Taipa Houses

This guide to the Taipa Houses in Macau follows five pastel villas built in 1921 for the territory's senior civil servants, once standing at the water's edge before decades of land reclamation pushed the sea back. It traces the Macanese families who lived here, descendants of Portuguese settlers and Chinese, Malay and Indian women over four centuries, who developed their own creole tongue called Patua, and it lingers on the furnishings inside, from centuries-old Chinese bookshelves to French Provence-style iron beds. You'll meet Gastao Barros, a Macanese deputy mayor who moved in during 1963 and helped link these islands together. Wander from room to room and read the objects as a portrait of a people who never fit neatly into one world.