For most of its history, Macau looked as much Mediterranean as Chinese, with baroque Catholic churches and rows of cafés shaded by drooping palms, where old émigrés sipped cafe da manhã over the Jornal Tribuna. But by the time I arrived, it had a touch of the Persian Gulf: air-conditioned luxury hotels and high-rises, with sports cars idling in the sunshine. Government tax revenue in Macau was often more than double the budget, and like Kuwait, Macau distributed checks to its residents under a program named the Wealth Partaking Scheme. Unemployment was below 3 percent. “What Las Vegas did in
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