• People of Macao
    Text By Chingsin Wong/ Photos By Miriashikin

    It all started from this photo. Returning to your home country for the first time in four years has this mixed feeling of being a local but also a tourist. Last summer I was in the city centre taking photos of historical architectures but suddenly this stranger was interested to be photographed. Out of curiosity, I approached him and we started talking. This conversation made me realize that we the Y-generation have become preoccupied with the world within our gadgets and losing our abilities to reach out to people around us, physically.

    Being an expat of three years in Macao, the phrase "Macao is a very small place" is no longer strange to mind. I was told about it during my first day in the university and guaranteed that I'd be bored within three months. It did.

    But something about this "small place" that makes it feel big, the people.

    I took the inspiration from the Human's of New York project that was started by a photographer, Brandon Staton with the objective of creating a photographic census of New Yorkers. We live in the comforts of technology and globalization, traveling has become cheaper and some of us have already been around the world before turning 30, we boast to our friends about our cross-continent adventures and the people we acquainted abroad but how many of us do know our neighbors next door?


    • "Can I take a photo of you two?"
    "(Left) Why? I just want to enjoy my cigarette..."
    "(Right) Sure why not?"


    • "What are you selling here?"
    "Nothing, nothing."


    • "My mom told me that I have the potential for modeling. Look Ma, I'm in a magazine!"


    • Meanwhile in Hong Kong.


    • "Why don't you take a photo of something else? There's nothing interesting with my shrimps and me anyway."


    • (Right) "I've been doing break-dancing for about a year now."
    (Left) "I just started two weeks ago."


    • (Far left, on street donations) "I'm just helping these guys since it's their first time doing this and they're quite shy."


    • "We're from Hong Kong and our final shoot will be in the Venetian, but we want to be tourists too!"


    • "I'm going home for lunch now. Are you done yet?"


    • "A photo of me? I have no teeth. Just joking."


    • "Oh you should have come earlier, we had more stuff in display."