Day 2: more casinos and 1st interview

A busy 12-hour fieldwork day is over. Thanks to the Macanese magnificent fresh honey-dripping beef jerk we had on the bus in the end of the day we survived it in good health and spirit. Today we met with our interpreter and guide, Mrs. Cai, who had lots of interesting information on Macau and gambling to tell us as well as many great contacts to suggest us for later this week. However, first we tried to arrange a permission to film and interview people in the main lobby of the Venetian but, as we already assumed, it did not work out. Nevertheless, we had another interesting tour around the casino with Mrs. Cai. For example, we noticed that gold goes well on BMWs and gladiator tradition did not die with ancient Rome. And we just had to take pictures and film of the gondolas again...

Golden BMW at the Venetian Macao.

Gladiators at the Venetian.

Gondola inside the Venetian.

After the Venetian, we went to the Sands which is part of the Venetian casino, the City of Dreams and the Galaxy. In the City of Dreams we saw the biggest diamond ever with unforeseen hurly-burly around it.

Diamonds are the casino-goers best friends.

After touring around the casinos for the morning, we headed uphill to University of Macau, where we got a chance to interview Professor of Political Science Bill Chou with great insight into Macanese society and the role of gambling in it. Then we headed to the Macao Polytechnic Institute to interview Professor Samuel Huang who is also the Director of the Asia-Pacific Association for Gambling Studies.

At Professor Huang's office.

After meeting with the professors we had some time to kill before the dusk and night shots, so we went to the Portuguese part of Macau and took a tour in the Museum of Macau. Then we walked around the center of Macau filming the crowds, and finally got our perfect night shots of the casino lights (right here on Google Maps).

Recording the night scene downtown Macau.

Tomorrow we will head back to the university and discuss Macau and gambling with a few more professors and scholars, and perhaps interview some students on the campus as well. If we have time, we will attempt to create a cool time-lapse video of Macanese day turning into night too.