It was a busy day with a pretty full schedule from the pick-up in a mini-van at 9.30am to getting home at around 10pm. We had a bit of a break before dinner, but apart from that we were on the go the whole day. Our hosts for the day were President David Ho, of the Rotary Club of Taipa, Macau. He is a Rotarian who owns a manufacturing business in Macau with a factory employing around 1,000 people. He was accompanied by PP Rocky, the Lamborghini Fashion line importer for Macau, Club Services Director Veronica who is a Chartered Accountant and Rotarian Mandy, who is a Relationship Manager at a local bank. They are lovely people, great hosts and we really appreciated them giving up their day to take us around. They also hired a very smart Hyundai Mini-Van to transport us in. These Macau Rotarians are a great example of Service above Self.
First call was a vocational visit to a bank in Macau (main island) where we had a chance to chat to Benson, a Rotarian who is the Treasurer of one of the local banks. He is responsible for the daily cash flow of the Macau branch and reports to the Deputy Manager of the bank. We enquired about opening bank accounts in Macau as a matter of interest. He advised that it was no problem but that we would only receive around .1% interest on deposits which put us off transferring our vast assets immediately. Siyanda, the former taxman, also advised us that any income earned in Hong Kong and Macau would be taxed immediately we brought it back to South Africa. That put us off even more. It was interesting however to discover that the banking system runs on very similar lines to the banking system in SA and that FICA (as we know it) is a worldwide phenomenon in the fight to control money-laundering. Siyanda assured us that the mere input of our ID numbers into SARS sophisticated systems would give them the lowdown on our cash position, wherever it might have been deposited throughout the world. It seems Big Brother is never very far away.
Next call before lunch was to the offices of a Rotarian, PP Ken Mac. Ken is a Director of AIA, one of the top 4 insurance companies in Asia and is Top of the Million Dollar Round Table. He is a great chap and runs an office of around 100 agents together with a call centre. He was saying to us that Wealth Management has taken a bit of a back step since the Financial Tsunami hit the world in August 2008. This means that his agents are again concentrating on servicing client’s needs for Retirement Annuities rather than focussing on the more exotic offerings the company offers.
A bit of Old Macau
We then went for a walk around the narrow streets of old Macau. It was an enthralling experience and reminded those of us who went to LM in the old Mozambique, of the quaint little shops. Very much a Portuguese colony, all the streets names are in Portuguese although the Chinese have their own interpretations and pronunciations of these names which sound very little like the Portuguese originals.
One shop that turned our stomachs was the one selling shark fins for soup. It is full of shark fins and other bits and pieces of shark anatomy like the air bladder which keeps a shark buoyant. Apparently, all these bits are a serious delicacy and command prices of between HK$800 to 1200 per kilogram. Knowing that sharks are caught and have their fins cut off before being thrown back into the sea to bleed to death was very offputting. Quite apart from the smell in the shop. The people that use these so-called ‘delicacies’ are apparently pretty primitive.
Shark fins and swords
The rest of the market in narrow little streets is fascinating. We visited a little Chinese temple that was full of the smell of incence. Big coils of incense were suspended from the rafters and apparently people of this faith come to the priest and ask him to light these large thick coils that burn in the temple for days and weeks in honour of some request that has been made.
Incense coils
We also visited an old Roman Catholic Cathedral Church that dates back to the 16th century. It has been beautifully restored and people walk in and out and sit in the stalls and pray. It has a lovely tranquil atmosphere.
Lunchtime was a great lunch in a genuine Portuguese restaurant where the owner Manuel picked our dishes for us. Apart from Brendan who was dying for a steak – and got it – plates of food from chicken and clams to suckling pig to Portuguese sausage and delicious fishcakes were brought. You just help yourself off each large plate that is brought. It was delicious. We asked for peri-peri and manual disappeared and came back with a well-used bottle of Nando’s peri-peri. It was agreat meal and we had a good chat with Manuel who is world-famous – lots of people come from all over the world to eat at his spot. We could see why.
