Macau Fold

They all say that Macau is golden. It is the gilt flowing on the dome of the Lisboa Hotel, the dream of gold powder paved with cobblestones at the bottom of the Venetian Canal, and the crisp echo when the chips are stacked, enough to knock on the door of destiny. To outsiders, Macau is a huge gambling table, with banks and players lined up, staring at each other, and the air is always filled with adrenaline mixed with desire and luck. But my Macau is gray. The gray color is the indelible mottled stains on the walls of the tenement building where three generations have been crowded for half a century, stained by time and rain. It was a cart stall that my grandfather once pushed through the streets with a squeaking sound. It was a tea restaurant that my dad took over and turned it into a roadside stall. My mother and I relied on their hard work and thrift to support the food stall. There are no roulette, baccarat and dice here, only the fireworks in the teahouse and the sweat on the construction site. This is not a myth of getting rich overnight. This is the most stable move on the chessboard of the times for a poor family that took thirty years to make. What they gamble on is luck, what we earn is life