Asia: VIVA MACAU Part 7
In 2003, a year before the Sands opened its doors, China changed its tourism policy and, for the first time, allowed individuals to travel unescorted across the border to Macau. In 2005, well over half of Macau's 18.7 million visitors came from the mainland. The general assumption here is that Chinese tourists, besides having a keen interest in gambling—currently not permitted on the mainland—are suckers for themed attractions. Witness the near-riots at the gates of Hong Kong's Disneyland during the 2006 Lunar New Year weekend. Much of the development in Macau is elaborate stagecraft, intended to lure the masses from Zhuhai and beyond. After all, there are 1.3 billion potential tourists and gamblers just across Macau's inner harbor.
After New Year's Day lunch and a stop at the beguiling 19th-century Lou Lim Ieoc Garden, in central Macau, I make my way to the city's newest attraction: Fisherman's Wharf, nearly 30 acres of waterfront shopping mall, developed, in part, by Stanley Ho. As the afternoon light fades, I blend into the opening-day mob of tourists and locals and meander past gift shops and restaurants set in fragments of ancient Rome, South Beach Miami, New Orleans, Amsterdam, and Lisbon, and wind up standing in front of a Tang Dynasty gate. Fisherman's Wharf also boasts a fake volcano, like the one at the Mirage in Las Vegas, except this one houses a roller coaster and a Victorian-style hotel. Eventually, there will be a Babylon-themed casino and an African village. I walk back to the Macau-Hong Kong ferry terminal, half-believing Fisherman's Wharf was conjured up not by Ho but by some French theorist eager to prove a point about simulation and the Society of the Spectacle.
After New Year's Day lunch and a stop at the beguiling 19th-century Lou Lim Ieoc Garden, in central Macau, I make my way to the city's newest attraction: Fisherman's Wharf, nearly 30 acres of waterfront shopping mall, developed, in part, by Stanley Ho. As the afternoon light fades, I blend into the opening-day mob of tourists and locals and meander past gift shops and restaurants set in fragments of ancient Rome, South Beach Miami, New Orleans, Amsterdam, and Lisbon, and wind up standing in front of a Tang Dynasty gate. Fisherman's Wharf also boasts a fake volcano, like the one at the Mirage in Las Vegas, except this one houses a roller coaster and a Victorian-style hotel. Eventually, there will be a Babylon-themed casino and an African village. I walk back to the Macau-Hong Kong ferry terminal, half-believing Fisherman's Wharf was conjured up not by Ho but by some French theorist eager to prove a point about simulation and the Society of the Spectacle.
