Macanese fowk

Macanese fowk
*土生葡人*
Tot population
	25,000 - 46,000
Regions wi signeeficant populations
Macau	5,000–8,000
Portugal	5,000
Unitit States	15,000
Brazil	20,000–25,000
Canadae	12,000
Peru	10,000
Leids
	Cantonese, Portuguese an Patua
Releegion
	Mainly Catholic

The Macanese fowk (Portuguese: Macaense; Cheenese: 土生葡人, "native-born Portuguese fowk") or semply the Macanese fowk refers tae an ethnic group whilk oreeginatit in Macau syne the 16t century, consistin maistly o fowk wi some Portuguese ancestry.^[1]^[2]

Cultur

Historically, mony ethnic Macanese spake Patuá, whilk is a Portuguese-based creole leid an nou virtually extinct. Mony are fluent in baith Portuguese an Cantonese. The Macanese haes preservit a distinctive Macanese cuisine.

History

The Portuguese Period

Portuguese cultur dominates the Macanese, but Cheenese cultural patterns is significant an aw. The commonty actit as the interface atween rulin colonial govrenment - Portuguese frae Portugal wha kent few things anent Cheenese - an the Cheenese feck o the population (95%) wha equals-aquals kent few things anent the Portuguese. Maist Macanese haed paternal Portuguese heritage till 1974. Some wis Portuguese men stationed in Macau as pairt o thair militar service. Mony steyed in Macau efter thair militar service's ish, mairryin Macanese weemen.

Antrin whiles did Chinese weemen mairy Portuguese initially, maistly weemen frae Goa, Siam, Indo Cheenae, or Malay, wis brides o the Portuguese men in Macau.^[3] Mony Cheenese became Macanese een bi convertin tae Catholicism, an haed nae forefowk frae the Portuguese, haein assimilatit intae the Macanese fowk syne thay wur rejected bi nan Christian Cheenese.^[4] The feck o mairriages atween Portuguese an natives wis atween Portuguese men an weemen o Tanka oreegin, wha wis conseedert the laichest cless o fowk in Cheenae an haed relations wi Portuguese sattlers an tarry-breeks, or laich cless Cheenese weemen.^[5] Wastren men lik the Portuguese wis refuised bi heich cless Cheenese weemen, who did no mairy foreigners.^[6] Leeterature in Macau wis written aboot luve affairs an marriage atween the Tanka weemen an Portuguese men, lik "A-Chan, A Tancareira", bi Henrique de Senna Fernandes.^[7]^[8]^[9]^[10]

Durin the late-nineteent century, an increasingly durin Salazar's fascist Estado Novo regime, the upbringin o maist Macanese fell alang the lines o the continental Portuguese - the onwaitin o Portuguese schuils, the pairticipatin in mandatory militar service (some focht in Africae) an practisin the Catholic faith. Sae racent as the 1980s, maist Macanese haednae receivit formal Cheenese schuilin an, hence, coud speak but no read or write Cheenese. Spaken Cantonese wis lairgely familiar, an some spake the leid wi a regional accent (鄉下話) - acquired lairgely frae thair mithers or amahs.^[11]

Syne Portuguese dounset in Macau - datin frae 1557 - includit a strang Catholic presence, a nummer o Cheenese convertit tae Catholicism. A lairge nummer o Macanese can trace thair ruits tae thir New Christians. Mony o thir Cheenese wis assimilate intae the Macanese commonty, drappin thair Cheenese surnames an adoptin Portuguese surnames. In the collective Macanese fowk memory, thare is a little ditty aboot the parish o St. Lazarus Parish, cried 進教圍, whare thir Cheenese converts livit: 進教圍, 割辮仔, 唔係姓念珠 (Rosário)　就係姓玫瑰 (Rosa). Hence, it is surmisit that mony Macanese wi surnames o Rosario or Rosa probably wur o Cheenese ancestry. Acause o this, thare is mony Eurasies cairryin Portuguese surnames Rosario, Rosa, an ithers that isnae Portuguese-bluidit mey be mistaen bi ithers as Portuguese-bloodit. A veesit tae the St Michael the Archangel Cemetery (Cemitério São Miguel Arcanjo), the main Catholic cemetery naur the St. Lazarus Parish, wad reveal gravestanes wi a hale spectrum o Cheenese an Portuguese heritage: Cheenese wi Portuguese baptised names wi or athoot Portuguese surnames, Portuguese mairit wi Cheenese Catholics, an sae on.

