by Susan Blumberg-Kason

I first came into contact with London-based author Ivy Ngeow after the publication of her second novel, Heart of Glass (reviewed by me in this issue of Cha). When I learnt it takes place in early 1980s Macau, I was intrigued because I had visited Macau a couple times almost 25–30 years ago and rarely come across novels set there. There’s something about Macau that’s different from other places in greater China, even Hong Kong. It’s gone through many iterations over the decades and now people know it as the gambling capital of the world. But there’s so much more to it, and I wanted to learn more about Ivy Ngeow’s thoughts on setting her novel there and what she enjoys best about the territory. I recently asked her these questions over email and added my own thoughts about a place that has stayed with me all these years.

Susan Blumberg-Kason: Although I first went to Macau in 1990, the city still seemed to have an old world aura, certainly much sleepier than it is today. What drew you to Macau for Heart of Glass, and why that city and not somewhere that might be easier to research via books and movies like Hong Kong?

Ivy Ngeow: I have always had a vintage soul, someone who revels in the esoteric, the obscure, the discovery of the macabre and the subconscious, the real and imagined past. I tend to enjoy cultish novels and authors. I love exploring the dark side of humanity. Macau fits. Not much research is necessary as it is after all fiction, and research is only there to add authenticity, colour, feel. Research can kill the novel, which is the opposite—it is the exploration of the imagination, an extension of reality.

SB-K: That’s a great point. You do write about real places in Macau from back then like the Bela Vista and Fernando’s. I think people today think about the Vegas casinos when they think about Macau. So how did you find information about these older establishments?

IN: There is so much information about the golden age, about old Macau. Firstly, these are world-renowned establishments and legends I am writing about, that dignitaries and celebrities used to haunt and flaunt themselves in, e.g., the Tropicana in Havana, Raffles in Singapore, E & O in Penang, Claridge’s in London. That world is seared into most people’s cultures and memories, the world of gangsters, showbiz, gangs, cinema, glamour. Secondly, that kind of old world glamour is universal, and at that time, only existed in the lives of the privileged and for everyone else, only in their minds or fantasies.

SB-K: My interest in visiting Macau in the 90s was for the Portuguese architecture. My older son is determined to visit this spring for the food. You include both food and architecture in Heart of Glass. What would you like readers to remember about Macau after reading your novel? Is it a bygone era, or a place that’s different than other cities in greater China? Or is it something else?

IN: As an architect and designer, I find it difficult to not bring the built environment into any scene. It is also a character that plays a role. Winston Churchill said, “We shape our buildings, thereafter our buildings shape us.” The same with food. It is also the non-speaking character. Food is the ingredient that adds ambience and the local texture to a novel. All novels which penetrate the local subconscious and culture, i.e., diverse novels, will have strong associations with and references to food and architecture, e.g., My Brilliant Friend, God of Small Things, etc. Food and architecture make or break scenes because they change us, as readers, as writers. They become part of the novel first, and then part of us.

SB-K: Your cast of characters is pretty diverse, which is very fitting for a book set in Macau. I can’t think of another city in greater China that has more of a mix of cultures. Do you think Macau can maintain this identity as a mosaic of cultures now that it’s become the gambling capital of the world?

IN: Macau is that very special melting pot of the real East and West, just like Istanbul, perfectly situated from centuries of trade, diversity and inclusion. The theme of Heart of Glass is desire and guilt. There is no better place to set the novel than in Macau because you have to actually really believe in that fantasy for it to become real. This is what motivates the characters in Heart and creates their internal and external conflicts—that dream, their heart’s desire. Gambling is a main form of revenue for Macau because it caters to that all-encompassing fantasy, the rags to riches fairytale ending for those lucky ones.

