Apartments in Macau

This is a picture of an apartment building in Macau. It was probably built in the 1970s, judging from the style of its windows, and is located in a more affluent part of the city. Macau’s subtropical climate is not kind to exterior paint, and this building shows the effect of years of exposure to tropical rain and humid heat in the stained walls.

Of the two apartments shown, the upper one is the better maintained. Its owner/occupant has at least recently painted the areas around the kitchen door that can easily be reached by a long-handled paint roller. The windows appear newer than the ones in the apartment below, and they may even be the plastic-clad double-paned ones that are more common nowadays among those homeowners concerned with energy-saving.

Air-conditioners are a must for the steamy summers of Macau, and as you can see, there are four mounted on the walls. Unusual for Macau, where the building codes, at least in some areas, are not strongly enforced, the electrical wiring seems to all be contained in metal conduits. But then, this, as I mentioned, is in a better neighborhood.

In the upper apartment, the kitchen door is open. The stainless steel guardrail encloses a small concrete balcony, which appears to serve no purpose other than to allow the occupants to step outside the kitchen for some fresh air. Through the open kitchen door may be seen a small part of the kitchen’s interior, dominated by what appears to be a refrigerator, an appliance that is large by Macau standards, which bears an odd sign in English: “Coffee Break 9:00 – 5:00 Daily”. What does the sign mean, and for whom is it intended?

The windows on the right, half obscured by a blind drawn two-thirds of the way down, offer no clue as to the occupancy of the apartment. A plastic jug in the left corner, and to the right, the back of a platter in the shape of a fish, which appears to be mounted on a wooden stand, and beyond it, what looks like a microwave, or a TV, or a chair back. In between are some amorphous shapes that could be objets d’art, glassware, or small appliances. Hard to tell.

On the balconies of both apartments are red-handled brooms or mops which appear to be of identical style or manufacture. There is one in the upper apartment, and three in the lower. Did they all come from the same source? One can only wonder.

On the floor just inside the kitchen door of the upper apartment is a plastic hamper full of laundry. A small clothesline, blue, with a blue clothespin, hangs between the middle and the far corner of the balcony rail. Have the clothes in the hamper just been taken down from the line? Or are they just washed and ready to be hung out to dry? And what is the block resting so precariously on the top rail.

Questions to which I do not have an answer.