The mid-twintiet century, wi the ootbreak o the Seicont Warld War in the Paceefic an the Republic o Cheenae's place o haud in Taiwan, saw the Macanese population surge throu the re-integration o twa disparate Macanese commonties: the Hong Kong Macanese an the Shanghai Macanese. Wi the Japanese invasion o Hong Kong in 1941, the Macanese population, joukin the occupation, makkit its wey tae Macau as refugees. Thir Macanese, includin mony skeeled wirkers an ceevil servants, wis fluent in Inglis an Portuguese an brocht valuable commercial an technical skills tae the colony. Anither distinct group athin the Macanese commonty is the 上海葡僑; the descendants o Portuguese settlers frae Shanghai that actit as middlemen atween ither foreigners an the Cheenese in the "Paris o the Orient". Thay emigratit frae Shanghai tae Macau in 1949 wi the comin o the Reid Guard. Mony spoke but a bittock Portuguese an wis several generations remuivit frae Portugal, speakin primarily Inglis an Shanghainese, an/or Mandarin. The Shanghai Macanese carvit a niche bi teachin Inglis in Macau. Durin Warld War II, Carnation Revolution, an afore an efter Macau's return tae Cheenae, Macanese ance again migratit tae Portuguese African colonies an Brazil, ither Laitin American kintras, Canadae, Unitit States, an Australie. Thaim wha returned tae Macau aften speak Inglis, Portuguese, Cheenese, Macanese, an African leids.

The Cheenese Period

Beginnin wi the ither Portuguese colonies' post-1974 unthirldom an heistit bi Macau's backgiein tae Cheenae, the Macanese community began tae loss its Portuguese heritage. Mony Portuguese, Eurasians an Chinese wha wis leal tae the Portuguese left efter its return tae Cheenae. Amang thaim that sat on, mony bairns - includin thaim o jist Chinese strynd - switched frae Portuguese- tae Inglis-medium heich schuil eddication, parteecularly as mony o parents recognised the diminishin value o Portuguese schuilin. At the same time, Macanese o jist Portuguese strynd is forby learnin Cantonese an Mandarin fur tae can communicate tae non-Portuguese speakin Cheenese. Nouadays, maist Macanese - gif thay are still young eneuch - wad gang back tae study tae read an write Cheenese.^{[citation needit]} Mony see a niche role for fluent speakers o Portuguese, Cantonese an Mandarin.^{[citation needit]} In the 1980s Macanese or Portuguese weemen began tae mairy men wha identified thairsels as Cheenese.^[12]

Macanese identity dispute

Thare is some dispute anent the exact meanin o "Macanese". An essay bi Marreiros offers a braid spectrum o "Macanese types", rangin frae Chinese Christian converts wha bides amang the Portuguese tae the descendants o auld-established faimilies o Portuguese lineage; aw groups is integrate intae this historically legitimated group.^[2] As a general rule, it isnae a pynt o reference, housomiver for ethnic Chinese bidin an raised in Macau; thay eften identify thairsels as Cheenese or Cheenese frae Macau; "Macanese" is applee'd tae thae fowk wha haes been acculturated throu Western eddication an religion an is recognised bi the Macanese community as bein Macanese.^[13]

Tradeetionally, the basis for Macanese ethnic affiliation haes been the uiss o the Portuguese language at hame or some alliances wi Portuguese cultural patterns an nae solely determined alang hereditary lines. Pina-Cabral an Lourenço suggests that this goal is reakit "namely through the Portuguese-language school-system".^[14] Eften, due tae the close proximity tae the Portuguese, the Macanese closely identify thairsels wi Portuguese nationals as opposned tae Chinese in the bi-cultural an bi-racial equation. In practice, houiver, bein Macanese is left up tae hou individuals categorize thairsels. Syne the re-integration o Macau wi the Fowk's Republic o Cheenae in late 1999, the traditional defineetions is in a state o re-formulation.^[15] Gien the shifting poleetical climate o Macau, some Macanese is comin tae recognise an identifee closer wi a Cheenese heritage.

This ambiguity micht be reduced bi the further adjective criuolo.

