Women lighting incense at sunset in A-Ma Temple
‘This is the place where Macau got its name,’ my Macanese friend Venus tells me as we approach the stone entrance of A-Ma Temple on our first afternoon.
I look up the unassuming temple mouth with its intricate colourful ridges and purlins, gleaming gold lettering, the red eaves contrasting against the dense tree canopy.
‘Legend has it that when the Portuguese colonisers arrived onshore and asked locals what the place was called, they said “A-Ma-Gau”,’ she continues. ‘The Portuguese thought they said “Macau”.’
Entrance of the A-Ma Temple in Macau
We climb the entry steps, flanked by a pair of ferocious stone lions, and step through the doors.
The air is thick with smoke, heady swirls of high-grade incense. Smells like charcoal and ash, musky burning.
People are standing and taking photos. Others, scooping large handfuls of incense sticks, sparking matches bending at altars, or weaving their way up stone steps that snake onwards into the trees.
My eyes water a little at the density of the smoke. Hear my boyfriend coughing behind me.
Haze of smoke drifting upwards in A-Ma Temple
‘It can get a little chaotic in here,’ says Venus. ‘Do you guys want to go ahead and explore? We’ll meet you back at the entrance later.’
She and her husband Joe disappear into the throng.
We continue making our way up the stairs, emerging through concrete circles in the walls, almost perfect in construction.
Passing through a circular entry way in the wall A-Ma Temple in Macau
The higher we ascend, the more circles I notice around the temple. I remember reading about the significance of circles in Chinese culture at the National Palace Museum, and how in ancient China, people believed Heaven to be round and Earth to be square.
Circles continue to be an important cultural symbol of unity and infinity in Chinese culture, no beginning or end, the balance of yin and yang.
Statue with incense and offerings
Those who lived within these harmoniously designed structures were thought to more easily attain peace, tranquility, and better health.
Remembering this makes me feel as though some monumentally profound spiritual shift is happening as we pass in and out of these circle entrances.
My friends Venus and Joe perching on a wall at A-Ma Temple
Eventually we spill out from the steep staircases onto a main landing and look out to the lower levels of the temple.
Oxidised green cylinder tiles adorn each roof.
Bright colourful flags flicker in the wind, ground level harder to see through the haze.
Breathing in incense smoke at A-Ma Temple in Macau
‘It’s so impressive, isn’t it?’ I say to my boyfriend. ‘The way humans built these phenomenal structures, so symmetrical and detailed, without computers.’
‘Yeah, it’s incredible,’ he nods. Our chests are starting to tickle from the smoke, so we put on masks and continue climbing the temple stairs.
Cone-shaped coils of incense hanging across the temple
The next level is a stone landing with a metal awning, where large conical coils of incense hang from the ceiling and on a giant structure.
All of them are lit, simultaneously releasing silent coils of smoke into the air.
The spiral silhouettes seem curious and playful against the setting sun, the outline of skyscrapers visible across the water.
Two women, glam and tattooed, are lighting a fistful of incense sticks and waving them over a metal bowl.
We perch on a wall and observe from afar. As their ritual continues, we take our leave, not wanting to invade their privacy.
Woman lights incense sticks during sunset
Turning a corner, we spot Venus and Joe sitting on the lip of one of the landings a few floors down and give them a wave.
The last of the afternoon sun flickers through the leaves behind them. I can tell we’re in for a cracking sunset.
My friends Venus and Joe flashing wholesome grins
‘I forgot to tell you that A-Ma Temple is actually dedicated to the Chinese sea-goddess Mazu,’ Venus says as we approach them. ‘And it’s one of the oldest temples in Macau.’
Sitting on the stone steps of the temple, admiring the sunset
The temple sits right by the harbour, a thick sliver of water separating Macau from Mainland China.
I pull my camera up again and take a few more snaps, looking out to the distance, imagining what it might be like to have been present at A-Ma Temple on the day Macau got its name.
View of the river from A-Ma Temple, mainland China opposite
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