Crowing in two voices: The cultural transformation of the Portuguese rooster in postcolonial Macau

The paper situates the Barcelos Rooster within Portuguese legend and its elevation under the Estado Novo regime from a local artefact to a national icon central to Portugal’s touristic identity. It then follows the rooster’s contemporary transformation in Macau, where it is reinterpreted in tourist spaces and narratives as a charm associated with prosperity and luck, aligning with Chinese cultural values. Using postcolonial tourism and transculturalism frameworks (Ortiz’s transculturation, Pratt’s contact zones, Welsch’s transculturality), the study poses questions about how the rooster’s symbolism shifts from Portuguese nationalism to a recontextualised icon in postcolonial Macau; how these adaptations reflect power, identity, and culture; how the rooster contributes to Sino-Portuguese cultural synthesis; and the broader cultural implications of such transformations. The introduction outlines the paper’s structure: historical genesis as a national symbol, Macau’s tourism trajectory, the role of government in creative industries, empirical cases of adaptation, and theoretical analysis of transcultural significance.

The review traces the Estado Novo’s symbolic strategies (SPN/SNI) that instrumentalised folklore and folk art to construct a cohesive national identity, popularising the modernised Barcelos Rooster as Portugal’s touristic emblem by mid-20th century and embedding it in ‘banal nationalism’. It notes Barcelos’ 2021 national trademark registration efforts and economic significance of artisanal rooster production. The Macau context is then reviewed: Portuguese presence since 1557, hybrid governance, legalised gambling, heritage preservation initiatives, UNESCO listings, post-1999 handover integration into the PRC, rapid tourism and gaming growth, and branding of Macau as an ‘East meets West’ destination. The review synthesises postcolonial tourism and transcultural perspectives (Bhabha’s hybridity; Hall’s identity as becoming; Urry’s tourist gaze), emphasising how souvenirs act as transcultural objects and how authenticity debates shift with diverse tourist preferences (e.g., Northeast Asian markets’ acceptance of mass-produced ‘kitsch’). Finally, it discusses Macau’s policy-driven cultivation of cultural and creative industries (Cultural Industries Fund), which invested MOP 518 million in 316 projects by 2020, expanding the sector and setting conditions for the rooster’s adoption as a transcultural souvenir and marker of local identity.

The study employs an ethnographic approach aiming for ‘thick description’. Forty open-ended interviews were conducted with business owners, souvenir merchants, tour guides, long-term residents, designers, art enthusiasts, and tourists selected for their connection to the rooster’s cultural presence. Participants gave informed consent; interviews used visual elicitation, were conducted in Chinese, Portuguese, and English, recorded, and translated into English. Visual materials (rooster-inspired objects and media) gathered over a decade were analysed following Kopytoff’s ‘biography of things’. Data analysis proceeded in two phases: thematic analysis (Boyatzis) to identify patterns across stakeholder perceptions, and critical discourse analysis (Fairclough) to examine how discourse constructs social identities and representations. Triangulation across interviews, field observations, and archival sources, along with participant verification and peer review, enhanced validity. The methodology frames subsequent historical-political contextualisation and supports interpretation of the rooster’s symbolic transformation in Macau.

