Collections from the Louvre on show at Macao museum

By Kimberly Johans
Published in The Macau Daily Times
9 September, 2007, page 2 (626 words)

The Macao Museum will be showcasing the Chalcography collection of the Louvre Museum from today until December 2. Titled ‘From Versailles to the Forbidden City – Engravings from the Louvre’, the exhibition displays over 130 valuable engravings collected by the Louvre.
In her speech at the press conference for the exhibition’s opening, Ms Heido Ho, President of the Cultural Affairs Bureau (ICM) said that despite the distance of the two, Versailles and the Forbidden City were linked by many cultural ties, one of which was the art of the “copperplate engraving, a tradition that strengthened the relationship between the two time-honoured cultures and, in doing so, passed through the gateway of Macau.”
She added that, through the travels of the Jesuit missionaries, Macau became “a point of entry for the arrival in China of these engravings and the culture of the European Renaissance as a whole.”
cooper engraving started in Europe in the 15th century, with the exhibition highlighting such pieces as “The cabinet du Roi,” a Louis XIV collection sent by missionaries of his court to Emperor Kangxi in 1687; “The Conquests of the Emperor of China” which features a set of 16 engravings ordered by Emperor Qianlong to immortalise his conquest of the Dzungars and the Muslims.

The Tenmasa tempura legacy: from grandfather to father to son

By Kimberly Johans
Published in The Macau Daily Times
September 9, 2007, page (1,287 words)

There are many reasons to be fascinated by Yoshiaki Hashii’s continuation of the Tenmasa legacy. There’s the tempura restaurant itself, an institution in Tokyo, Japan. There’s the history that ties the restaurant tradition over three generations. Finally, there’s founder Masaji Hashii’s notebook, containing frying instructions and recipes. Of course, this was the most fascinating as no one outside of Hashii san’s family has laid eyes on it.
“When I was born it was already decided by my grandfather that I would take over the family business,” said Hashii san.
“So when my grandfather passed away he passed the notebook to my grandmother for safe keeping to give to me when I grew up,” he added.
Not that the tradition followed first from his grandfather to his father and now to him, was necessarily wanted by Hashii san.
“When I was a child I was against my father and grandfather and I didn’t want to take over the business,” he said.
According to him, tempura is a very ordinary food in Japan with plenty of restaurants. So while Tenmasa itself was of a high calibre, the style was common.

Passion and people pay off for cafe owner Nina

By Kimberly Johans
Published in The Macau Daily Times
September 9, 2007, page 2 (1,188 words)

Nina Lichenstein has her claim to fame. She was the little girl who handed the governor’s wife flowers during the ribbon-cutting ceremony of the Taipa-Coloane causeway back in 1969.
More recently though, the fame has come as a result of being co-owner of the Red Spot Cafe, both in Nam San Gardens Taipa and the Macau University of Science and Technology (MUST) campus.
That’s because she’s not the usual sort of boss. This one actually dirties her hands, so to speak.
“I love being around people,” she says, adding that “you really need to be friendly in this sort of business. If you’re not a friendly person, don’t do it.”
And there has to be passion.
“It wasn’t easy in the beginning but I guess you need passion with everything you do. If you don’t have passion you might as well get out and don’t waste anymore time into whatever you’re doing,” she adds.
Such a nature has allowed the café’s to achieve a level of popularity that was acquired simply by word-of-mouth.

August: a little wetter and more like normal

By Kimberly Johans
Published in The Macau Daily Times
September 9, 2007, page 6 (494 words)

After the excessive dryness of July, Macau’s rainfall got back to normal last month.
The Macao Meteorological and Geophysical Bureau recorded 343.8 mm of rain, a vast improvement on July’s 39.2 mm.
August’s rainfall level was more in keeping with that of June’s which totalled 408.6 mm.
And while there were only nine days last month that saw rain, August saw rain fall on a total of 24 days.
The highest rainfall occurred on August 10 (54.8 mm) while the lowest, that is, at least some rainfall, occurred on August 12 and 24 (0.2 mm).
Last month started out poorly, with a total of only 10.2 mm falling over the course of the first five days.
And then the longest period of continuous rainfall in some degree or other occurred, between August 6 and August 18.
Rainfall over three days in August added up to more than a third of the rainfall for the entire month, with those days averaging 118.8 mm.
Those levels in turn affected the temperature, whose total average was 27.9 degrees Celsius, lower than July’s 29.1 degrees and June’s 28.0 degrees.