clothes are cheap in Macau. You can buy Starter and Apex jackets for $25. Which I did. The sales lady paused from toiling at an ironing board to give me change from her fanny pack.
* * * * * *
Next: Part 7
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