Prominent Macanese

Notes

↑ Teixeira, Manuel (1965),Os Macaenses, Macau: Imprensa Nacional; Amaro, Ana Maria (1988), Filhos da Terra, Macau: Instituto Cultural de Macau, pp. 4-7; and Pina-Cabral, João de and Nelson Lourenço (1993), Em Terra de Tufões: Dinâmicas da Etnicidade Macaense, Macau: Instituto Cultural de Macau, for three varyin, yet convergin collogues on the defineetion o the term Macanese. Forby parteicularly helpfu is Review of Culture No. 20 July/September (English Edition) 1994, whilk is devoted tae the ethnography o the Macanese.
↑ ^a ^b Marreiros, Carlos (1994), "Alliances for the Future" in Review of Culture, No. 20 July/September (English Edition), pp. 162-172.
↑ João de Pina-Cabral (2002). Between China and Europe: person, culture and emotion in Macao. Volume 74 of London School of Economics monographs on social anthropology (illustrated ed.). Berg. p. 39. ISBN 0-8264-5749-5. Retrieved 1 Mairch 2012. To be a Macanese is fundamentally to be from Macao with Portuguese ancestors, but not necessarily to be of Sino-Portuguese descent. The local community was born from Portugues emen. [...] but in the beginning the woman was Goanese, Siamese, Indo-Chinese, Malay - they came to Macao in our boats. Sporadically it was a Chinese woman. Cite has empty unkent parameter: |month= (help)
↑ João de Pina-Cabral (2002). Between China and Europe: person, culture and emotion in Macao. Volume 74 of London School of Economics monographs on social anthropology (illustrated ed.). Berg. p. 39. ISBN 0-8264-5749-5. Retrieved 1 Mairch 2012. When we established ourselves here, the Chinese ostracized us. The Portuguese had their wives, then, that came from abroad, but they could have no contact with the Chinese women, except the fishing folk, the tanka women and the female slaves. Only the lowest class of Chinese contacted with the Portuguese in the first centuries. But later the strength of Christianization, of the priests, started to convince the Chinese to become Catholic. [...] But, when they started to be Catholics, they adopted Portuguese baptismal names and were ostracisit bi the Chinese Buddhists. So they joined the Portuguese community and their sons started haein Portuguese education without a single drop of Portuguese blood. Cite has empty unkent parameter: |month= (help)
↑ João de Pina-Cabral (2002). Between China and Europe: person, culture and emotion in Macao. Volume 74 of London School of Economics monographs on social anthropology (illustrated ed.). Berg. p. 164. ISBN 0-8264-5749-5. Retrieved 1 Mairch 2012. I was personally told of people that, to this day, continue to hide the fact that their mothers had been lower-class Chinese women - often even tanka (fishing folk) women who had relations with Portguese sailors and soldiers. Cite has empty unkent parameter: |month= (help)
↑ João de Pina-Cabral (2002). Between China and Europe: person, culture and emotion in Macao. Volume 74 of London School of Economics monographs on social anthropology (illustrated ed.). Berg. p. 165. ISBN 0-8264-5749-5. Retrieved 1 Mairch 2012. In fact, in those days, the matrimonial context of production was usually constituted by Chinese women of low socio-economic status who were married to or concubies of Portuguese or Macanese men. Very rarely did Chinese women of higher status agree to marry a Westerner. As Deolinda argues in one of her short stories,"8 should they have wanted to do so out of romantic infatuation, they would not be allowed to Cite has empty unkent parameter: |month= (help)
↑ João de Pina-Cabral (2002). Between China and Europe: person, culture and emotion in Macao. Volume 74 of London School of Economics monographs on social anthropology (illustrated ed.). Berg. p. 164. ISBN 0-8264-5749-5. Retrieved 1 Mairch 2012. Henrique de Senna Fernandes, another Macanese author, wrote a short story about a tanka girl who has an affair with a Portuguese sailor. In the end, the man returns to his native country and takes their little girl with him, leaving the mother abandoned and broken-hearted. As her sailorman picks up the child, A-Chan's words are: 'Cuidadinho . . . cuidadinho' ('Careful . . . careful'). She resigns herself to ther fate, much as she may never have recovered from the blow (1978). Cite has empty unkent parameter: |month= (help)
↑ Christina Miu Bing Cheng (1999). Macau: a cultural Janus (illustrated ed.). Hong Kong University Press. p. 173. ISBN 962-209-486-4. Retrieved 1 Mairch 2012. Her slave-like submissiveness is her only attraction to him. A-Chan thus becomes his slave/mistress, an outlet for suppressed sexual urges. The story is an archetypical tragedy of miscegenation. Just as the Tanka community despises A-Chan's cohabitation with a foreign barbarian, Manuel's colleagues mock his 'bad taste' ('gosto degenerado') (Senna Fernandes, 1978: 15) in having a tryst with a boat girl. Cite has empty unkent parameter: |month= (help)
↑ Christina Miu Bing Cheng (1999). Macau: a cultural Janus (illustrated ed.). Hong Kong University Press. p. 173. ISBN 962-209-486-4. Retrieved 1 Mairch 2012. As such, the Tanka girl is nonchalantly reified and dehumanized as a thing ( coisa). Manuel reduces human relations to mere consumption not even of her physical beauty (which has been denied in the description of A-Chan), but her 'Orientalness' of being slave-like and submissive. Cite has empty unkent parameter: |month= (help)
↑ Christina Miu Bing Cheng (1999). Macau: a cultural Janus (illustrated ed.). Hong Kong University Press. p. 170. ISBN 962-209-486-4. Retrieved 1 Mairch 2012. We can trace this fleeting and shallow relationship in Henrique de Senna Fernandes' short story, A-Chan, A Tancareira, (Ah Chan, the Tanka Girl) (1978). Senna Fernandes (1923-), a Macanese, had written a series of novels set against the context of Macau and some of which were made into films. Cite has empty unkent parameter: |month= (help)
↑ Of interest is the role that the amah plays in Macanese society. It is well known that local Cantonese women were aften hired by the Catholic Church in Macau to act as wet-nurses for orphans in the Church's charge. These women were also hired by Macanese families to clean their houses, cook meals and care for their childer. It is in these early encounters that Macanese children are first introduced to the Cantonese language and culture. Families are known to keep long-standing friendships with their amahs and in the past, young brides would sometimes bring them along with them to their new home. Nowadays Filipinas fill the role. c.f. Soares, José Caetano (1950), Macau e a Assistência (Panorama médico-social), Lisbon, Agência Geral das Colónias Divisão de Publicações e Biblioteca, and Jorge, Edith de (1993), The Wind Amongst the Ruins: A childhood in Macao, New York: Vantage Press.
↑ Gary João de Pina-Cabral (2002). InteBetween China and Europe: person, culture and emotion in Macao. Berg Publishers. p. 165. ISBN 0-8264-5749-5. Retrieved 14 Julie 2010.
↑ There are many pretenders who have claimed to be Macanese. Although one's ethnic identity is a personal project, ultimately, any claim to a Macanese identity is either accepted or refuted by the already existing Macanese community on criteria dependent upon shared cultural heritage and collective notions (these criteria shift with each emerging generation). As Turner and later Bhabka suggest, identity is a layering of experiences unraveled through contact with others and is only decipherable within the social sphere. There are limits to a Macanese identity, and Pina-Cabral and Lourenço (op. cit.), offer a broad-based definition delineated by family and community acceptance as two basic denominators for a tentative definition of the Macanese.
↑ Pina-Cabral and Lourenço (1993). Tentatively, language is not so much a key determinant to Macanese identity, but rather the alliance with the Portuguese cultural system that knowing Portuguese entails. A great number of Macanese families of Hong Kong only speak English but are still considered Macanese. Along these lines, knowledge of Portuguese is preferably - but not absolutely necessary - for a Macanese identity. It should be mentioned, however, that Portuguese language use is only one of several criteria that are used by other Macaense to determine other Macanese, not the sole determinant.
↑ Shifting, not in the sense of deconstruction of the identity definition, but a re-formulation of the definition as each rising generation dictates. The current generation is looking toward the transition and finding themselves deciding upon their cultural/identity alignments. However, as Pina-Cabral and Lourenço explain, this is the nature of the Macanese community.

