Macau is often described as a little paradise steeped in mixed history and culture. Large, imposing, centuries-old structures vie for space among the tattered remnants of cheaply built twentieth-century brick houses and towering modern glass offices. Massive and squat stone office buildings of the colonial era sit regally and steadfastly among haphazard stacks of steel girders, gray stone snubs orange brick, and the slate roofs keep out the rains where tin cladding has long since failed.