Amateur Dutch filmmaker and photographer Michael Rogge, who is well-known for his hundreds of videos portraying daily life in Macao, Hong Kong and other places from the 1940s onwards, passed away in Amsterdam on 26 January at the age of 94, according to multiple media reports.
Born in Amsterdam in 1929, Rogge took up film after promising to his parents that he would make a record “of all that [he] would be seeing in the coming years” upon moving to Hong Kong in 1949 to work as an officer in a Dutch bank.
In the decades that followed, Rogge would continue the then-expensive habit of making footage of his travels and life in other places such as Japan, Malaysia and Macao, which he visited on multiple occasions during the fifties.
In a 2020 interview with Macau Closer, Rogge said he first came to Macao in 1950 with a Dutch hockey team to compete against a local side.
He noted that the Macao of today was “unrecognisable,” pointing out that when he visited “There were no skyscrapers. It was a small village.” He added: “It was still a Portuguese colony and you could see the people that were mixed Portuguese and Chinese, but it was more Chinese culture with the Chinese temples.”
[See more: After 10 years, a plan to safeguard Macao’s heritage sites is nearly complete]
Rogge remained in Hong Kong until 1955, after which he moved to Tokyo. In 1960, he returned to the Netherlands where he attempted to pursue a career as a filmmaker. He ultimately returned to work in the finance sector in the Netherlands.
In 2006, Rogge decided to share his precious footage with the wider world by digitising it and uploading it to YouTube.
His channel clearly struck a chord, as he amassed over half a million followers, with many of his videos featuring enthusiastic comments from viewers.
It is easy to see why Rogge’s channel is so popular – his footage allows people to vicariously experience a city, be it Macao, Hong Kong or Japan, that no longer exists. For many people, watching his videos allows them to finally see for themselves the stories that older relatives have shared in the past. The fact that the movies are homemade, and not slick travel documentaries, only adds to their charm.
