Macanese - South China Morning Post https://www.scmp.com/rss/500294/feed en https://assets.i-scmp.com/static/img/icons/scmp-meta-1200x630.png Macanese - South China Morning Post https://www.scmp.com Cultural identity markers once disregarded – such as critically endangered languages – sometimes unexpectedly reassert themselves, and re-emerge in the most unlikely corners. A resurgent interest in various forms of Portuguese/Macanese cultural identity among a certain subsection of Hong Kong people, and how that plays out through renewed appreciation of patuá, their creolised “ancestral language”, is an illustrative example. Sometimes described as “Cantonese flesh on Portuguese bones”, this... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/short-reads/article/3166535/creole-language-macau-patua-nearly-died-being?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/short-reads/article/3166535/creole-language-macau-patua-nearly-died-being?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 11 Feb 2022 01:15:17 +0000 Creole language of Macau, patuá, nearly died before being revived by a curious younger generation – a fate other minority tongues share To outsiders, ethnic minority groups appear more homogenous than they actually are. One long-established Hong Kong community that epitomises this conundrum is the “local Portuguese” – to use one of several classifications used by themselves (and others) as a catch-all label. Despite the term, connections to Portugal lie a long way astern – if at all. For the most part, “local Portuguese” are descendants of centuries of intermarriage in Macau between Europeans (mostly – but not invariably –... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/article/3146586/go-getters-who-left-macau-hong-kong-and-shanghai-when?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/article/3146586/go-getters-who-left-macau-hong-kong-and-shanghai-when?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 30 Aug 2021 00:45:07 +0000 The go-getters who left Macau for Hong Kong and Shanghai when the Portuguese enclave was a sleepy backwater, and what became of them Macau, a city on the southern coast of China, is best known today for its casinos, but until 20 years ago, it was a colony governed by the Portuguese. During this period of colonial rule, which lasted more than 400 years, many Portuguese traders married Chinese women, and their children developed their own distinct culture, food, and language. Aida de Jesus is one of them. As a child in Macau, she grew up hearing Portuguese in the alleyways and speaking Patuá, a creole language, with her... https://www.scmp.com/identity/shes-103-and-speaks-dying-language/article/3001732?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/identity/shes-103-and-speaks-dying-language/article/3001732?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 14 Mar 2019 12:05:26 +0000 Patuá, the dying language of Macau that mixes Cantonese and Portuguese