A Deep Dive into The Story of Macau—Macau’s Transformation in Headlines

By Phoebe Zhang ‘26

To write about Macau—a coastal Chinese Special Administrative Region (SAR) that touches the south of the Mainland—and its bond with China is no easy task: the two regions are tied by rich history. Once a Portuguese colony, Macau became a SAR with an independent judicial system after its 1999 Handover to China. More recently, the region has become known as the "Las Vegas of the East." The Story of Macau, a six-book collection of journalistic articles by Zhang Yushu—a reporter at Macau Daily and my grandfather—captures Macau’s complex history. Indeed, the series transcends its frank, reportorial voice to weave the regions’ shared story into each headline and article.

Rarely would any author commit to telling Macau’s story like my grandfather, who, from 1994 to 2019, dedicated 2.8 million words to doing so. Moreover, he harbors two unique perspectives that no other author does: Zhang was both the Beijing Reporter Station’s inaugural chief correspondent in Macau and Macau Daily’s first resident reporter in Beijing. The series compiles his articles written over the 25 years to discuss Macau’s transformation and its deepening ties with China through those two lenses. The first book, published about a month ago, gives a taster of the five to come, reporting on Macau’s 1999 handover and its journey to economic, cultural, and political prosperity. 

The journalistic narrative starts just before Macau’s handover when my grandfather reported significant events in Macau for the mainland audience, who formed their first impressions of Macau through the work. With each article, my grandfather details different elements of Macau in the late 1990s: its culture, livelihood, social situation, and political status. Indeed, these articles paint vivid images of the colonial traces in the local religion, the unprecedented airport construction on the water, and the thin alleyways packed with tourists. Xing Zeng Wang, a contributor to the book’s introduction, commented on the impact of Zhang’s early articles about Macau on its mainland readers: “In the dawn of Macau’s handover much news needs to be discovered, tracked, and conveyed to the public through reporters,” writes Xing. “Mr. Zhang did exactly that with diligence; he wrote a large number of articles in the newspapers, helping people identify and remember Macau’s narrative." 

Midway through the book, the articles shift perspective. After the Handover, my grandfather became a central member of Macau Daily; as a result, his chosen topics switched alongside a change in written form, from simplified to traditional Chinese. Now addressed more towards a Macanese audience, his articles focused on comprehensively reporting Macau’s growing connection with the mainland. In his articles, Zhang attentively follows Macanese delegations to hundreds of events that bridged the two regions. Such efforts empowered his articles to truthfully convey the latest events crucial to both China and Macau, including the implementation of Macau’s Basic Law, the localization of civil servants, Macau’s economic liberalization, and vital communications between Macau and the mainland. In doing so, he amplified a unique narrative as the regions journeyed through new, climactic chapters. In fact, one article, “Chairman Zemin Jiang Comes to Macau to Celebrate the Handover,” was so well known that leaders in Macau deemed it a masterpiece. As Mr. Guangyao Zhong, former director of the Liaison Office of the Central People’s Government in Macau, states in the book’s introduction, “Mr. Zhang was the first reporter in the world to report [the news of Chairman Jiang], an event essential to establishing Macau’s new political system.”

Through my grandfather’s compilation of articles from Macau’s colonial era to its early transition, I observed his reflection on change: the articles both serve to document events in the moment and display the shift in opinion on these events as time passes. The President of Macau Daily, Lu Bo, expressed that “Mr. Zhang has become the ‘signboard’ of the Macau Daily News. Simultaneously, The Story of Macau, a documentary with more than 20 years of accumulation has become a token for the Macau-Mainland relationship narrative.” Similarly, I hope that my grandfather’s series will ensure that China and Macau’s cultural bond will be forever remembered.