The City Times recently caught up with globetrotting former Benonian Nicole Cabral, who now lives in Spain, to find out a bit more about her adventures. She explained she ended up in Spain in a rather roundabout way, so in this first article, we hear all about it.
It was the phone call that would change everything. I had one week to pack up my entire life and get on a plane to China where a job was waiting for me as an English teacher.
I had nothing to lose. I’d recently been made redundant, I had an apartment in Johannesburg I could let and I had zero going on in my love life.
In a few words – travel, adventure and mystery.
So that’s when, in 2012, this Benoni girl hopped on that plane and landed in Macao, China, with a handful of belongings and no idea what on earth would be waiting for me on the other side or quite where I’d end up.
You know what they say – you can take the girl out of Benoni, but you sure as hell can’t take Benoni out of the girl.
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I can’t begin to tell you how, nine years down the line, I still have to rephrase certain things I say so the locals in my now current home, which is Spain (more about that another time), understand my Benoni mentality.
There were certainly no bunny parks, bokkie parks or bird sanctuaries in the part of the world I was going to.
As one of the most highly populated cities in the world with over 19 000 people per km², Macao is located in South East Asia between Hong Kong and mainland China, and it’s best known for its casinos and resorts.
Smells
It’s a unique blend of Portuguese and Chinese culture (Macao was colonised by Portugal and remained under its rule for 400 years), so you could imagine this half-Portuguese Benoni girl’s surprise to see Chinese people who could speak fluent Portuguese far better than she could.
Macao smells like a mixture of fish, traditional Chinese medicine and pollution from the clothing factories across the Pearl River Delta.
It’s completely normal to see a Portuguese-style Roman Catholic Church next to a Buddhist temple with a massive casino in the background.
The locals are incredibly shy and wary of foreigners, so they tend to stick to themselves and mind their own business, though that does not mean they are not nice people as they have incredibly kind hearts once you have managed to show them you’re not out to dupe them.
The casinos in Macao have brought in a lot of foreigners that generate tourism and work for the locals.
Before the casinos, Macao was a sleepy fisherman’s village.
Now, it’s a case of population-overload where one is forced to choose between high-end shopping (think Louis Vuitton, Chanel) and haggling knock-offs at the flea market.
Life in Macao was, well … different.
Language
The Mandarin Chinese I had studied back home didn’t help me at all in this part of the world where they spoke Cantonese Chinese.
Oddly enough, I learnt more Portuguese in China than Chinese. Go figure.
Everyone was so eager to speak with me in English, and Cantonese Chinese is very different from Mandarin.
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I continued my Portuguese studies at a school behind the local consulate.
Another thing was that I couldn’t understand how there weren’t more accidents with the way the scooters dart in and out of everywhere or how you could walk into what appeared to be, from the outside, a tiny shop, which turned out to be a seven-storey Japanese chain store.
Something that did really strike me was the influence the Portuguese had on the architecture there.
The centre is beautifully tiled with black and white mosaic Portuguese-style tiles surrounded by exquisite European-style buildings.
The government works hard at always decorating the busiest areas for various occasions, holding free shows and concerts at almost any time of the year.
Local ways
Life as a foreigner was pretty tough.
It took a good while to adapt, as it does in any place where one is “different”.
For instance, I had no idea that shooing one out of a store is not offensive if the person who is doing it thinks they are saving you time (example: try walking into a clothing store where the sizes are too small) or that one shouldn’t waste one’s time making small talk with the cashier as time is money and to do so would be wasting time.
Also, the food was so different.
In China, nothing goes to waste. When you eat the animal, you eat the whole animal – head, feet, the works! Imagine my surprise ordering chicken soup to see the full chicken (head included) in the soup!
What I can say is that, although there were a lot of challenges throughout my two years there, I learnt so many things, met so many people and had so many experiences that I would never have had, had I stayed in good old “Benones”.
I got to see The House of the Dancing Water (Cirque du Soleil) and meet an acrobat who turned out to be a Willowmoore High School classmate’s cousin (he was also from Benoni), see The Beach Boys right up close, have drinks with The Cousin (Barry Hilton) at MGM Macau, and so much more.
Sure, it was a culture shock of note, but let me tell you – this Benoni girl sure had lots of fun!
About Nicole
She attended Farrarmere Primary School and Willowmoore High before heading off to Brazil for a year on Rotary Exchange.
She then returned to study a BA in languages and literature degree, first at the University of Johannesburg and then later at Unisa.
After two years of working in the dog-eat-dog corporate world in the rat-race of Sandton, she studied a TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) certificate at Wits Language School, packed up her belongings and set off to China to teach English to speakers of all different ages (from age two to adults with up to 41 students in a class) before heading off to Spain, which is where she lives now with her Spanish husband, Alejandro, and their little barking fur-baby, Astro.
Nicole has produced her own music album of cover songs, which she has shared only with friends and family, as well as several paintings and drawings.
She said creativity and travel drive her and that she has found this whole Covid-19 period where travel is quite constricted pretty challenging.
Though she may seem incredibly talented to some (she also speaks a little of eight languages), she admitted, rather unashamedly, that she is absolutely void of any kind of athletic coordination, unless it relates in some way to dancing.
Nicole credits her mother, Carol Cabral, as her biggest role model and shining star.
Carol is a beloved member of the Benoni community with a grand sense of humour, according to her daughter. Carol is a semi-retired teacher and is the instructor and owner of the Farrarmere Kumon Centre.
Where are you in the world?
The City Times invites other former Benonians living abroad to give us a taste of their new lives, wherever they are living now.
Send your stories and photos to benonicitytimes@caxton.co.za with “Benonians Abroad” in the subject line.
We welcome submissions of local recipes to share with our readers too!