SB-K: You live outside London in a primarily white suburb. How do your friends and acquaintances view Macau? Do they even known what you’re talking about when you tell them about Heart of Glass? And do you find yourself explaining where and what Macau is? I ask because I was on a panel about new and old China at my public library last year, just around the time the Macau-Zhuhai-Hong Kong bridge opened. I asked the library staff to cater Portuguese egg tarts for the event in honour of the new bridge. But when I asked the audience if they knew the significance of the egg tarts, there were mainly blank stares. I’d say half the people in the audience had heard of Macau, but most didn’t know much about Macanese history or culture. So I’m wondering if it’s any different in the UK!

IN: I believe my target audience to be fairly cultish. They are already seeking the esoteric or the slightly strange. They are not going to be interested in white suburban middle-class culture because they are already steeped in that culture, and it would not be much of an escape from the mundane. I imagine them to be well-travelled, savvy, streetwise professionals who are into trying new things such as music and food. I have not had any issues as one of my local readers view Heart of Glass as a stylish noir, and a stylistic tour de force. It is written in slang of the time, it is about an unsophisticated mixed race girl who speaks in street language, it is cinematic, it also brings Macau, an interesting and historical part of the world in Asia, to the West, rather than bringing the West to Macau. That already happened a few hundred years ago. It is the past, the heady days of disco, the Reagan era, the innocent pre-AIDS and pre-digital age. Not many people will know about that vintage era unless they are of that age. Rather than conveying the educational aspect of the old Macau via travelogue or travel writing, the entertaining and visual journey is done via fiction.

SB-K: If I could go back in time and visit Macau again in the early 1990s, I would spend more time looking for traditional Macanese food. And I’d want to learn more about the architecture I saw back then. If you could go back to the early 1980s and see the Macau you wrote about, what is the one place you would want to visit? Or the one place you would want to learn more about?

IN: I would like to visit the Docklands area, Las Docas. So much has changed and been cleaned up. I would be interested to see the narrow alleyways with laundry flapping, strays, the dark corridors of seedy lodgings like the Sailor’s Palace and explore the true gritty history of the docks and the hard way of life of the dockworkers. I myself grew up in the ugly industrial port city of Johor Bahru in Malaysia. No matter how they tart it up for tourists and gentrify the entire city, there will always be pockets of discovery to be made, or a darker, filthier, riskier time, with deeper shadows and fizzier neon.

SB-K: And finally something I think about a lot and wanted to get your opinion on. Do you prefer spelling it Macau or Macao?

IN: This is a great question. It was really important that we get it right. I was very impressed with the Unbound (the publisher) editorial team’s thoroughness and tight control over language to make Heart of Glass polished to perfection. After all, language and style are amongst the top features of Heart of Glass, via Li-an’s narrative voice. Every single Chinese word, both written and spoken, in the terminology was double-checked even though I am Chinese. It had to be checked again by another Chinese person, and one from Hong Kong. Same for every foreign word or phrase. And for Portuguese terms, we also had to make sure they were not Brazilian in origin. Every item of food mentioned was also screened to make sure that it not just existed but existed during the time, and in the correct portions, i.e., not tapas size if it was a main, for example. The entire book was written with the U-spelling. During the developmental and copy edit process, the editorial team at Unbound corrected it to the O spelling, which is English since this book was written in English. Macau is the Portuguese spelling. If you looked at a Macanese passport, the O spelling is used for the English and the U spelling for the Portuguese—Passaporte: Região Administrativa Especial de Macau, República Popular da China / Passport: Macao Special Administrative Region, People’s Republic of China. The O spelling seems romantic and apt to me. It is evocative of a glam noir vintage era, the passion, the cult of a classic, of cinema, gangs, alleyways, dreams, casinos, showgirls. Tokyo, Reggio, Rio, San Francisco. These thrilling cities end with O and so does Macao.

Susan Blumberg-Kason is the author of Good Chinese Wife: A Love Affair With China Gone Wrong. Her writing has also appeared in the Los Angeles Review of Books‘ China Blog, Asian Jewish Life, and several Hong Kong anthologies. She received an MPhil in Government and Public Administration from the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Blumberg-Kason now lives in Chicago and spends her free time volunteering with senior citizens in Chinatown. (Photo credit: Annette Patko)