The Voices of Macao Stones
The Voices of Macao Stones
Lindsay
May Ride
Abridged with additional material by Jason Wordie
Foreword by John King Fairbank
Copyright Date: 1999
Published by: Hong Kong University Press
Pages: 192
https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt2jc7cp
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Book Info
The Voices of Macao Stones
Book Description:

The stones, statues and memorials found all over Macao trace the story from the days of the first Portuguese navigators to reach China in the sixteenth century to the events of more recent times. Hidden away in odd corners or standing incongruously surrounded by modern buildings and thronged with traffic, unnoticed by almost all who pass, are the treasure-vaults of Macao's rich and colourful history. In the cool shadows of old churches, set into the walls of long-disused fortresses, and in tranquil and leafy gardens, lie the silent stone keys that unlock the secrets of Macao and its opulent and varied past. Lindsay and May Ride spent many years researching and documenting the oft-hidden stones of Macao. The result of their work is an opportunity for the stones of Macao themselves to tell of the rich and varied history of this tiny, unlikely place. Work on this book began in 1954, but was diverted for a long period so that restoration and research on the Old Protestant Cemetery could be completed. In an early stage of its development it was finally halted - or so it seemed at the time - by the death of Sir Lindsay Ride in October 1977. Now published in the year the four-century-old Portuguese adventure in Macao is finally to conclude, the stories recounted in The Voices of Macao Stones vividly bring to life the individuals, events and circumstances that have made Macao the unique place it is.

eISBN: 978-988-220-305-1
Subjects: History
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  1. Front Matter
    Front Matter (pp. i-iv)
  2. Table of Contents
    Table of Contents (pp. v-vi)
  3. List of Illustrations
    List of Illustrations (pp. vii-x)
  4. Foreword
    Foreword (pp. xi-xii)
    John K. Fairbank

    THE CHINESE LODESTONE has attracted foreigners from the earliest times, yet the country has ordinarily been so self sufficient that its governments have kept foreigners quarantined on the borders. For the Westerners who came by sea after 1513, Macao became the chief frontier post, as Hong Kong still is today. Macao after 1557 and Hong Kong after 1841 played the role for seafarers that Kiakhta played after 1728 for those travellers who approached China by land, via Siberia.

    Sir Lindsay and Lady Ride have recounted how a casual pastime, looking at inscriptions, developed into an avocation, began to occupy their...

  5. Acknowledgements
    Acknowledgements (pp. xiii-xiv)
    Jason Wordie
  6. Introduction
    Introduction (pp. 1-6)
    Jason Wordie

    ONE MARCH EVENING in 1996, an old lady and a young man were dining together at Repulse Bay in Hong Kong. Talk somehow turned to Macao — which the old lady had loved since the days of her childhood in the 1920s, and the young man had turned to for relaxation and solace ever since he had first came to Hong Kong in the late 1980s.

    Their conversation that evening spanned the whole length and breadth of Macao and its past — about the great Macanese hero Mesquita, and Ferreira do Amaral, the old forts, and the view from Guia, the graves...

  7. [Illustrations]
    [Illustrations] (pp. None)
  8. Portuguese Voyages of Discovery
    Portuguese Voyages of Discovery (pp. 7-28)

    THE PORTUGUESE CITY of Macao stands on a promontory jutting out, like a water-lily as one of its Chinese names describes it, from the south-east corner of the large delta island of Heung Shan (Fragrant Mountains) which forms the outermost part of the western lip of the Pearl River estuary. It is built on the shore of a small harbour, which geographical features divide into inner and outer portions. For many centuries this harbour has been chiefly the home of fisher-folk and a port for river, coastal and even deep-sea trade, but it has also always been a haven for...

  9. Portuguese Ah-Ma-Kao
    Portuguese Ah-Ma-Kao (pp. 29-66)

    ONE OF THE FIRST decisions necessitated by the change in status of Ah ma kao concerned an official Portuguese name for their newly acquired territory; the choice made was Povoação do Nome de Deus na China — The Settlement of the Name of God in China. This formal and documentary name being too cumbersome for general use, the most obvious European short title to adopt was one based on the Romanization Ah ma kao; the hyphens and vocal prefix ‘Ah’ (only needed in a monosyllabic language such as Chinese) were dropped and the ‘k’ displaced by the hard Portuguese ‘c’, resulting...

  10. [Illustrations]
    [Illustrations] (pp. None)
  11. Stones, Ecclesiastical and Secular
    Stones, Ecclesiastical and Secular (pp. 67-126)

    IN THE HISTORY of the Province of Macao there are many milestones, the consideration of which lead to a clearer understanding of the stages of its development over the last four centuries. Some of these milestones are personal memorials, others are buildings — many still in use, but some alas, in ruins — and a few now exist only in Macao’s archives. We start our consideration of these historical milestones with a study of one which is of fundamental ecclesiastical interest.

    MACAO, THE TRADING POST, was first settled by Portuguese merchant adventurers from Malacca; similarly, as a centre of organized Christian endeavour,...

  12. [Illustrations]
    [Illustrations] (pp. None)
  13. Conclusion
    Conclusion (pp. 127-128)

    THIS BOOK WAS written by two people whose lives were lived in, and in the service of, the British Crown Colony of Hong Kong. Colonialism, the right of one people to rule another, was largely unquestioned in their time. Many of the views implicitly or explicitly expressed in this book are those of the voices of their era. Theirs is a generation for which I feel a very profound respect, and a certain envy too, as in many ways they had the best of the places they lived in. All the same, I am a product of my own life...

  14. Bibliography
    Bibliography (pp. 129-130)
  15. Index
    Index (pp. 131-135)
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