How Macau Came To Be

Posted August 1, 2008
Filed under: Details |

My Portuguese lecturer received a letter from the University of Macau offering places for her students to study for a Portuguese language and culture course. (Macau was a former colony of Portugal.) The course itself was free, but we had to pay 2500 patacas for food and lodging at the university hostel. That was about RM1000. (RM1 = MOP$2.40) (USD$1 = RM3.30)

Initially, I was adamant about not going. I didn’t have the money for it – or so I thought. I needed to get a job after finishing my final exams. I could never leave home for so long; I’m not independent and I don’t know how to take care of myself. I’m not even that interested in Portuguese – it was a language I learnt for fun, I don’t need a certificate for that.

But after a while I thought about it. I’ve never had a proper holiday. This could be the cheapest holiday. Where can you get food and lodging for one month for just RM1000? Many friends are going – I’m not alone, they’ll take care of me. Once I start working, I could never have a chance for a holiday like this. And I do have money – I have a substantial amount of study loan left over which was sufficient to fund this trip.

And so with that, I filled in the form (in Portuguese, with the help of my teacher), bought the air ticket, procured the guide books and maps, packed the essentials needed for the trip, planned the many places I would visit with my friends (all in the space of 2 months), and went on a trip that changed me.

7 comments so far

  1. Magik Quilter on August 1, 2008

    Well that has whetted my appetite and in lieu of the next installment shall get a coffee….you temptress you!

  2. onemonthinmacau on August 1, 2008

    my first comment, yay… a lot more drama in store, you need to move into a cafe for an easier and constant supply of coffee. :D

  3. ish on August 1, 2008

    Wow, okay. This sounds exciting. I never knew you were into Portuguese mom, or I could’ve asked you for help in approaching this portuguese chick I was after :P

  4. Magik Quilter on August 1, 2008

    And i just did the wordpress quick quiz which asked if I’d be interested in having access to the blog on iphones etc….so i would be able to go to the coffee shop and read my blogs although nothing to stop me from blogging down there with my laptop….wow what a concept!

    Did you get the quiz on the dashboard at wordpress… cj didn’t and he thinks its cause he turned off the ads….do you know all they were aiming for with the quiz was to see if you want to pay for an upgrade to turn the ads off….can you believe it? Made it seem like it was a helpful quiz to help usability.

  5. museditions on August 2, 2008

    So, it looks like it will take the entire “one month of August” to learn about the “one month in Macau”. That’s fine, I’m a patient person. And here I was thinking you were studying Cantonese, for some reason. Do tell more!

  6. onemonthinmacau on August 2, 2008

    ish: since when you like a portuguese chick? how come you never told me??

    magik quilter: no, only randomly selected users get to do the quiz, so i’ve heard. wordpress has always disguised a lot of things in the name of features when it actually helps them more than it does wordpress.com users.

    museditions: one month and perhaps longer! i definitely need to learn more cantonese too because i had difficulties with the language when speaking to locals there.

  7. Start from the Beginning « One Month in Macau on August 20, 2008

    [...] How Macau Came To Be Macau [...]


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