The Portuguese Influence of Macau

Hey everyone, at the beginning I would like to welcome you all to my new contribution and hope you have a positive week so far which has brought some interesting experiences into your life! In my new post I would like to share some moments of a trip and history with you and I am happy if you like my contribution.

When I was in Macau I was definitely amazed to see so many influences from the European region and this can be attributed to the fact that it was once a colony of Portugal. In the beginning, it was intended to serve as a form of base for Portugal's trade and it quickly became one of the most powerful points for trade between Europe and Asia. In the early days of Macau it was still a mixture of different cultures and all kinds of people met here, which can also be traced back to trade relations and in later times Macau was replaced as a central trading point by the English and Dutch. It's also interesting to know that Macau is still a free trade zone and is of interest to some for advantages in the financial sector and, among other things, people here pay only a few taxes and the allowances are also extremely fair. There were different colonies of Europe in Asia, but this area was one of the longest and overall it looks back on a history that is over 400 years old and this was also extremely important to link different elements of two continents for the entire cultural development.

During the 20th century, Macau became part of China, but it cannot be counted as a mainland and it was decided to establish a special administrative zone here, but even if the colony no longer officially exists, so many influences from Portugal can still be seen there. One of the influences that catch the eye is clearly the architecture to which whole squares belong and also influences of Western religions can be seen here, which also include old churches. The Portuguese language is still dominant here and is spoken here as well as Chinese and also some people speak English here, but the official language is Chinese.

The entire legal system is also based here on influences from the colonial period and also numerous other things that are known in Europe such as customs or festivities are celebrated in Macau and the special thing is here how the various influences exist in parallel without triggering conflicts. The people who grow up here are adapted to different cultures from an early age and even when it comes to food, influences from different cultures can be seen and in the city there are restaurants that offer dishes from the different cultures. During times of wars, Macau was extremely neutral, similar to Switzerland, and this could also be observed during the Second World War, in which the Special Administrative Region was kept out of war scenarios.

Many thanks for stopping by and I hope you could learn something new and like my post! I captured these pictures with my Sony Alpha 6000 plus 55-210 mm and iPhone 16.