Allegory, Kinship, and Redemption: Fu Bo and Isabella

Abstract

Macau,¹ a former colony of Portugal within less than an hour’s journey by ferry from Hong Kong, had been a Portuguese settlement since 1557.² To this day, this long legacy of European settlement and colonization is still visible in city’s architecture, the street names, and the Macanese population. Though not as dominant as English in Hong Kong, Portuguese still finds nominal usage in official titles, public documents, and institutional names. Part of the legacy of Portugal’s colonial rule is the Catholic Church, which remains the largest religious establishment, though, as Christina Cheng reveals in her illuminating study, indigenous religious traditions and cultural practices have created a ‘cultural Janus’ that is far more complex than existing stereotypes and assumptions can explain.³ Like Hong Kong, the majority of the population in Macau is Cantonese-speaking Chinese, and Hong Kongers have long been regular patrons of the city’s casinos and holiday resorts. Notwithstanding its geographical and cultural affinity to Hong Kong, and despite its frequent appearance in Hong Kong films, Macau is rarely treated as a subject on its own. In Ann Hui’s Song of the Exile, for instance, the Portuguese colony is a refuge and temporary exile for the heroine’s grandparents, who eventually return to ‘New China’ before the Cultural Revolution.