St Paul's, Macau: a Bible of the Poor
Since Macau has dozens of whole churches, it’s strange that the city’s most famous sight is just a piece of one.
All that remains of St Paul’s (a Jesuit church built in 1602) is the ornate facade, the rest having burnt in a fire in the 19th century. Despite it being in ruins, it’s still considered to be one of the best examples of Christian iconography in Asia. Its moldings, columns and statuettes are more than decoration – they make up what is known as a ’sermon in stone’, or a Biblia Pauperum – ‘Bible of the poor’ – aiming to teach the illiterate about the tenets of Christianity.
Working out the meanings of each element of this architectural doctrine is pretty easy really. The columns at the bottom are purely decorative, symbolising the support and strength of the church; the dove at the top is the Holy Spirit, part of a trinity that includes God the father and the baby Jesus (also pictured). The middle two tiers show the linking of the divine and the profane: tier two shows the cult of the Virgin Mary, and the first tier four Jesuit doctors of the church who were made saints – Francisco de Borja, St Ignatius Loyola, St Francis Xavier and Luis Gonzaga.
In a time when there was much in-fighting between the Jesuits and other Christian factions, the facade had a political message as well as a religious one. Like a party political broadcast, these pious Jesuits were bigging up their cause: not only highlighting their direct links with God but the congregation’s chance to become holy themselves.
Back in the Middle Ages being sainted was the equivalent of winning the lottery, because, when everyone believed in an afterlife, goods on earth were nothing to the rewards of heaven.
Although St Pauls is probably the best example of the way that propaganda has been used to legitimise the social order in Macau’s history, it wasn’t the only one I saw on my weekend here. Just up the road from the ruins is the Macau Museum, the typical city museum collection of the usual artifacts, but atmospherically bundled up into the Forteleza de Monte – a 17th century Portuguese fort. Not only is it the best way to get to grips with the history of the city but, until mid-March, it is also home to another great example of propaganda: “Red Years – Exhibition of Photographs by Zheng Jingkang”.
Baby kissing: Chinese propaganda from Zheng Jingkang
Jingkang was one of the treasured masters of Chinese misinformation and the images on show, from just pre- and post- World War II, are revealing of the official party line. Shot to order, there are baby kissing pictures, abundant harvests, hard working farmers and cheering children. No sign of the post-war starvation or destitution that other histories would tell us existed in China at this time.
Fresh from seeing these two examples of coercion through imagery, I set off to explore what Macau is now most famous for – gambling. The massive boom in gambling culture in the 90s and noughties (in 2007 it overtook Las Vegas as the biggest gambling centre in the world), combined with the material element of Chinese culture makes it a formidable neon Mecca.
And of course, to legitimise the creation of all these casinos – 32 at last count – the city’s billionaire backers have had to create a hype born of the illusion of winning.
From the nonsense slogan of the city itself: “A world of difference, the difference is Macau,” to the mottos on billboards, cabs, posters: “lets get lucky” in the “city of dreams”, and motifs of diamonds and dollar signs everywhere, the visual message implicit in advertising is one of chance, of happiness, of get-rich-quick. And the temples of this new Macau religion – the enormous Grand Lisboa, the embarrassingly large Venetian, complete with its gondalas and Grand Canal, The Wynn and its musical fountain shows – easily dwarf its old Portuguese churches.
Building the Grand Lisboa: is this the ugliest building of all time?
A great shame, because if it was a bit of a less vulgar, money-grabbing place of severe inequality and greed it might make a charming getaway from Hong Kong. Its old town is delightful and some of the Portuguese and Macau food is delicious.
But this rocky outcrop just of the Guangzhou coast was one of the earliest European colonies, for four hundred years it has been a blank canvas for all the tales that ruling powers tell. The lies of Colonial-Christian benevolence, of Communist productivity, and now the ultimate fiction of the lucky gambler.