• The Portuguese rooster has been appropriated and rebranded in Macau as a symbol associated with honesty, luck, prosperity, and local identity, moving beyond a mere Portuguese souvenir to a Macau emblem (e.g., replicas inscribed ‘Macau’). - Policy context: Macau’s Cultural Industries Fund catalysed designers and firms to create transcultural rooster products; by 2020 it funded 316 projects totaling MOP 518 million, with the creative sector expanding from 726 companies (2014) to 1,470 (2021). - Designer-led adaptations: K.W. developed ‘Galo Chicken’ (加路雞), a kawaii-style black rooster mascot using a Sino-Portuguese linguistic play on ‘galo’, deployed across plush toys, stationery, children’s products, and an inflatable park concept. - Public installations: K.C.’s team produced multiple large rooster replicas decorated with motifs from Macau’s UNESCO-listed architecture, installed in Coloane to stimulate tourism and later displayed in government offices as representations of Macau’s diverse cultural heritage. - Market dynamics: Souvenir retailers reported increased rooster sales, notably a surge in 2017 (Year of the Rooster) and growth in variety (colors, sizes, utilitarian items). Products are manufactured in China, often for export to Portugal, with dedicated ‘Macau’ batches; in Chinese they are still marketed as ‘Portuguese rooster’ to convey foreign allure alongside Macau identity. - Tourist reception: Mainland Chinese tourists found the rooster distinctive and auspicious; field observations include purchases around MOP 600 by visitors linking the motif to zodiac luck rather than explicitly to Portuguese heritage. - Narrative mediation: Tour guides actively promote rooster souvenirs, weaving local legends and references to Stanley Ho’s prosperity to frame the rooster as a luck-bringing Macau symbol, boosting demand. - Wider branding uptake: Local businesses and media use the rooster to signal ‘Macau tradition’, authenticity, and trust—examples include a coconut ice cream chain’s signage; a traditional Chinese medicine line branded ‘Macau Original’ using the rooster as logo; a bakery’s packaging for ‘Macau’s traditional baked goods’; the Chinese-language investigative newspaper ‘All About Macau’ adopting the rooster to signify honesty and justice; and inclusion of a rooster token in the 2012 Monopoly Macau edition. - Tourism context data: Macau reached 39.4 million tourist arrivals in 2019 (+10.1% YoY); post-2002 gaming liberalisation and the 2003 IVS drove growth, situating the rooster’s rise within a booming tourism and retail ecosystem. - In Portugal, the Barcelos municipality registered the rooster as a national trademark in 2021; artisanal rooster production represents about 8% of Barcelos’ GDP, underscoring the artefact’s broader economic footprint.

The findings show the rooster’s evolution from a Portuguese nationalist emblem into a transcultural ‘theoretical object’ that accrues layered meanings in Macau’s postcolonial context. Through hybridisation (Pieterse; Bhabha) and the interplay of global modernity and local tradition (Tomlinson; Appadurai), the rooster mediates identity negotiation and communicates authenticity within tourism and everyday commerce. Linguistic adaptation (加路雞 mirroring ‘galo’) and continued use of ‘Portuguese’ in Chinese product names balance historical legacy with local recontextualisation. Comparative analogies to Delftware’s domestication and the transcultural journeys of Chinese ceramics illuminate how surfaces, motifs, and narratives enable ‘domestication’ and rebranding of foreign-origin artefacts as local symbols. Government support for creative industries facilitated design-driven reinterpretations that align with market demand and Macau’s branding as ‘East meets West’. Rather than signalling loss of authenticity, these adaptations exemplify transcultural exchange, where objects ‘talk’ by accruing new associations—luck, prosperity, trust, Macau tradition—across sectors, tourists, and residents, consolidating the rooster as a marker of Macau’s hybrid identity in the post-handover era.

The study demonstrates how the Barcelos Rooster transitioned from a component of Portuguese ‘banal nationalism’ to a transcultural icon embedded in Macau’s identity and tourism economies. By aligning with Chinese-valued attributes (honesty, grit, prosperity) and integrating Portuguese motifs with local narratives, the rooster now functions as a material agent of transculturation and identity construction. Empirical cases—from designer mascots and public installations to retail practices and brand adoptions—show its pervasive role in expressing ‘Macau tradition’ and authenticity. Theoretically, the paper extends discussions of transcultural objects in postcolonial settings, evidencing how cultural symbols are reconstituted through power-laden exchanges, market forces, and policy support. Given Macau’s tourism expansion (7.44 million visitors in 1999 to 39.4 million in 2019), the rooster’s evolving significance warrants further research, particularly on its functions within the broader tourist economy and gaming sector, and on how such transcultural symbols continue to shape collective identity in a globalised, postcolonial milieu.