On the busy streets of the Wangde Tang district in Macau, the towering Huashi Guda Jiama Garden is lush with greenery. Walking past this “totem” symbolizing Portuguese exploration of the unknown land in the East, and looking south through Dongwangyang New Street, the sparkling New Portuguese Hotel is eye-catching. The Portuguese’s exploration of this land has become history, and the story of Macau is still unfolding
A five-star hotel obsessed with luxury
Standing at the intersection of Dongwangyang New Street, regardless of the weather, one can see the golden light of the New Portuguese Capital Tower shining brightly. There are many interpretations of the appearance of towers, most of which are related to feng shui. There is a saying that the shape of the tower is like the tail of a downward arrow, with the podium being the quiver and the tower being the arrow that enters the quiver, with the intention of bringing wealth from all directions into its pocket. Another theory is that the podium of New Portugal is like a huge glowing golden egg, which can attract visitors and generate gold with gold, continuously extending.
In fact, by observing the detailed outline, one can find that the curves formed by the upward extension of the New Portuguese Capital Tower are very similar to the stacked lotus petals when they are in full bloom. The lines on the outer facade even depict the translucent texture of the petals, appearing atmospheric and exquisite. This is actually the designer’s intention – the appearance of the hotel echoes the reputation of Macau as the “Lotus City”, symbolizing the close intertwined and shared relationship between New Portugal and even Macau’s tourism and entertainment companies and this city.
The total cost of the New Portuguese Capital project is 4.4 billion Macau dollars, with a site area of approximately 12000 square meters and a construction area of over 135000 square meters. The egg shaped diamond podium faces the Old Lisboa Hotel, covering an area of 38000 square meters. The exterior of the building is equipped with a 5000 square meter spherical LCD display screen – the Vientiane Ball. The lotus shaped hotel building is partially backed by the Macau Portuguese School, with a width of 260 meters and a width of 52 floors. It provides 431 guest rooms, as well as a club, affiliated restaurant, branded store, banquet hall, hotel lobby, etc. The new Portuguese capital is currently the tallest building in Macau and the second tallest building (the tallest building is the Macau Tower).
The New Lisboa Casino inside the podium was completed on February 11, 2007, and was opened and opened by the then Chief Executive of Macau, Ho Hau Wah. The entire entertainment venue is divided into four floors, with a total of 240 gambling tables and 750 slot machines. The main gaming floor has 10 VIP halls and provides over 140 baccarat gambling tables.
Completed in 2008 and opened on December 17 of the same year, New Lisboa Hotel is Macao’s first five-star hotel with a “seven star” standard. Each guest room is equipped with a steam bath, a tropical rain forest shower head with a diameter of 60 cm, a multi-directional Jacuzzi, a 40 inch TV and a 5.1 surround sound group sound system. The bathroom is also equipped with a mirror TV embedded in the wall.
In addition to the grand casino and luxury decorated rooms, the Michelin 3-star three-star restaurant Tianchao French Restaurant, located on the 43rd floor of the top floor of New Lisboa, is the flagship restaurant of celebrity chef Joel Houbuhun in Hong Kong and Macao. This restaurant has won the “Three Star” award in the Michelin Guide for twelve consecutive years, and this achievement is the only one in Macau. 80% of the restaurant’s ingredients are imported from France and the menu is changed every month.
In addition, New Lisboa also has 8 restaurants, which are famous for their special Cantonese cuisine. They won the Michelin 3-star three-star honor and the black pearl diamond award respectively. The chef of the innovative restaurant also won the Michelin one star and the black pearl diamond award. New Portugal has also won numerous important global awards due to its rich collection of over 17000 famous wines, with most of the wines being rated high with 91 points or more in the Wine Advocate magazine founded by Robert Parker.
The history of Macau’s gambling industry begins to be rewritten here
When it comes to New Portugal, one cannot help but mention its former CEO and one of the founders of Macau’s tourism and entertainment company, “Gambling King” Stanley Ho. Stanley Ho was born in Hong Kong in 1921 and was also buried in Hong Kong after his death in 2020. In the 1941 War of Resistance Against Japan, Stanley Ho, who had a declining family and was forced to study at the University of Hong Kong, was invited by Japanese businessman Saito to serve as a secretary at the Lianchang Grain and Oil Company in Macau, which was the starting point of his relationship with Macau. In his highly dramatic life, the most prominent chapter was his story of starting from scratch and rewriting the history of Macau’s gambling industry.
