Course Code: HIST 212
Secion:004

Topic: Mazu Statue in Macau

Introduction
Mazu (媽祖, also spelt as Matsu) is a goddess of sea who is worshipped by southeast coast in China. In 1998, a Mazu statue was completed in Macau, which is different from traditional Mazu statues. In this essay, we will cover six aspects of it.
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1. About Mazu
According to legend, Mazu was a woman who born in an ordinary family in Fujian Province, Song dynasty. Her father Linyuan gave her the name of Lin Moniang because she did not cry even as a newborn baby. She was such a noble person that rescued several men and sacrificed herself. After her death, she also helped sailors and fishermen out of trouble as a goddess. It is said she can change herself into different forms to exorcize. What's more, she can walk on the air across the sea. 1So, most sailors would worship Mazu right before they are about to cruise. In Fujian dialect, “Mazu” means mother, which shows their respect towards Mazu.
2. Mazu in Macau The legend of Mazu was brought by the ancestors of residents in Macau, and they built a temple to worship Mazu. It is said that the Portuguese took ashore in front of Mazu temple and requested the name of place. The residents thought they were inquiring for the name of temple, consequently replied“媽閣”. How “媽閣” in Cantonese sounds like for Portuguese is exactly like “Macau”, and that is how Macau got its name. In 1998, right before Macau reunited to China, the government built a series of artworks in Macau to memorize the friendship between Portugal and China. Among them, the only one that designed by Chinese is Mazu Statue in Colane Island.
The statue was elaborately carved with 120 pieces of white marbles, which has the height of 19.99 meters (implying Macau reunited to China in 1999) and the weight of 500 tons.
Three images of Mazu:
Left:①Mazu Statue in Macau,1998
Righ: ②Mazu in temple in Taiwan, 1684
Down: ③Mazu images in TV series 《媽祖》，2012 Mazu holds a jade Ruyi which has auspicious meaning in Chinese (means all your wishes can come true) in her left hands. The lines are not really smooth and even, but very powerful. In addition, the facial expression in her face is optimistic, energetic and delighted. It is quite different from other Mazu images (see picture 2 and 3) around our country.It is arework of socialist realism. In the second image, Mazu has no particular facial expressions like other gods in temple. She has a round face and looks downwards. The mouth is quirked up but she does not smile. When we look at her, there is a sense of distance between us. Also, she wears very colorful and exaggerated clothes to show how powerful she is. In the last image, Mazu was represented by an actress in TV series. She is gazing at us with a slight smile. The clothes are gorgeous but natural with very smooth lines. You may feel that she is not a goddess but a human just like us. Then what happened to Mazu statue in Macau? First, we should look at the comparison again.

Because the sculptor Liang Wannian(梁晚年) 2was born in mainland China and matured during Cultural Revolution, the Mazu designed by him was also influenced by the style of that time. From the comparison, we can observe that both Mazu(left) and Statue of People’s Heroes(right) have up-lighting spirit and stage-like pose. The lines are simple but strong which shows the determination of fighting against enemies. In addition, Liang was once a coach of Chinese Kungfu, and due to this, he used powerful lines to represent figures. Further, compare to the traditional Mazu statue, they don’t really look like human at all as all of them are just following the template, but as it is the only statue built by Chinese, Wannian really wants to make it composes with Chinese style influenced by his patriotic thoughts. That’s also the reason why Mazu statue in Macau has neck while the tradional hasn’t, makes Mazu looks very human, realistic and individual twised with patritic thoughts. From the changes of images of Mazu we can know, the images carry historical meanings of specified time. Ancient sculptors and emperors shaped all of the gods and goddesses as the same with very serious facial expressions to educate and awe people. When Liang designed Mazu statue, he was also influenced by the stereotype of his time that figures must give us positive and heroic impression, as well as his patriotic ideas that really allows him accomplished the Mazu statue in a so different style. Nowadays, people are tired of the superior images but prefer more approachable goddess. To further explain this, let’s borrow ideas of Guanyin, for thousands years people always perfer to worship Guanyin other than Budda, as a result that Budda is things about afterlife. While worship Guanyin is something benefit to their life now, human seems far more care about things happening now. Additionaly, the statue of Guanyin combines western culture. While the statue of Mazu is a combination of the old time and now, as well as twisted with patriotic style. The preference that human perfer to get benefit more tangible, that’s exactly why the people in Macau would borrow Mazu image to Macau long time ago. Fishing was one of the mainsteam industry in old time, people always want to have a save journey on seas and bumper harvest. Mazu has the symbolic meaning of seas, therefore, Mazu soon wirely spread over Macau. Overall, though the Mazu statue doesn’t seems so traditional as the normal one. But it still worshiped and well accepted by the people in Macau nowadays. No matter in what way the statue is presented, it still carries out the significant meaning behind which respresenting the historial change and background of that place. The image of Mazu gives us a full and comphensive explaination of the time when Macau as a colony and it’s return.

Reference:1,《天妃顯聖錄》
2, 梁晚年，1952- ，sculptor and painter. Dean of institute of sculpture in Macau.
He moved to Macau in 1979. In his early age, he used to be a coach of kung fu.