Values and Connotations of Coconut

By tradition, coconut wholesale shops of Macao are a kind of small family business in which all processing are operated manually, like de-shelling, getting the coconut meat off the shell, making coconut milk and desiccated coconut meat. The different processes are kept under strict time control to make sure that the required coconut products are delivered to clients without delay. As in the past, local Chinese restaurants were the main buyers of these products. But as canned coconut juice gained popularity, the market for freshly-squeezed coconut juice has shrunk. By today, snack food stores and Indonesian pastry shops turned out to be the major clients of coconut wholesalers. Some of them even engaged in retail on the side, like offering whole coconuts for festive and nuptial occasions, in order to remain competitive in the contemporary business environment.

Chinese people believed coconut trees are auspicious since they are long-living and bear many fruits during their life time. The pronunciation of coconut in Chinese,“Ye (椰) Zi (子)”, is homophonic to that of the Chinese term for grandfather (Ye - 爺) and son (Zi - 子), which connotes a family with members spanning across two or more generations. For a sprouting coconut, it symbolizes “proliferation of descendants”. The propitious connotations behind coconut have made it almost a requisite in traditional Chinese marriage ceremony.