Stanley Ho was born into the Ho Tung family in Hong Kong and is the grandson of Ho Tung’s younger brother Ho Fu, with a prominent family background. If you have visited the rooftop area of Macau, you should be deeply impressed by the bright yellow exterior wall of the He Dong Library, which was donated by the He Dong family to the Portuguese government in 1956 in accordance with his will.
Stanley Ho’s father, Ho Shih kwong, served as a comprador for the Jardine Meadows and a member of the Hong Kong British Authority’s Legislative Council (later the Legislative Council), crossing the political and commercial sectors of Hong Kong, and also greatly favored Stanley Ho. At Stanley Beach, he specifically found a treasure trove to buy a villa for his son, where Stanley Ho has been enjoying the life of a wealthy young master since childhood. However, there were unforeseen circumstances. In 1934, due to a failure in investing in the stocks of Jardine Matheson, He Shiguang went bankrupt overnight. In order to avoid debt, he went to Vietnam and sought help from his family and friends, but was criticized harshly. Later, Stanley Ho once described it as’ relatives have always thought of me as a treasure, but suddenly they all think of me as a saltwater plant ‘. But it was precisely this sudden impoverished experience that planted the seeds of hard work in the heart of 13-year-old Stanley Ho.
In 1961, Stanley Ho, who was forced to give up his business and had left Macao for eight years because of the big shot’s words, suddenly received an invitation from his brother-in-law, Teddy Yip, to participate in the bidding of Macao’s franchise gambling industry. At that time, he had more than 10 million assets in Hong Kong by taking over real estate projects. Although he was disgusted with gambling because of his family’s decline, he agreed to his brother-in-law’s invitation. Later, through repeated persuasion, Stanley Ho also brought in Hong Kong’s top financial and prestigious actor, Fok Ying tung, to join the bidding. The viewpoint of “prospering Macau” proposed by Huo Yingdong has also been praised by Stanley Ho and has become his basic strategy for neutralizing social prejudice and resistance towards the casino industry, and for long-term control of the gambling industry in Macau.
Stanley Ho introduced two innovations in the gambling industry: the establishment of gambling clubs and the subletting of gambling halls. He introduced a modern enterprise management model into the gambling industry in Macau, focusing more on the overall operation of the casino than his caring and meticulous business style: monthly profitability, personnel changes, and employee salaries. Stanley Ho abandoned the traditional concept of the gambling industry and instead adopted a modern vocational training and talent development system to cultivate new talents on a large scale. He also reset the distribution model of tips: 10% was paid to the government as insurance premiums, 20% was allocated to the administrative and secretarial staff of the casino, designated as expenses for “entertainment and tourism” (i.e. social media fees), and 70% was allocated to casino staff based on seniority. This greatly increased the working income of employees, and even made Macau people believe that being able to work in the casino was a “golden rice bowl”. With the unveiling of entertainment venues such as Old Portuguese Capital, Island, Oriental, and Junyi, Stanley Ho’s reforms have been transmitted to various corners of Macau’s gambling industry through his massive business scale. While operating the basic gambling industry, Stanley Ho’s business scope has gradually expanded from shipping between Hong Kong and Macau to aviation, media, finance, telecommunications, urban development and other fields, which can be said to have changed the face of the entire Macau.
Macau, known as the ‘Monte Carlo of the East’, relied heavily on the gambling industry for its economy in the past. In the 1980s, the output value of the export processing industry once soared to 37% of Macau’s gross domestic product. However, due to the lack of modern industrial technology and high labor costs, Macau clearly did not have the long-term motivation to support its development. The proportion of the total output value of the export processing industry quickly dropped significantly to 27%. The government of Australia and Portugal has actually relied on gambling taxes for a long time to survive. In December 1982, Stanley Ho voluntarily proposed to increase the gambling industry’s tax revenue. The then Governor General Gauss Da publicly praised the important role of the gambling industry led by Stanley Ho in economic development. In 1992, the gambling tax revenue of the Macau authorities accounted for 90% of the total tax revenue, reaching HKD 3.4 billion. But since 1996, the development of Macau’s gambling industry has shifted from positive to negative, with a significant decline in the number of tourists and profits. Soon, the entire industry has lost its vitality. At the same time, due to the refusal of the last Portuguese Governor General in Macau, Vichy, to establish financial reserves and to use his power for personal gain and to enrich his own pockets, he only focused on the so-called “prestigious project” and ignored the urgent livelihood issues, which led to serious economic recession and public security deterioration in Macau, which was nearing its return. Car burning and shooting cases occurred one after another, laying significant hidden dangers for social development.