Bibliography

Amaro, Ana Maria (1989). O Traje da Mulher Macaense, Da Saraca ao Do das Nhonhonha de Macau. Macau: Instituto Cultural de Macau.
Amaro, Ana Maria (1993). Filhos da Terra. Macau: Instituto Cultural de Macau.
Dicks, Anthony R. (1984). "Macao: Legal Fiction and Gunboat Diplomacy" in Leadership on the China Coast, Goran Aijmer (editor), Lunnon: Curzon Press, pp. 101–102.
Guedes, João (1991). As seitas: histôrias do crime e da política em Macau. Macau: Livros dae Oriente.
Marreiros, Carlos (1994). "Alliances for the Future" in Review of Culture No. 20 Julie/September (Inglis Edition), 162-172.
Pina Cabral, João de (2002). Between China and Europe: Person, Culture and Emotion in Macao. New York an Lunnon: Berg (Continuum Beuks) - Lunnon School Monographs in Social Antrhropology 74.
Pina Cabral, João de, an Nelson Lourenço (1993). Em Terra de Tufões: Dinâmicas da Etnicidade Macaense. Macau: Instituto Cultural de Macau.
Porter, Jonathan (1996). Macau, the imaginary city: culture and society, 1557 to the present. Boulder: Westview Press.
Teixeira, Manuel (1965). Os Macaenses. Macau: Imprensa Nacional.
Watts, Ian (1997). "Neither Meat nor Fish: Three Macanse Women in the Transition" in Macau and Its Neighbors toward the 21st Century. Macau: Varsity o Macau.

