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Starting from the symbolism of Macao's **Portas do Cerco** (Border Gate) and the two dates engraved on opposite sides of the wall (August 22 and 25, 1849), this article analyzes how Portuguese colonial memory was materialized and contested over time. The author focuses on the figures of **João Maria Ferreira do Amaral** and **Vicente Nicolau de Mesquita**, understood less as isolated historical individuals than as supports for a political narrative constructed to legitimize Portuguese authority. Methodologically, the text mobilizes a historiographical discussion on the “ambiguity” of history—as a situated narrative—by cross-referencing the reading of the monument and the inscribed dates with the public trajectory of the two statues (inauguration in **1940**, removals in **1966** and **1992**, and the return of the artifact to Portugal), as well as with the way in which colonial and Sino-local authorities disputed the meaning of “aggressors” and “patriots.” It concludes that the statues constituted devices for **consolidating power** and **selecting memories**: in a context of empire and colonialism, history was reconstructed “in favor of the victor,” but also left traces of trauma that re-emerged when the political order changed. Thus, the Portas do Cerco functions as a spatial archive of a memory in conflict and in continuous rewriting.
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The article examines how the reformist and Sino-merchant intellectual Zheng Guanying 鄭觀應 (1842–1921), often celebrated as a "Son of Macao," constructed his vision of modern China from translocal experiences spanning Xiamen/Xiangshan (his native region), Shanghai, and the Macao territory itself. The analysis sustains the argument that the designation "Son of Macao" does not arise from an administrative bond (Zheng had not belonged to the circuit of imperial examinations that led to officialdom), but rather from a hybrid cultural and urban circuit: his formation in the cosmopolitan environments of Shanghai and his periodic returns to Macao, where he composed the work *Shengshi Weiyan* 盛世危言. Methodologically, the text mobilizes biographical reading and historical-cultural contextualization, articulating personal itineraries, linguistic practices (including the learning of English), and written production with the materiality of Zheng's domestic heritage. It concludes that the so-called "Mandarin’s House," today heritage-listed and restored, functions as an interpretive device for integrating family memory, socioeconomic mobility, and imaginaries of reform, explaining why Macao transforms into an identity and intellectual emblem in Zheng's thought.
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The article argues that the image of Macau as the “Land of the Lotus Flower” (Lianhua Di) operates as a historical and cultural metaphor of hospitality for diasporic subjects, especially for Chinese “displaced returnees” who found lasting shelter in the city. Drawing on the trajectory of Liang Piyun 梁披雲 (1907–2010)—intellectual, educator, social activist, and also poet and calligrapher—the author reads the experience of errance and repositioning as a process of “regeneration” in the Macanese space. Methodologically, the text articulates historical-biographical analysis with intertextual reading: it mobilizes classical poems attributed to Liang’s practice and sensibility, as well as literary and toponymic references that relate Macau to the lotus (cartography, place names, and visual traditions). The protagonist’s contributions are examined in educational networks extending across Quanzhou and Southeast Asia (Malaysia and Indonesia), as well as in efforts to preserve Chinese calligraphy as a cultural legacy between Hong Kong and Macau. It is concluded that Macau functions simultaneously as a “port of refuge” and as a symbolic device of reinsertion, allowing the diaspora to find rootedness and local recognition.
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Born to a poor Tanka fishing family in Macao, the Distinguished Son of Macao—Xian Xinghai—led an itinerant life and died in Moscow. In his short life, he composed almost 300 patriotic musical works. His iconic masterpiece—
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The Macau-baptized Zheng Zhilong took the opportunity of the Ming-Qing transition and emerged as a compelling Ming official and an invincible pirate king rivalling the elusive Dutch. He forged a huge piratical empire and helped install a shadow government of the defunct Ming court in south China. Immersed in Ming Loyalism, his son Zheng Chenggong ousted the Dutch from Taiwan and established the Kingdom of Dongning to challenge the ruling power of the new Qing Empire.
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- Journal Article (5)