Our afternoon consisted of a trip to the University of Science and Technology of Macau. We were guided around by a young lady named Ashleigh who graduated from a Beijing University 18 months ago but has moved to Macau with her family. The whole campus is very modern and embraces almost all the university disciplines one can think of. The facilities are great and include a University Teaching Hospital as well as a big sports arena. The sports arena was used as one of the venues for the All-Asia Games recently. As the University is heavily subsidised by the Government, the Sports arena is open for use to the public. The University Hospital is very modern and also includes a faculty of traditional Chinese medicine. As we mentioned earlier in these blogs, if traditional Chinese medical practioners want to be registered and recognised by the Government Health services, they have to complete a Basic Medical Science course which is offered by the University, just as in Hong Kong.
It was a very interesting afternoon and we all went back to our hosts homes to rest for a short while and get ready for supper. Our supper was hosted once again by President David together with a new set of young Rotarians. We are really surprised at the number of young (in their late 20’s and early 30’s) Rotarians in Macau. It is a pleasure to see and really bodes well for the future of Rotary here. One of the Rotarians was a young lady, Alice, who was a GSE team member a few years back. She visited Tennessee in the United States. She told us that the experience had changed her life. Great to know.
Tomorrow, Tuesday, is a sight-seeing day and we are doing a presentation to a Rotary Club in the evening. We will also be having a team meeting to do a bit of evaluation of how we are going and how our expectations of this GSE trip are being met. It will be a good exercise as we get solidly into the 2nd half of our trip. It has been difficult not having our programme for Macau in advance so that we can evaluate the appropriateness of the visits for vocational purposes but we are working on it.
We have the rest of the week here in Macau and then on Sunday it’s back to HK for our final week before we leave for home next Saturday. This trip to Macau has been a welcome break from the hustle and bustle of HK. The pace of life is much more laid back here – only 500,000 inhabitants as opposed to HK’s 7 million.
We also visited an old Roman Catholic Cathedral Church that dates back to the 16th century. It has been beautifully restored and people walk in and out and sit in the stalls and pray. It has a lovely tranquil atmosphere.
Lunchtime was a great lunch in a genuine Portuguese restaurant where the owner Manuel picked our dishes for us. Apart from Brendan who was dying for a steak – and got it – plates of food from chicken and clams to suckling pig to Portuguese sausage and delicious fishcakes were brought. You just help yourself off each large plate that is brought. It was delicious. We asked for peri-peri and manual disappeared and came back with a well-used bottle of Nando’s peri-peri. It was agreat meal and we had a good chat with Manuel who is world-famous – lots of people come from all over the world to eat at his spot. We could see why.
Our afternoon consisted of a trip to the University of Science and Technology of Macau. We were guided around by a young lady named Ashleigh who graduated from a Beijing University 18 months ago but has moved to Macau with her family. The whole campus is very modern and embraces almost all the university disciplines one can think of. The facilities are great and include a University Teaching Hospital as well as a big sports arena. The sports arena was used as one of the venues for the All-Asia Games recently. As the University is heavily subsidised by the Government, the Sports arena is open for use to the public. The University Hospital is very modern and also includes a faculty of traditional Chinese medicine. As we mentioned earlier in these blogs, if traditional Chinese medical practioners want to be registered and recognised by the Government Health services, they have to complete a Basic Medical Science course which is offered by the University, just as in Hong Kong.
It was a very interesting afternoon and we all went back to our hosts homes to rest for a short while and get ready for supper. Our supper was hosted once again by President David together with a new set of young Rotarians. We are really surprised at the number of young (in their late 20’s and early 30’s) Rotarians in Macau. It is a pleasure to see and really bodes well for the future of Rotary here. One of the Rotarians was a young lady, Alice, who was a GSE team member a few years back. She visited Tennessee in the United States. She told us that the experience had changed her life. Great to know.
Spot the mistake in the bowl of chicken
Tomorrow, Tuesday, is a sight-seeing day and we are doing a presentation to a Rotary Club in the evening. We will also be having a team meeting to do a bit of evaluation of how we are going and how our expectations of this GSE trip are being met. It will be a good exercise as we get solidly into the 2nd half of our trip. It has been difficult not having our programme for Macau in advance so that we can evaluate the appropriateness of the visits for vocational purposes but we are working on it.
We have the rest of the week here in Macau and then on Sunday it’s back to HK for our final week before we leave for home next Saturday. This trip to Macau has been a welcome break from the hustle and bustle of HK. The pace of life is much more laid back here – only 500,000 inhabitants as opposed to HK’s 7 million.
No comments:
Post a Comment