Portuguese Patriotism in Hong Kong

The 23rd floor reception of the Club Lusitano in Hong Kong

The Portuguese presence in East Asia is firmly anchored in Macau, which Ming Dynasty China started leasing to Portugal in 1557. In the 19th century, the British were unhappy that they had to rely on their Portuguese allies for their trade with China, and as a result of the two Opium Wars managed to take over Hong Kong for their own purposes.

Whereas Macau guarded the western flank of the Pearl River estuary that led to the trading city of Canton (广州 or Guangzhou), Hong Kong sits to the east. A mere 62 km of sea separate the two former European outposts, but they became drastically different. As part of the British Empire during its heyday, Hong Kong became a busy commercial hub while Macau languished in genteel decline, an old lady with several hundreds of years of history.

Enterprising members of the Macanese community, proud of their mixed Portuguese and Chinese (or other Asian) heritage, moved to Hong Kong to find their fortune. Some played a key role in the earliest days of the new British colony, such as the Barretto family that traces its roots to Portuguese India (here's an excellent family history).

To this day, the Club Lusitano in Hong Kong continues to serve the local Portuguese community, and as a private members' club retains its unique Lusitanian cultural identity through its language, cuisine and membership. Club Lusitano is one of Hong Kong’s oldest and most celebrated social clubs, dating back over 150 years since the earliest years that Europeans settled in the former British colony.

In turn, Hong Kong had a lasting impact on the Macanese living not only in Hong Kong, but also in Shanghai and Japan. As a relatively liberal British port city, Hong Kong tested the ideas of being "Portuguese" through the divergent pull of cosmopolitanism and patriotism. Attached below is a fascinating study by Catherine Chan from Lingnan University in Hong Kong on this topic.

Chan writes about "how the shaping of cosmopolitan-minded Macanese in colonial port cities complicated notions of Portuguese patriotism, which oscillated between a love for the pátria (fatherland) and a sense of responsibility to fight for a progressive and just Macanese future. Their initiatives show that, away from the political centres of Portuguese power, the Macanese negotiated their relationship to the Portuguese Empire and competed for the authority to define “Portugueseness” across the East Asian littoral."

All this took place far from the European "motherland" and a long time ago. Today, it is interesting to note that the notion of Portuguese patriotism is also being debated in Portugal itself, between a love of the pátria (sometimes based on nostalgia and melancholic saudade), and a sense of responsibility to strive for a progressive and just Portuguese future that must also accommodate the European reality. As they say: History does not repeat itself, but it often rhymes.