I‘m back in Macau, the former Portuguese colony but now a Special Administrative Region of big, bad China. I was here last year. That was my first visit & I was passing through en route to central China. I’m passing through en route this time too, destination southwestern China & the border with Vietnam. I didn’t have much time to look around Macau on this visit to the colony (not that much time is needed) but I did manage to to see a few things on this trip that I didn’t see last year
OK so I did see this last year but it was covered in an ugly skin of scaffolding at the time. Not so now. This is Sao Paulo, Macau’s most famous landmark sitting in the UNESCO listed Historic Centre of Macau. Once hailed as the greatest Christian monument in Asia (Christianity was introduced into Asia by Jesuit priests here in Macau), today it survives only as a façade, the rest of the church having being destroyed in a fire in 1835. The façade of Ruins of Sao Paulo (St Paul’s) in Macau (
), China. August 29th 2005.
This is the Kun lam Statue, a statue dedicated to Kun lam, the Goddess of Mercy in Chinese Buddhism. The 20 metre-high bronze figure emerging Virgin Mary–like from a 7 metre-high lotus is located in Macau’s outer harbour on a tiny man-made island connected to the waterfront by a 60 metre-long causeway. The lotus-shaped dome at the statue’s base houses the Kun lam Ecumenical Centre which holds a small exhibition and offers educational literature about Buddhism, Taoism and Confucianism. Macau, China. August 29, 2005.
The Kun lam Statue is probably (although don’t hold me to this) the only statue in the world of the Goddess of Mercy that is not facing the sea – she has her back to it. Macau, China. August, 29, 2005.
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