Carmo Garden

The monogram of the garden's former name survives on the wall of the fountain with a four-petaled basin. Municipal services laid out a public garden on the hill in the middle of the twentieth century, when the old Taipa waterfront still ran along its foot. Official documents call the garden the Municipal Garden of Taipa, while residents call it Carmo after the neighboring Church of Our Lady of Mount Carmel. After land reclamation, the sea lay farther from the foot of the hill, and the garden's former Portuguese name meant “Garden of Islands”.

The bronze man on the upper terrace has both eyes closed. This is Luís de Camões, the sixteenth-century Portuguese poet and soldier, author of the epic poem The Lusiads. He is usually portrayed with one damaged eye: the poet lost it during military service. Here, both eyelids are lowered, and that was the sculptor's deliberate choice.

In nineteen ninety-nine, Wong Ka Long, a native of Macau, was graduating from the Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts. He was twenty-two, his career still lay ahead of him, and this figure was to become his degree work. His teacher suggested creating an image that would remind the student of his hometown. Wong had a Chinese translation of The Lusiads and a fifty-pataca banknote bearing Camões's portrait. From that small image, he was to sculpt a full-length man.

Wong hesitated over whom to choose: the warrior or the poet. His teacher insisted on the poet. Over half a year, the student created Camões in loose clothing resembling nightwear, with a raised quill and closed eyes. Wong later explained that he imagined him alone, waking in the middle of the night for a new line. Thus, the familiar face from the banknote acquired a body and pose that the banknote did not have.

The Macau authorities proposed casting the degree work in bronze and installing it right here. That same year, the neighboring villas were being turned into an exhibition complex devoted to Portuguese and Macanese life. The figure of the Portuguese poet took its place on the hilltop above them. At the opening, The Lusiads was read in Portuguese and Cantonese. Wong's degree work remained in the city as a permanent monument; he later created a whole series of other bronze figures for Macau.

The municipal services turned the hill itself into a public garden in the middle of the twentieth century, when the old Taipa waterfront ran along its foot. The original Portuguese name meant “Garden of Islands”; its abbreviated monogram survives on the wall of a small fountain with a four-petaled basin. Officially, it is Carmo Garden. Residents came to call it Carmo after the neighboring Church of Our Lady of Mount Carmel.

After land reclamation, the sea lay farther from the foot of the hill. Camões remained above with both eyes closed, and below stood the fountain with the garden's old name, in the garden created when the shore still began here.