The Portuguese Calçada in Macau Paving Residual Colonialism with a New Cultural History of Place by Sheyla S. Zandonai and Vanessa Amaro Drawing on ethnographic research, this article examines the ways in which the calçada portuguesa (“Portuguese pavement”) that the late Portuguese administration developed in Macau (China) was converted into a “cultural item” of Macau’s visual and urban identity. It shows how a project loosely linked to the demise of the colonial, while re- claiming space through a contested operation of urban renewal, transformed the calçada into a seemingly desired spatial and historical narrative, tied to the production of heritage and the emergence of a stronger “theming” strategy of tourism promotion for Macau. Primarily an urban project employed in the revitalization of the cityscape, the incipient calçada encountered culturally inspired resistance and animosity from the Chinese population. At first embodying a contested image and legacy, the pavement has, nevertheless, undergone symbolic regeneration through discursive and material readjustment following its localization into the cultural history of place. Throughout this process, past and present were conflated in a fabrication that eventually undermined the reminiscent equivocal nature of interethnic relations that marked the transition from colonial to postcolonial Macau. In the early 1990s, important urban renewal projects accom- panied the countdown toward Macau’s handover to the People’s Republic of China, scheduled to take place on December 20, 1999. One of the places subject to intervention was the area facing the building of former Leal Senado (i.e., Macau’s Mu- nicipal Council). Then the heart of the Portuguese adminis- trative apparatus, it was unexpectedly closed to vehicular traffic late one night in July 1993. When Macau awoke the next morning, the street intersection, which converged on a small roundabout surrounded by late-neoclassic buildings containing public services and shops, was blocked by large and heavy granite vases. Fearing their businesses would be in jeopardy once the area was closed to the entry of private cars and public trans- portation carrying potential clients, the shop owners, mostly of Chinese ethnic origin, angrily demanded explanations from the Portuguese authorities. Yet the administration’s plan would only become publicly known a few weeks later, when 15 con- tainers of granite and basalt stones arrived from Portugal, 11,000 km away, and were unloaded into that part of town. The Senado area was to be paved with calçada portuguesa or calçada à portuguesa (葡式碎石路), 1 as a sort of replica of Rossio, a square created in nineteenth-century Lisbon (Henriques, Moura, and Santos 2009:144–145). A typical Portuguese-style pave- ment, the calçada is composed by the manual assembly of small black and white cobblestones in decorative patterns, creating a mosaic-like stone tapestry traditionally used for the finishing of squares and walkways. Following its implementation at Senado Square, the calçada was bound to become one of the major urban features of Macau’s late Portuguese colonial geography and early Chinese postcolonial imagery (fig. 1). The local press reported that Chinese shop owners were suspicious of the restructuring plan, which they claimed was an attempt by the then-acting Portuguese administration to leave a stronger colonial imprint in Macau before the handover. Several voices were raised against the project. Essentially, the event exposed interethnic tensions—which had previously unfolded during an incident known in Macau as the “123,” triggered by the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976), when the Chinese stood up against the colonial rulers (Fifoot 1994:28–29; Pina-Cabral 2002:73–74; Wu 1999:323–324)—with the Portuguese admin- istration pushing the revitalization project somewhat against the will of shop owners and residents of the area. Disagreement and discontent arose not only from the fact that small retailers feared a negative effect on their businesses but also because the project was being implemented only a few years before the handover. The decision to pave the square and surrounding promenade areas with Portuguese cobblestones following a Portuguese- designed urban project triggered resentment and distrust among the Chinese toward the sitting administration. With the hand- over approaching, rumors spread among Macau residents that Sheyla S. Zandonai is a Research Associate at the Laboratoire Archi- tecture Anthropologie, L’Ecole Nationale Supérieure d’Architecture de Paris La Villette (118-130, avenue Jean Jaurès, 75019 Paris, France [sheylazandonai@gmail.com]). Vanessa Amaro is Lecturer at the School of Languages and Translation of the Macao Polytechnic Institute (Rua de Luís Gonzaga Gomes, Macau). This paper was submitted 23 III 16, ac- cepted 3 IV 17, and electronically published 23 VII 18. 1. We found several other names that are used to designate the calçada in Macau, e.g., 鵝卵石 (“goose egg” stone), 澳門路面 (Macau pavement), or 歐洲的地面 (European pavement). q 2018 by The Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research. All rights reserved. 0011-3204/2018/5904-0002$10.00. DOI: 10.1086/698957 378 Current Anthropology Volume 59, Number 4, August 2018