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Macau sees future in Portuguese past

2018-02-21 02:35     Comment:0

Sitting in his office in Zape, Prof. Lei Heong Iok opens what he calls his “treasure” – a dog-eared Portuguese-Chinese dictionary, its velvet cover worn and frayed.

Lei’s decades-long love for the language has turned him into a campaigner for its survival in the city where Portuguese seafarers started to settle in the mid-16th century.

Learning Portuguese fell out of fashion in Macau after Lisbon handed it back to Chinese administration in 1999, becoming a special administrative region and growing into the world’s biggest gambling destination.

Although Portuguese remained an official language and street signage continues to be bilingual, many in the predominantly Cantonese-speaking territory switched their study focus to Putonghua.


Prof. Lei Heong Iok holds what he calls his “treasure”, a Portuguese-Chinese dictionary, on the balcony of his office at the Macau Polytechnic Institute (IPM) in Zape early this month. – AFP

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