Dear Chuck,

Thank you so very much for your generous effort into putting so much time and thought in your email. I am very much indebted to you.

It is a pleasure sharing some moments with someone that has inspired me confidence since the first email about the Howard L900. Not many people are so generous and understanding.

I have seen the news and knew about the snowstorms in Michigan and nearby States. I hope everything is better now. I do look forward for some photos of you and JoAnn. Meantime, please let me know when you get the parcel I sent you.

Actually there’s nothing to thank me about because of sharing my Uncle’s emails with you. Apart from the trust I have in you, it also seemed practical. I must tell you, dear Chuck, that I don’t cultivate the cool guy image, as you may have seen by now. I’m human, I have my good days and my bad days, and all this is part of life. So why should I say that everything is all right when it is not and vice-versa? This type of behavior would not improve my masculinity or whatever, nor do I seek any of this. I rather prefer to be a humanist. It is not a behavioral choice it just flows naturally out.

As I can see per your information we make the same amount of money. There is however some issues that I’d like to share with you and will probably address some of the themes of your email:

· Firstly is that before joining the Forum, I have entertained the concept that racism was still very strong in the US and I would refuse to visit, because I could not ever tolerate racism. Even the presence of Latin Americans and Black Americans in the movies, I saw it as “image compensation” rather then the reality. It was not only until I joined SFI that I realized that it was not the truth. And I am not a stubborn person about the truth. I’m always eager to learn rather than impose my thoughts. But when I have that special feeling that I am right, then it’s the time that I do stand on my beliefs. In short, my ignorance created prejudice in me.

· On a second issue I have had under my direction about 120 people while in the civil service, and never failed a catalog (not being ready in time for the opening of an exhibition) meaning that life’s meaning for me is to be creative. Macau has thus given me a lot of opportunities to prove myself. I was one of the youngest Museum Curators in the world back in January 1998 at the age of 26 (I would be 27 on December 98). At that time I realized that Macau had the exact dimension to become a laboratory of all possible things, and I proclaimed it in articles and interviews. It could have been a Silicon Valley, it could have simultaneously been a place where the old concept of a Trading Post could have been renewed, and it could have been a place where Knowledge of all kind could have been worked out with people of quality being invited to work together. But heck, no. I recall to this day that the first measure I took when I became the Curator was to request that the Museum should be incorporated into the Mandatory Tourist Circuit. I was smiled upon by white-collar idiots (I’ve been a semi-white collar guy all my life, being well dressed but not sharing opinions and social life) who just cared for their careers rather then contributing for the development of the city. It was hard to conclude that everyone had their own interests before anything else and showing vision would not be good for their futures as seasoned people in the corridors of Macau’s power.

· Although Macau has given me the opportunity to feel that my dreams were not as megalomaniac as some short sighted people have catalogued me, I felt that I could have done much more have the Portuguese had a better understanding of Macau. They didn’t, and the fact that life was good, seasoned by small talk of a small city and good pay have me postponed my view and analysis of the aftermath. Why bother if I could make a design in 24 hours for as much as US$3,750? And I didn’t bother to save either, because we were not going away, and most important of all, because money had no meaning to me, as I fabricated money with my work. On the other hand I could not entertain the concept of living in Portugal because I knew the horizons were very limited, people could only speak Portuguese, and there was an invisible barrier that separated them from the rest of Europe. Am I not being a Portuguese? Well, in more then one interview on magazines and TV stations I have referred to the fact that I am an Asian Portuguese, and that means that I am - like my entire fellow Macanese - the foremost genetic and geographical compliment to the Portuguese Humanism of the Past, and yet we are forgotten by Portugal. I can even recall one situation in which, after a fashion show in Portugal where my Portuguese name was placed on the wall of the stage, a Magazine reporter approached me and asked very slowly: Do you speak Portuguese? I replied, faking a Chinese accent: Just little bit… Sad, very sad!!! So Macau and Portugal ways are the same.

· My constant visits to Portugal allowed me to view how ill paid people are. Sometimes I felt guilty for wearing a jacket that costed more then the salary of the nice lady who served me real orange juice at breakfast at the Holiday Inn where I stayed every time. And yet, it was not my jacket that was too expensive, it was her salary that was too low. And I could see around me some white-collar guys in a very important looking pose. My daughter once asked me: Hey Dad, why do these guys look so important and yet the whole country is so poor? She had an eye, and I was coming from outside, so my view was that of an audience. Not many performers (the Portuguese in Portugal are the performers) can view themselves. Only the public can.

