At the end of his splendid evocation of the city of Macao, Philippe Pons quotes a paragraph by journalist and novelist Italo Calvino about cities that "sometimes succeed each other on the same site," but that "die without ever knowing each other."
Macao is such a place, a vanished city, existing -- writes Pons -- only in the archipelago between memory and imagination. It remains a fascinating place, but one "so oppressed by the weight of time it forces one's mind to flit continually between present and past." Though small in area (the former Portuguese enclave covers only some 15 sq. km), Macao has an enormously rich history.
It was the West's first anchorage in China; it was also its last in Asia. Two years after the British handed over Hong Kong, the Portuguese lowered their flag on Macao. After this the city became something else. Now, "heritage has been reduced to a back-drop, to a staging of the past, and Macao has become the Mediterranean Disneyland on Chinese soil." No longer itself, Macao is now a theme park.