See an aw

Freemit airtins

An article on Macanese on Asia Week Archived 2001-01-28 at the Wayback Machine
Macao: Mediterranean life in the East

Template:Immigration tae the Fowkrepublic o Cheenae Template:Portuguese diaspora

[teix65-1] Teixeira, Manuel (1965),Os Macaenses, Macau: Imprensa Nacional; Amaro, Ana Maria (1988), Filhos da Terra, Macau: Instituto Cultural de Macau, pp. 4-7; and Pina-Cabral, João de and Nelson Lourenço (1993), Em Terra de Tufões: Dinâmicas da Etnicidade Macaense, Macau: Instituto Cultural de Macau, for three varyin, yet convergin collogues on the defineetion o the term Macanese. Forby parteicularly helpfu is Review of Culture No. 20 July/September (English Edition) 1994, whilk is devoted tae the ethnography o the Macanese.

[marr94-2] Marreiros, Carlos (1994), "Alliances for the Future" in Review of Culture, No. 20 July/September (English Edition), pp. 162-172.

[3] João de Pina-Cabral (2002). Between China and Europe: person, culture and emotion in Macao. Volume 74 of London School of Economics monographs on social anthropology (illustrated ed.). Berg. p. 39. ISBN 0-8264-5749-5. Retrieved 1 Mairch 2012. To be a Macanese is fundamentally to be from Macao with Portuguese ancestors, but not necessarily to be of Sino-Portuguese descent. The local community was born from Portugues emen. [...] but in the beginning the woman was Goanese, Siamese, Indo-Chinese, Malay - they came to Macao in our boats. Sporadically it was a Chinese woman. Cite has empty unkent parameter: |month= (help)

[4] João de Pina-Cabral (2002). Between China and Europe: person, culture and emotion in Macao. Volume 74 of London School of Economics monographs on social anthropology (illustrated ed.). Berg. p. 39. ISBN 0-8264-5749-5. Retrieved 1 Mairch 2012. When we established ourselves here, the Chinese ostracized us. The Portuguese had their wives, then, that came from abroad, but they could have no contact with the Chinese women, except the fishing folk, the tanka women and the female slaves. Only the lowest class of Chinese contacted with the Portuguese in the first centuries. But later the strength of Christianization, of the priests, started to convince the Chinese to become Catholic. [...] But, when they started to be Catholics, they adopted Portuguese baptismal names and were ostracisit bi the Chinese Buddhists. So they joined the Portuguese community and their sons started haein Portuguese education without a single drop of Portuguese blood. Cite has empty unkent parameter: |month= (help)

[5] João de Pina-Cabral (2002). Between China and Europe: person, culture and emotion in Macao. Volume 74 of London School of Economics monographs on social anthropology (illustrated ed.). Berg. p. 164. ISBN 0-8264-5749-5. Retrieved 1 Mairch 2012. I was personally told of people that, to this day, continue to hide the fact that their mothers had been lower-class Chinese women - often even tanka (fishing folk) women who had relations with Portguese sailors and soldiers. Cite has empty unkent parameter: |month= (help)

[6] João de Pina-Cabral (2002). Between China and Europe: person, culture and emotion in Macao. Volume 74 of London School of Economics monographs on social anthropology (illustrated ed.). Berg. p. 165. ISBN 0-8264-5749-5. Retrieved 1 Mairch 2012. In fact, in those days, the matrimonial context of production was usually constituted by Chinese women of low socio-economic status who were married to or concubies of Portuguese or Macanese men. Very rarely did Chinese women of higher status agree to marry a Westerner. As Deolinda argues in one of her short stories,"8 should they have wanted to do so out of romantic infatuation, they would not be allowed to Cite has empty unkent parameter: |month= (help)

