Jardim

Jardim do São Francisco is the first public garden of Macau. Built in 1580 as the green areas of the São Francisco Convent, it was transformed into a garden for public enjoyment after the abandoned convent was torn down to give way to barracks in 1861.

Because of its central location and proximity to a number of schools, the garden is a very popular hang-out for students and parents or their domestic helpers after school. The children's facilities is therefore a place of contention. One can observe the unspoken tiers of rules circulating among the little ones, the very little ones and the not so little ones. Fortunately, the labyrinthine layout of the garden gives ample space for children to flex their imagination and invent alternative games. In any case, it is already such a joy to run up and down the garden, following a different path every time, discover new trees, pick up fallen petals, steer a fresh turn, collide into another little fellow and land onto the laps of mama, or jiejie (the name domestic helpers are fondly known by, meaning sister in Cantonese). 

As the sun sinks into the horizon, the traffic at the children's facilities thins out. People leaving their offices after work dropped by the garden to have a breather to catch up on their mobiles before heading home.

The floodlights and spotlights of the garden switch on at the cue.

In a quiet corner of the garden facing the barracks, two school girls do exercises on the fitness facilities while conversing in fluent Putonghua. One may hear an occasional Cantonese term thrown in*. 

The sun lowers further in altitude and the golden hour transits into the blue hour, softening into a dreamy ambience. The magic hour manages to escape everyone's attention, once again.

* Putonghua/Mandarin is dominated by 45% of the Macau population, having grown by 3.6 between the census in 2011 and 2021. Use of Cantonese dropped 3.8% in 2021 from 90% in 2011. “What Languages are Spoken in Macau?”, Plataforma, 17 June, 202