Although fi recrackers and joss sticks enjoyed a similar manufacturing trajectory in Macau, two diff erences mark this peculiar industry.On the one hand, the Cultural Revolution in China forbade the production of incense, linked to religious ceremonies, and, in a general sense, used in spiritual activities.During the course of almost one century Macau became an important production centre of joss sticks, selling to Asian countries (China, of course) and all over the world: from Europe to the USA.On the other hand, this enabled the postponing of production until the 1970s, a decade after the decline of the fi recracker industry in Macau.The fi rst factory, Leong Veng Heng, was founded in Macau in 1815 according to a 1930 report. Leong Veng Heng had two factories employing some 800 employees. Two of the 20 plants at that time producing joss sticks. Exports were valued at MOP1.5 million.Two decades later Macau produced 1.2 tons of incense, with a global value of MOP1.7 million, from the 20 factories remaining in operation.Quoted by local newspaper JTM, Pauline Choi Pui Leng, a researcher on the subject, said that there were about 70 factories in the 1950s and about 40 twenty years on.With the Chinese economic reform in the early years of the1980s, China made up for lost time and became the largest producer of joss sticks in the world.Today, all the factories have closed down (really all? See small panel). At least in Macau. Because in the 1980s some of them opened production centres on the Mainland enabling local shops to sell the production.One of the best examples is Loja de Pivete Veng Heng Cheong [Veng Heng Cheong joss stick shop] opened by the father of the local owner, Kin Hong Tam, on Ervanários Street. Tam shares a factory in San Wui (Guangdong) with a majority shareholder from Hong Kong but every day opens his tight and dusty space to sell joss sticks that he receives from San Wui to tourists and residents.San Wui is a special place for producing incense. Pauline Choi Pui Leng said that it was the people from this place who brought the technique to Macau a century ago. That’s why some local businessman returned to this place once the moment to close in Macau and open in China had arrived.
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