TODAY is Chinese New Year’s Day and there are a lot of things the Chinese and the Portuguese have in common but foremost of this is Macau. Macau is a territory of China located off the mainland. It formerly belongs to Portugal. For the last 500 years, Portugal was one of the world’s superpowers and it has retained Macau until 1999. Because of this connection, there are a lot of Macau residents who has immigrated to Portugal at the end of World War II and even continues up to this day. There are a lot of reasons for this phenomenon.
First, Macau is a very urban island and at an area of only 11 square miles, it barely contains room for relaxation. Portugal is the closest place to relax as far as the Macau natives are concerned since they are already familiar with how the Portuguese ran their affairs of state. That’s why they troop to Portugal either as tourists or as permanent residents there.
One place in Portugal that they like is the Mediterranean coastline. The climate here is very temperate unlike in Macau where temperatures can reach as far as -3 degrees Celsius freezing during winter. So they definitely like here in Portugal in areas such as Praia da Luz. They also love the resorts here because resorts in Europe are adjudged the best in the world among global hospitality experts. In fact, they are constantly inspected by representatives of the European Union for excellence in service.
The immigrants from Macau have even adopted their own language variant here which is Cantonese-Portuguese or what they dub as Macanese. Some of the Chinese here have continued their ingenuity and industriousness back home and they have established language schools here in the seaside part of Portugal. Aside from teaching native Cantonese, they also offer short term programs in Macanese. The Macau immigrants in Portugal are doing their best to preserve this dialect since this is already considered by UNESCO as one of the world’s endangered languages.
For uniting his fellow immigrants from Macau, 77-year-old Zhou Hongze, the president of the Overseas Chinese Association in Portugal, has been honored nonetheless by the Portuguese president himself, Anibal Cavaco Silva. Aside from the language schools, other Chinese businesses thriving in Portugal include various retail businesses that go all the way to the capital of the country in Lisbon itself.
There are many factors to consider on why Chinese businesses have transpired here in Portugal. Portugal has a relaxed immigration policy that is why you don’t hear in the news of any human smuggling of Chinese illegal immigrants that have washed off its Mediterranean shores. Next, it has a relaxed policy of individual foreign ownership of real properties. And foreigners who are eventually staying in the country are allowed to establish businesses here. Here in Portugal, the people are very friendly too and there is no existence of racism here. That is why the Chinese love to be here.
PORTUGAL is of course the hottest tourist destination in Europe for Portugal has not yet been fully explored. Thus, exotic Mediterranean locations such as Praia da Luz are always magnets and static clings for British and Scandinavian tourists. The more daring kind is the Scandinavian tourists who opt to erect nudist resorts here. Thus, one can say that Portugal is populated both with conservative and liberated peoples. The conservative ones are the residents in the area who are mostly Roman Catholics and who hold elaborate and lavish celebrations every summer especially during Holy Week culminating to Easter Sunday and the Pentecost. On the other hand, the more liberated ones are the foreigners who troop to the nudist beaches to take advantage of the summer heat and tan their whole bodies.
If Canada’s national passion is hockey, the national passion here in Portugal is football. This year, the Portuguese team is training very hard indeed to snatch the UEFA championship come June in Switzerland. And because of their national fervor, they are praying for the Portuguese to be the champion this year.
Another piece of news that is set to rock the mood for the Portuguese this 2008 is on the economic front. While the United States across the Atlantic is experiencing an economic downfall threat due to the credit and mortgage crisis, its counterpart in Europe particularly Portugal is gay and one of the reasons for that is the entry of VW to the Portuguese market. VW is now starting to construct its Polo manufacturing plant in Portugal. For feasible reasons, they have decided to transfer their operations here from Brussels. The models that they will be building here are Audi A3 and A1. And with the influx of German supervisors here coming from VW, the tourist industry will surely have a boost especially the nudist resorts. That is the real economic equation.
When it comes to popular culture, this superpower from 500 years ago chooses not to be left behind. The film industry is now creating a stir even in Hollywood and word has it that the film Call Girl be among the nominees in best foreign language film at the 2008 Academy Awards. Call Girl investigates corruption in the government of Portugal with a love story about a prostitute as the backdrop. It stars Soraia Chaves, then 22 when the film was made, and now said to be the hottest actress in Portugal today. Soraia also starred as Father Amaro’s seductress in The Crime of Father Amaro. The story of the Portuguese film industry itself is a tear jerking one. Unlike the prolific South Korean film industry which has made a groundbreaking big budget flick last year D War, the Portuguese film industry is a very small one. But with the entry of such movies as Call Girl and The Crime of Father Amaro, the Portuguese film industry may slowly be recognized. In the meantime, actresses like Soraia can go to London and land film roles there.
AS the clock towers all over Lisbon tick closer to 2008, we now take you to an adventure on what remains to be expected or has transpired in Portugal for the past weeks prior to the new year. Of course, we know that Portugal having been located in the Iberian Peninsula is a destination to British tourists. This country is the fastest growing place to stay by both English tourists and expatriates and may even surpass its neighbor Spain for the next decade or so as far sa the number of foreign visitors on a pleasure cruise are concerned.
Football remains to be a phenomenon here in Portugal as well as all of Europe. It is the transnational pastime here as what is hockey is to Canada. And the Portuguese are collectively celebrating a merry Christmas indeed since their football team has just landed a spot for the Euro 2008 to be held in both Austria and Switzerland in June of next year. Portugal will be joining 14 other teams to vie for the coveted UEFA championship. They will first face off versus Turkey on June 7 in Geneva and later on June 11 with the Czech Republic. On June 15 they will face off the host Swiss team in a thriller slated in Basel. The final moments in the very suspenseful qualifier over the weekend was determined when the Portuguese team beat the Finnish team so the country can have one of the 14 slots for the UEFA championsip.
Another thing the Portuguese are celebrating but on a different tone is on the transfer of prisoners. After all, the Portuguese who are predominantly Christians deserve humane treatment this Christmas season even if they are convicted prisoners. The landmark policy was the result of an agreement forged between Portuguese and Chinese officials. Under the agreement, Portuguese prisoners who are convicted in China can now serve their prison sentences in Portugal where they are closer to their families. Of course, the Chinese have installed safeguards for this and the safeguards are entirely found in the binational agreement.
Moving towards the business front, Portuguese economic officials are expressing bullishness in the country’s economy by next year. They say that the housing and mortgage crises in the United States will never have a domino effect across markets in mainland Europe which include Portugal of course. In fact, investment group Babcock & Brown has sold all its hydro assets in Portugal to a local bank at the tune of $294.8 million. That’s a lot of money folks!
The move of Babcock & Brown comes at a time when there is changing of the guard at the political front. The rotating presidency of the European Union has recently been transferred from Portugal to Slovenia. That is one of the most remarkable occurrences in these remaining few weeks of 2007 here in Portugal. And Portugal is proud to state that it has contributed much to the European Union’s progress in the last six months.