[7] João de Pina-Cabral (2002). Between China and Europe: person, culture and emotion in Macao. Volume 74 of London School of Economics monographs on social anthropology (illustrated ed.). Berg. p. 164. ISBN 0-8264-5749-5. Retrieved 1 Mairch 2012. Henrique de Senna Fernandes, another Macanese author, wrote a short story about a tanka girl who has an affair with a Portuguese sailor. In the end, the man returns to his native country and takes their little girl with him, leaving the mother abandoned and broken-hearted. As her sailorman picks up the child, A-Chan's words are: 'Cuidadinho . . . cuidadinho' ('Careful . . . careful'). She resigns herself to ther fate, much as she may never have recovered from the blow (1978). Cite has empty unkent parameter: |month= (help)

[8] Christina Miu Bing Cheng (1999). Macau: a cultural Janus (illustrated ed.). Hong Kong University Press. p. 173. ISBN 962-209-486-4. Retrieved 1 Mairch 2012. Her slave-like submissiveness is her only attraction to him. A-Chan thus becomes his slave/mistress, an outlet for suppressed sexual urges. The story is an archetypical tragedy of miscegenation. Just as the Tanka community despises A-Chan's cohabitation with a foreign barbarian, Manuel's colleagues mock his 'bad taste' ('gosto degenerado') (Senna Fernandes, 1978: 15) in having a tryst with a boat girl. Cite has empty unkent parameter: |month= (help)

[9] Christina Miu Bing Cheng (1999). Macau: a cultural Janus (illustrated ed.). Hong Kong University Press. p. 173. ISBN 962-209-486-4. Retrieved 1 Mairch 2012. As such, the Tanka girl is nonchalantly reified and dehumanized as a thing ( coisa). Manuel reduces human relations to mere consumption not even of her physical beauty (which has been denied in the description of A-Chan), but her 'Orientalness' of being slave-like and submissive. Cite has empty unkent parameter: |month= (help)

[10] Christina Miu Bing Cheng (1999). Macau: a cultural Janus (illustrated ed.). Hong Kong University Press. p. 170. ISBN 962-209-486-4. Retrieved 1 Mairch 2012. We can trace this fleeting and shallow relationship in Henrique de Senna Fernandes' short story, A-Chan, A Tancareira, (Ah Chan, the Tanka Girl) (1978). Senna Fernandes (1923-), a Macanese, had written a series of novels set against the context of Macau and some of which were made into films. Cite has empty unkent parameter: |month= (help)

[11] Of interest is the role that the amah plays in Macanese society. It is well known that local Cantonese women were aften hired by the Catholic Church in Macau to act as wet-nurses for orphans in the Church's charge. These women were also hired by Macanese families to clean their houses, cook meals and care for their childer. It is in these early encounters that Macanese children are first introduced to the Cantonese language and culture. Families are known to keep long-standing friendships with their amahs and in the past, young brides would sometimes bring them along with them to their new home. Nowadays Filipinas fill the role. c.f. Soares, José Caetano (1950), Macau e a Assistência (Panorama médico-social), Lisbon, Agência Geral das Colónias Divisão de Publicações e Biblioteca, and Jorge, Edith de (1993), The Wind Amongst the Ruins: A childhood in Macao, New York: Vantage Press.

[12] Gary João de Pina-Cabral (2002). InteBetween China and Europe: person, culture and emotion in Macao. Berg Publishers. p. 165. ISBN 0-8264-5749-5. Retrieved 14 Julie 2010.

[13] There are many pretenders who have claimed to be Macanese. Although one's ethnic identity is a personal project, ultimately, any claim to a Macanese identity is either accepted or refuted by the already existing Macanese community on criteria dependent upon shared cultural heritage and collective notions (these criteria shift with each emerging generation). As Turner and later Bhabka suggest, identity is a layering of experiences unraveled through contact with others and is only decipherable within the social sphere. There are limits to a Macanese identity, and Pina-Cabral and Lourenço (op. cit.), offer a broad-based definition delineated by family and community acceptance as two basic denominators for a tentative definition of the Macanese.

[14] Pina-Cabral and Lourenço (1993). Tentatively, language is not so much a key determinant to Macanese identity, but rather the alliance with the Portuguese cultural system that knowing Portuguese entails. A great number of Macanese families of Hong Kong only speak English but are still considered Macanese. Along these lines, knowledge of Portuguese is preferably - but not absolutely necessary - for a Macanese identity. It should be mentioned, however, that Portuguese language use is only one of several criteria that are used by other Macaense to determine other Macanese, not the sole determinant.

[15] Shifting, not in the sense of deconstruction of the identity definition, but a re-formulation of the definition as each rising generation dictates. The current generation is looking toward the transition and finding themselves deciding upon their cultural/identity alignments. However, as Pina-Cabral and Lourenço explain, this is the nature of the Macanese community.

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