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Fading Legacy of the Loyal PortugueseFew Europeans last century considered Hong Kong a place to make an enduring home – it was a locality to make money in, enjoy as much as possible and then depart permanently. Most of the Chinese population were long-term transients too, as they also intended to return to their home areas when they had made enough money. Almost everyone had come from somewhere else, fairly recently.Very few locals really were local, and fewer still considered themselves to be so. The Hong Kong Portuguese were the most notable exception. Almost completely forgotten today, they were Hong Kong’s first permanent settlers. For more than a century they were its loyal and in a sense, only real citizens.  For the local Portuguese, home in the real sense was not Portugal. “Portuguese” was simply a label used to describe them. Also often described as Macanese, this too is not the most accurate definition. Though they were descendents of generations of inter-marriage from Macau, home to them was Hong Kong. They were Hong Kong people.Few spoke metropolitan Portuguese, but instead used English or the Macau patois. Religion (most were Catholic), a common ancestral heritage and fascinating creole culture bound them together. The Portuguese, singularly at the time, had generations of continuous residence in Hong Kong, owned homes and property, educated their families there, retired and were buried there. They had no other home than this one. The local Portuguese, until the early years of this century, chiefly inhabited the area of small terraces extending up the hillside, between Caine and Robinson roads near the Mosque. The area was known as 'Matto Moro', the “Muslim’s Mount” in Portuguese. In the homes of Matto Morro the manners and habits of earlier times, with strong roots in Macau, persisted until this century. One elderly solicitor recalls in the years before World War II that old women still wore the kebaya, an enduring legacy of the long-past Portuguese presence in Malacca, Malaysia. The cultural influences that had traveled over the generations from there to Macau, and then on to Hong Kong, still found expression in people’s daily lives. Women’s activities centered around the home and church, with many attending Mass twice a day. Generally they appeared in public wearing a 'do' - a long cape-like costume, generally black, as a general cover-all. Wryly described by some as a garment to conceal all sins, it was very distinctive and Portuguese women wearing it were immediately recognizable. Many of the families who lived in this area were clerks in leading British firms, such as Jardine Matheson, and in banks and shipping companies. In the years before the Pacific War, most of the Hongkong and Shanghai Bank’s clerical staff were local Portuguese. Their knowledge of Cantonese, and that the were educated in English at a time when most of the local population were not, made them invaluable to local businesses as an intermediary role. There were not many firms of any size before the war which did not employ the Portuguese in some capacity. Others rose to prominent positions in the medical and legal professions. With the gradual opening up of Kowloon as a residential area, many families moved there, establishing another substantial Portuguese enclave in Tsim Tsa Tsui. By the 1920s most Portuguese families had moved across the harbour. Chinese families gradually predominated in the area around the mosque, and Matto Moro became part of local memory. The size of the community and its importance and standing with the colonial government is reflected in the fact that from the late 1930s they had a Member of the Legislative Council specifically to represent their interests. Drawn from leading members of the community, the first appointee was J.P. Braga, a prominent businessman. He was followed in 1937 by Leo D’Almada e Castro, Jr., Hong Kong’s first local Portuguese barrister. D’Almada in turn was succeeded by Sir Albert Rodrigues, a leading obstetrician. The Club Lusitano, gathering place of Hong Kong’s Portuguese community for more than 130 years has a longer continuous occupancy of a site than any other club in Hong Kong. They have had premises on Ice House Street since 1866. As the community was very much larger earlier this century, the social life of the club was extensive. Later, a Portuguese sporting club, the Club de Recreio, opened in Kowloon. Many Portuguese served part-time in the Police reserve, and in the 1930s there were two companies of Portuguese serving in the Hong Kong Volunteer Defence Corps. They fought with great bravery during the Japanese invasion. Most civilian Portuguese were classified as Third Nationals during the Japanese occupation, and so were not interned, in spite of having British nationality. That the Japanese kept the Portuguese members of the Hong Kong Volunteer Defence Corps (HKVDC) incarcerated in POW camps throughout the war, in spite of releasing the Chinese HKVDC members in the early stages of their occupation, is a testament to their loyalty to the British. Many of the dependants of these men with no other means of support available, spent the war years as refugees in Macau. Declining opportunities in the post-war era led many to seek new opportunities overseas. With the gradual increase in the number of educated Chinese who were able to fill their jobs in the banks and elsewhere, their earlier pivotal position a bridge between the other two major communities declined. Whole families emigrated in the 1950s and 1960s, and the community declined dramatically in strength and visibility. By sheer paucity of numbers it was no longer possible to stand astride the communities, and those who remained had to decide which of the dominant cultures to align themselves. With these choices being made, the formerly distinct cultural identity has become blurred, and is gradually being lost. With the passage of time the once ubiquitous role played by the loyal Portuguese community in the wider life of Hong Kong has become a slowing receding memory, of which only small vestiges remain, the almost forgotten name and location of Matto Morro being one of them. (South China Morning Post March 21, 1999)  “Bichonoonie” (dragonfly) The dragonfly is said to mark the passing of time. (Zinha's nickname by grampapa) |
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