After the return of Macau in 1999, the issue of the distribution of franchise rights in the gambling industry also came to the forefront – is it to continue to be dominated by one company, monopolized by multiple companies, or to engage in healthy competition? In 2001, the Macau SAR government decided to issue three divisible gambling rights licenses and welcomed foreign companies to bid, which attracted a large number of foreign investors. Eventually, Galaxy and Wynn from the United States entered Macau, and international gambling tycoons such as Sheldon Adelson followed suit. The Macau tourism and entertainment company controlled by Stanley Ho has enjoyed nearly half a century of franchise in the Macau gambling industry, which ends here. The gaming industry in Macau, which broke the monopoly, quickly regained its leading role in economic development and became the “dominant” player in Macau’s sluggish export-oriented economy after the Asian financial crisis. Stanley Ho, who welcomed competition, also discovered more new opportunities in the new environment.
Hotel collections with a sense of patriotism
The magnificent lobby of the New Lisboa Hotel is a must-see attraction. Surrounding the bronze statue of Stanley Ho, there are many antique and artistic treasures collected by the gambling king himself, including a dazzling diamond – the “Star of Stanley Ho”. This is the largest rare pillow shaped natural diamond in the world, weighing 218.08 carats. It has been rated by the US GIA organization as the most perfectly cut, perfectly symmetrical, and high-quality D-color American diamond in the world. On the other side of the bronze statue, there is a sapphire weighing 216 carats and priced at least $80 million, called “Fulushou”.
There are also two huge collections with the theme of the gambling king’s beloved “Da Nao Tian Gong”, namely mammoth ivory fossil ivory carvings and jadeite jade mountains. In addition, the golden peacocks, golden gardens, golden dragon boats, heavenly blessing bells are magnificent, and the jade carvings of Maitreya Buddha, Guanyin Mountain, and the “fish and bear’s paws” jade ornaments are exquisite, all of which are admired by visitors.
Among these rich collections, the most well-known one is the horse head of the Old Summer Palace. Behind the bronze statue of Stanley Ho is his replica. The original was officially donated by Stanley Ho to the National Cutural Heritage Administration in 2019, the 70th anniversary of the founding of New China and the 20th anniversary of Macao’s return.
The horse head of the Old Summer Palace is a part of the “Twelve Zodiac” water clock in the fountain in front of the Haiyan Hall in the Old Summer Palace in Beijing, designed by Giuseppe Castiglione and supervised by Jiang You. After the British and French allied forces set fire to the Old Summer Palace in 1860, the heads of the twelve zodiac animals fled overseas. At the beginning of September 2007, Sotheby’s Auction House announced that it would auction the bronze statue of horse head in the name of “Eight-Nation Alliance – Relics of the Old Summer Palace”. The news spread, causing an uproar from all walks of life. The China Special Fund for the Salvation of Lost Overseas Cultural Relics has taken the lead in issuing a statement stating that it firmly opposes the public auction of the bronze statue of the horse’s head and proposes that the return of the horse’s head should be achieved through public welfare.
At a critical moment, before the auction, Stanley Ho purchased a bronze statue of the horse’s head for HKD 69.1 million and announced that it would be donated to the country. More than 69 million Hong Kong dollars is indeed a bit more expensive, but in order to return the national treasure to the motherland, the expensive points are also worth it, “said Stanley Ho candidly.” I hope to use this to encourage more people to participate in the protection of Chinese cultural relics and jointly promote patriotism and national awareness
This is not the first time that Stanley Ho has donated cultural relics to the country, similar to the bronze statue of the horse’s head. On September 19, 2003, the pig’s head bronze statue, which had been lost overseas for 143 years, returned to Beijing. It was also with Stanley Ho’s active investment that the national treasure was returned. In 2007, he donated five artworks to the National Museum of China, including the oil painting “Treaty of Nanjing”, “Century Ceremony”, “Mao Zedong Meets Xi Si”, and the bronze sculptures “Mao Zedong Statue” and “Deng Xiaoping Statue”, all created by major artists in commemoration of the 1997 return of Hong Kong.
In the second half of his business career, Stanley Ho experienced a huge transformation in mainland China from “dark lights” to “brilliant lights”. He said he saw changes in cities and progress in the country, and he was full of confidence in China’s future. The locals have gone, but the “Stanley Ho element” of Haojiang Lian Island has penetrated into the urban fabric, and the majestic demeanor of the gambling king will plant a seed of curiosity and admiration in the hearts of every tourist entering New Portugal. Whether it is playing tricks in business battles, or starting from scratch, and cherishing family and country sentiments, the legend created by this young master who bravely ventured into Macau alone will always be talked about.
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