· Time has passed and nothing has changed in Portugal. Now they discovered they are a part of Europe, they even belong to the European Union, yet, not much has changed. Salaries are still low. Middle class will earn as much as US1,250 and will see their salary deducted every month by taxes, being left with less then a thousand US to live. They are totally indebted; house prices are way up, food, clothing, etc. Then you get to see neurotic people everywhere, aggressive behavior out of life struggle. Children as old as 30 can’t afford to buy a house so they often marry and stay with one of the parents.

Having said all this, and knowing that Portuguese and Chinese have something in common: favoritism in job placement against competence, and knowing that if you are above 35 in Portugal you will not get a job, I can very coldly envision my prospects in Portugal. My wife’s retirement, which is being accumulated in Portugal, is, as I have mentioned before, much better then the average salary of a working person.

So how can I think of contemplating going back to Portugal? And the Chinese is following the conservadoristic legacy of the Portuguese in Macau the opposite way.

In my website’s homepage, which can only be viewed by Explorer because of the many effects, http://www.arscives.com, there is a link that you can see at http://www.arscives.com/homepage/eshop/default.asp which displays some preparations for E-Commerce, however, we don’t have access to E-Commerce accounts, mainly called merchant accounts.

So, in fact, it is nothing that I have not contemplated before. Yet I am at the very core of one of the most competitive areas of E-Commerce…

You have mentioned Catalogue companies. Actually I was well aware of them since early 60’s as my Aunt bought me a complete set of cowboy outfit via one of those huge catalogs. But I don’t even know how to reach these companies…

I would appreciate very much if you could give me a url list of these catalog companies. My philosophy is to work in mutual benefit. Our prices here are unbeatable, and that is also why Bugei have sourced China to make swords.

First I must thank you for sharing your family background with me, too.

It is true what you have said about my wife and me. However I would never go anywhere plunging in the dark. This is rule 1. Rule 2, my Family comes first. However it would be perhaps beneficial if went along alone first. That would give me more mobility, in case it ever happens, and yet I would stay in touch.

We have discussed the issue and reached the conclusion that for our own sake none of us can feel compelled to abdicate. If I were to go back to Portugal I would go crazy after a while, with no job prospects as well as a very closed mentality. If Helena would come to me to the States, this would make her feel terrible, until she feels its right.

We have in sight our son’s future. He is extremely talented, and I am not talking as a father, but trying to be as an outsider as possible.

Furthermore, there is something that has been on the back of my mind. I was considered in 1990, when I presented my first fashion collection, The Revelation of the Decade, yet no one made a move. Portuguese, British, Irish and German TV stations interviewed me. Eventually Hugo Boss Co. signed a contract with me. But I gave up, as they just wanted me to outsource for them in SE Asia, when there were so many companies to do that. Never understood it, so I quit.

I know from within that I’m a visionary, in my little scale. This is not a self-compliment my friend. This is just a confession, a very intimate confession: All that I have envisioned in the past have been followed much later: In 1977 I referred the need for a Cultural Center. It was built and opened 22 years later, just in time for the Hand-Over. But while my approach was a profitable one, the final approach is full of deficits.

I suggested in 1994-5 that the Macau Government should implement Center of Creativity to foster the Economy’s Tertiary Sector, but nobody cared. Then BENETTON just created this year, the Ideas’ Factory, what I was proposing for Macau.

In 1991 I criticized Portuguese clothing and apparel industry for not using designers, and designers for not understanding that fashion is an industry, not one or two boutiques. I got word that now they are teaming up.

I’m telling you all this because it is rooted on my earlier assertion that I stand my ground when I know I am right. And knowing that I was right, it felt that energy was wasted… I was not heard, and I knew I was right.

That slowly brought me no satisfaction for seeing that things didn’t work, as I wanted them to, for the sake of Macau, and for the benefit of all. Instead I got kicked out of a Foundation I helped to bring prestige to, I see doors being shut.

I have ideas to market jewelry, prints, clay sculptures, but no way to reach a big market.

As for Rick Barrett, this that I am showing you is what I have prepared for him without thinking of a profit for me. Just wanting to see things going. Needless to say, I appeal to your total discretion. Here it is:

http://www.arscives.com/cejunior/Cicada.htm

Please let me know what do you think about it. I don’t know if Rick is following this. I just offered it to him. But I think it is a comprehensive analysis, made from a distance.

Oh, before I finish this soup that is thickening, let me brief you on my birthday and hour: Born 8:55 am in Macau, December 6, 1951. Sagittarius with Capricorn as ascendant.

I will have to go for now, my friend. I’m putting this letter on my server so you can read it as a letter rather then an email.

Bless you.

Antonio