Some scholars have written a few articles about what advantages Macao has in development of local cultural and creative industry. As I am acquainted with the actual operations of performance art and literature publication, I try to analyse the development potential of cultural and creative industry in Macao in terms of these fields from a practical perspective. 

Before talking about the situation in Macao, let us first have a look at the achievements of performance arts of in Taiwan. The original stage dramas, Secret Love in Peach Blossom Land, and The Village, presented at the Performance Workshop in Taiwan, are not only exceptionally popular, but also the outstanding works of performance arts. Since its debut over 30 years ago, Secret Love in Peach Blossom Land has been a brand of Chinese theatres, and is being touring in major cities in Mainland China today, while since the debut of The Village in 2008, there have been more than 200 performances for the Chinese societies around the world, resulting in considerable output value in terms of box office and derivatives, and having successfully turned the unique village cultures in Taiwan into a series of consumer cultures through documentary, book, television play and stage drama and so on. 

Cultural creative industry in Macao covers four core fields, namely, creative design, cultural performance, art collection and digital media, in terms of their respective industrial characteristics. Cultural performance includes drama, Chinese opera, and musical and other performance-related activity, while digital media includes book, film and video and so on. How about the developmental potential of the two sectors? Is there a good foundation for cultural and creative industry in Macao? If something is to be an IP (Intellectual Property), its originality and wide audience recognition will be the determinants. In Macao, there are some good original stories that are recognised by the people outside Macao. For example, the short film, Crash, directed by Hong Heng Fai, has been nominated in the 53rd Taiwan Golden Horse Award for the best short film, the Berlin International Short Film Festival and Swiss SHNIT Short Film Festival, and has won the best short film award in a number of film festivals held in Mainland China and Taiwan. Furthermore, My Dreamer Daddy, by Wong Teng Teng, has won the Film Project─Grand Award among 26 film projects in the 2017 Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Film Production Investment and Trade Fair. 

Once I watched a film provided by the air-hostess, titled Sisterhood which is directed by Choi Ian Sin (Tracy), on the airplane flying from Hong Kong to Toronto. The film was produced under the Support Programme for the Production of Feature Films of the Cultural Affairs Bureau of Macao. I think this is the first film from Macao played on the long distance airplane. I paid much attention to the passengers’ choice, and found that many Chinese passengers chose to watch Sisterhood, and watched it from the beginning to the end. We can see the popularity of this film to some extent. Though a lot of films from different regions and of different subjects, including a number of Chinese films, the passengers are free to choose what they really like, just as they are at home with a TV remote control in their hands and switch to other film if they find something boring. 

With the performance arts of Macao, the music drama, Mr. Shi and His Lover, co-produced by the Point View Art Association and the Macao Experimental Theatre, which adapted from M. Butterfly, participated the Summerworks Performance Festival held in Toronto, which is held every August in Toronto, similar to an arts festival or pioneer drama festival, receiving many good comments. Afterwards, it was invited to be performed in Toronto and Ottawa at the end of this year. As a new historical Peking opera, The Soul of Macao, co-produced by the writer, Mok Ian Ian, and Jiangsu Peking Opera Company, has witnessed wide responses and all-round praises. With the novel publication of Macao, many writers of Macao have published various works outside Macao, that have attracted much attention, including the full-length novels by KAIK, published in Hong Kong, the full-length martial art novel, Carnage Stance, by the productive writer, Tai Pi, which has been adapted for a film. 

Above-mentioned films, performance arts, or literature all can tell a good story, a local story, and embody the nature of incorporating exquisite art and mass culture. This shows that Macao has the most important factor for cultural and creative industry, namely, creative talents. As soon as the art creative talents of Macao are able to step out of the governmental supporting umbrella, directly face the market challenges, and find in the art value a balance between the artistic principles and the market taste, they are ready to make a contribution to the GDP of Macao.