In Conversation：Miguel de Senna Fernandes

"The Macanese community were identified as Eurasians, Catholics, but then this notion was diluted in time. Nowadays, the Macanese themselves, they don't know: "What the hell am I?" They keep asking this kind of thing."
MIGUEL DE SENNA FERNANDES

For "In Conversation" this week, Stephen Davies travels to Macau to examine a question of identity that also has resonance for Hong Kong. Our guest "In Conversation" is Miguel de Senna Fernandes, a lawyer by profession, a former Macau legislator, and a keen preserver of Macanese identity. What might the determination to preserve a sense of one's own culture mean to a Hong Kong that shares a concern about losing its identity and individuality?

Last year, the theatre group "Dóci Papiaçám di Macau", which Miguel de Senna Fernandes co-founded, celebrated its 20th anniversary. The troupe's name means "Sweet Language of Macau", and refers to the fact that its plays are presented in the Macanese creole language, Patuá.

Miguel's father Henrique de Senna Fernandes was also known as a writer, in Patuá, who celebrated Macanese lives and identity. Patuá contains elements of Sinhala, of Malayalam, of Arabic, English, and Cantonese. In its word patterns and vocabulary there are hints of the entire history of colonial Portugal, particularly in Asia.

Each year, Miguel writes a new play for the theatre group, presented during the Macau Arts Festival, that pokes timely fun at social and political events in the former Portuguese colony. But apart from the satire, Miguel says the troupe aims to demystify "the old idea of Patuá as a language only spoken by the elderly".

"It makes all sense to keep on doing Patuá, keep on writing articles, writing books about Macau's uniqueness, using the Portuguese, using a lot of things just to point out, just to see people say: "Yes, we are part of this world, we are part of this territory, we are part of this history, but we are different."

Stephen and Miguel also discuss why Hong Kong seems so much less willing to celebrate the international aspects of its culture than Macau, even appears slightly ashamed of them, and why Hong Kong's sense of its separateness from dominant Chinese culture may have a somewhat different emphasis.

"Now, the Hong Kong people say: "We are different." But they are different to whom? That's the question. To whom? And to whom is obviously the mainland. Our something is our surrounding people. By contrast in Hong Kong, the statement ... there is a statement there but this statement is rather political. This is my point of view. I don't know whether this political statement would evolve to a rather cultural thing but, well, that's something that we have to see further."

This week on "In Conversation", questions of identity versus assimilation. What does it mean to be "different"? "In Conversation" airs on TVB Pearl, on Thursday 3rd July at 7 p.m. The programme will also be shown on RTHK DTTV Channel 31 at 10.30 p.m. that same night, and at the same time the following Tuesday.