The writings of a New York woman on her experience in Macao during her visits to the city in the 1850s have been unearthed by local author and researcher João Botas, who is best known for his blog Macau Antigo (Old Macau).
TDM reports that Botas revealed his findings during a lecture earlier this week. In an interview with the broadcaster, the blogger said that the woman was the wife of a captain who was in charge of a ship transporting tea from China to the US.
The woman’s writing details her third trip to Macao, which lasted for a month, and covers other places, including Hong Kong and Guangzhou. According to Botas, the entries are “amazing” because of the people she wrote about and the insight that they gave to the city during that period.
[See more: Remembering Michael Rogge, the YouTuber who preserved old Macao through film]
“One of the things she [the journal writer] liked to do was to go sightseeing,” the researcher said. “It’s amazing to see how the landscape was in Macao in the 1850s.”
The blogger says he would like to see the journals published in book form, as he feels they are important documents for the history of Macao, Hong Kong and Southern China. However, he said “I didn’t receive any good answers” in response to his funding enquiries to the Cultural Affairs Bureau and the Macao Foundation.
Botas first began his blog as a hobby in 2008. With its focus on the little-known aspects of Macao’s history, the website has received nearly three million visitors. In addition to his blog, Botas has written books about Macanese polymath Manuel da Silva Mendes and the history of the city during World War II.
