An afternoon of Chinese Opera

I was invited by the Macau Government Tourism Office-Philippines (MGTO) together with other travel writers and bloggers for a familiarization tour to this interesting place last May and it was a beautiful experience with its cuisine, glitz and old world charm. It was my first time to watch Chinese opera and I had the fortunate advantage of also going backstage during a performance at a local festival. The colors, the costumes, makeup and sounds were something memorable.

There was a week long festival at A-Ma temple, which was crawling with devotees and as part of the celebrations, a local chinese opera company was performing outside the temple grounds. When we were given the go signal to proceed, I rushed due to the excitement.

The makeshift stage was large. It’s frame mainly made of bamboo put together with a large red, blue and white tarp over it. At the backstage, it was organized chaos with the performers dressing up, practicing, or chatting with others before the curtain call. It reminded me of my own documentation of the senakulo in Makati City.