Meaning of Dom João | Babel Free

Definitions

A former island in Xiangzhou district, Zhuhai, Guangdong, China, that became part of Hengqin.

historical

Equivalents

Examples

“The Catholic being the state religion of Portugal, the prisons and the five government hospitals at Macao and in Portuguese Timor are all open to the ministrations of Catholic priests and sisters; three of these hospitals have chaplains of their own. The government also maintains on the islands of Coloane and Dom João, near Macao, two leperhouses, which are frequently visited by missionaries and sisters.”

“Today, Ilha Verde and Taipa are administered by Portugal whereas the other territories discussed in these papers are under Chinese administration. In the prologue to the paper concerning Dom João (Xiaohengqin Island), the author indicates that he was preparing similar papers concerning Coloane and Tai-Vong-Cam (Dahengqin) Islands.”

“1937 (3 December) Memorandum on boundaries of Macau relating to Lapa, Dom João and Vong Cam (Montanha) signed between consul for Portugal and consul for Japan in Hong Kong.”

“Perhaps it would have been simpler if, like Taipa and Coloane, the Portuguese had physically merged Macau with two other islands: Montanha and Dom João (Xiao Hengqin and Da Hengqin, in Cantonese, with Montanha known as Tai Vong Cam).[…] The most curious thing: this small, economically more valuable part corresponds almost entirely to the landfill that in the 90’s linked the two islands, which means that the original land of Montanha and Dom João was mostly hilly and unsuitable for real estate development (as the images in these pages show).[…] For a short time, two years later, the Japanese expelled the Portuguese, and at the end of World War II, Montanha and Dom João passed definitively to the Chinese side (in 1938, a Portuguese-language newspaper published in Macau tells us that General Chiang-Kai Chek proposed a landfill connect the two islands . . .).”

“It’s hard to imagine now, but there were once three mountainous, verdant islands between Macau and mainland China. The Portuguese named them Dom João, Montanha and Lapa. Later the islands became known in Chinese as Xiao (Little) Hengqin, Da (Big) Hengqin and Wanzai, respectively. The two Hengqins, which faced Coloane and Taipa, were eventually joined by land reclamation to form a single island while Wanzai, a mere few hundred metres from Macau’s Inner Harbour (Porto Interior), saw its inclines levelled enough to become a peninsula.”

CEFR level