“For people from Hong Kong or mainland China, there is not much interest in Macau except as a place nearby to have fun,” Lei said.
Film director Tracy Choi is looking to change that.
Born and raised in Macau, she went abroad for university in the mid-2000s just as the city liberalised its gaming market.
She returned to find her home unrecognisable, not just in appearance but also in people’s lifestyles and values.
“Those massive casinos were just being completed,” said 36-year-old Choi. “The Macau from that point onward was totally detached from the Macau of my childhood.”
That was the direct inspiration for “Sisterhood”, Choi’s 2016 debut feature, about two young women working in a Macau massage parlour in the final months of colonial rule.
“I chose (to depict) the profession of masseuse because they represented the Macau people of a bygone era,” she said, recalling when some of these women — friends of her mother — would come over for mahjong.
Choi said her films were a counterweight to stereotypical depictions of Macau residents as rich and leisurely, adding the past decade saw more creative works on local identity.
“Sisterhood” was hailed as a breakthrough, but there was still a “long way to go” for Macau’s film industry, as its population of 690,000 limited box office returns, Choi said.
“We are still searching for a direction forward, which lets us talk about Macau in the way we want, while making it accessible to other markets,” she said.
Choi’s next film, featuring a lesbian protagonist contending with pressures to “be ordinary” in a small community, is also a statement on what a future Macau identity can be.
“The Macau people of tomorrow should have more of a say, have more room for personal expression,” she said.
Integrate ‘everywhere’
As Macau turns 25 as a Chinese city, the history of the handover means little to Cecilia Cheang, who was born in Macau but studies at a Hong Kong university.
When she was young, her parents took her to the lavish hotels popping up but rarely discussed the city’s past.
Cheang, 20, sometimes posts about Macau on Xiaohongshu, China’s Instagram-like platform — which performs well among her 20,000 followers.
“(Xiaohongshu favours) glamorous girls and extravagant lifestyle, and I feel like Macau is very much associated with this,” she said.
Many Macau residents now consider cross-border trips part of their weekly routine as Beijing pushes for closer ties within the region.
A frequent traveller in southern China, Cheang thinks of herself as being from Macau but also as a GBA person.
That means being able to “go all around, leave whenever you want to leave, go anyplace”, which she said suited her career as an aspiring singer-songwriter.
“I feel like, in terms of cultural exchange and cooperation… It’s easier to integrate into everywhere and to get the gist of everywhere.”
© 2024 AFP
