[MUSIC]
Meet Aida de Jesus. She's 103 years old.
I don't like to feel so old. I like to feel only 80.
Aida is from Macau, a Chinese city that was formerly
colonized by Portugal for 400 years.
She and her daughter Sonia are among the few people
who still speak Patuà, a critically endangered language
that is unique to Macau.
[MUSIC]
Here's a local music video with subtitles in four languages:
Patuà, Cantonese, Portuguese and English.
You can see how Patuà mixes the languages
of places along the Portuguese trade route
in the 16th century.
[MUSIC]
When I was in school, in our days
they didn't like us to speak Patuà,
because they used to say that it is not real Portuguese.
Aida and Sonia are Macau locals
of mixed Portuguese-Chinese ancestry.
They are the Macanese, and they make up
less than 1% of a city that is over 90% Chinese.
You can say it's a dying race.
To understand Aida's community, we first have to understand her city, Macau,
which is an hour ferry ride away from Hong Kong.
It has rapidly developed over the last few decades,
and is now known as the world's largest casino town,
raking in five times as much money as Las Vegas.
This is thanks, in part, to the Portuguese
legalizing gambling in the 1800s.
So when Portugal returned Macau to China 20 years ago,
it became the only place in the country where gambling was legal.
Many Portuguese left sfter World War II
and an anti-Portuguese riot in the '60s,
but you can still spot signs of portuguese influence all over the city.
Chinese and Portuguese are the official languages,
and colonial buildings are protected Unesco heritage sites.
And just outside the city center
is Aida and Sonia's traditional Macanese restaurant.
When the Portuguese married Chinese wives
they tried to cook as close as possible to Portuguese food.
But in those days, they didn't have so much Portuguese ingredients,
so they tried to put some Chinese ingredients into it,
and that's how Macanese food started.
In our restaurant, our signature dish is minchi.
It's a very simple dish. It's made of minced pork.
Another signature dish is pato cabidela.
Of course, in Portugal they also have cabidela.
It's made of duck blood mixed with vinegar.
Unesco calls Macau "the home of the first fusion food",
and also recognizes the Macabese language, Patuà, as a dying language,
with only 50 speakers left.
Patuà, before, my grandmother spoke it more.
Young people don't speak much Patuà.
Although there are only 4.000 Macanese left in Macau,
one study suggests there could be over 1.5 million of them around the world.
It's a hidden population because they're scattered.
With the rise of social media, many of them have maintained their ties.
The diaspora is even invited to visit Macau every three years.
But those who remain in Macau feel they have to fight
to preserve their culture and identity.
They have been in Macau for generations, but they are often mistaken
for foreigners in their own land.
For me, every single day, I get people saying "Wow,
you speak Cantonese really well!"
That's Sergio Perez, a 39-year-old Macanese filmaker
who made the music video you saw earlier.
The music video features an amateur theatre troupe
that's trying to preserve the language
by staging a Patuà play every year.
Old Macau people definitely know about the Macanese.
Sometimes, you know, they might think I'm a foreigner,
but the moment I start speaking, they're like "No, this guy is Macanese".
I do feel the younger generation, they don't know much about the Macanese.
Sonia, who co-funded the theatre troupe in the '90s, sais she'll keep it going.
I think we are doing something good.
Although it's a dying language, we kind of preserve it for 25 years,
and we hope to continue.
You're going to do your nails? She's going to do her nails.
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