Category Archives: Chinatown

Duomo & Sarpi: stories behind images

In an effort to provide a little context for Magdi’s provocative posters, some reading from the archives in order to illuminate exactly what happened:

"What can be more excellent than prayer?"

The praying at piazza Duomo was connected to protests against the Gaza War and happened on January 3, 2009.  Organizers of the protests say that the prayer was spontaneous.  Coverage in the Washington Post is here.  There was no violence, and the Archibishop of Milan refused to condemn the prayers. As the Guardian reported, the Muslim community actually met with the archbishop and apologized for the prayers.

In the US, the first amendment to the constitution guarantees right to petition, or freedom of public assembly.  In Europe, it is guaranteed by article 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights, if one believes in the authority of European law.

The riots along via Sarpi on April 12, 2007 started when city authorities in Milan began applying fines to the many wholesalers who operated along the street.

Every tree and every blade of grass appears to be enemy soldiers

Milan’s administration has taken care of this issue recently by completely refurbishing the street, and making it pedestrian-only.  Without cars and vans, and with bikes replacing pushcarts, the neighborhood is much more livable now — but arguably one effect the improvements had was to make it more difficult for wholesalers there, who simply moved their operations to side streets.

Elisabeth Rosenthal and Elisabetta Povoledo reported on this for the New York Times, as did the BBC.

According to the story, the Chinese rallied around the flag for lack of a better symbol. Since some commentators have pointed out that laws in Italy are often unfairly applied, I wanted to highlight the penultimate paragraph:

Some experts say that the Chinese in Milan have been unfairly singled out by the authorities, and that the authorities have been considerably more lax with native Italians. When laws are enforced in such an inconsistent manner it becomes a case of discrimination, Lanzani said.

Inconsistent enforcement is at the heart of any debate about immigration anywhere, but above all in Italy, where networks of power flout the very laws they are supposed to abide by time and time again.

 

Life among the Lowly

Only one god allowed at Duomo, gents

Journalist-cum-politican Magdi Cristiano Allam loves Italy, he tells us. The Egyptian-born Italian, who made a publicized conversion to Catholicism, seems quick to absorb Italian values — if rampant, no-holds-barred race baiting is an Italian value.  Going far beyond provocative and into offensive, his images of Muslims praying in Milan’s piazza Duomo, Chinese rioting against shop closings on via Sarpi, and of a Roma family on a riverbank near a resettlement camp with the legend NEVER AGAIN in Italian above them can be found all over Milan, especially near its Arab and Chinese neighborhoods.  I’m not sure, especially in the Chinese case, what the ‘never again’ refers to — cheap labor, goods, shops, and an entrepreneurial spirit and work ethic that the Italians seem to have left in the 1950s?

 

 

No more work on Sunday

Mere meters away from the Chinese consulate and from via Sarpi, the Chinese-themed posted shows up. On Corso Sempione, not far from the Egyptian quarter around viale Jenner, the Arab poster shows up. Roma wash windows nearby on via Procaccini. (The perverseness of ‘never again’ is especially offensive in the Roma case.)

The message is clear, and it’s not a tolerant one. The posters assure us that he loves Milan (presumably one in which immigrants make their contribution to the economy and then shut up and stay out of sight) and that he loves Italy (a monoethnic one with silent workers).

"Never again" and a Roma family

 

If an obvious nutjob like Allam were to be relegated to political sidelines, he would be easy to ignore.  But what is disturbing is that he is heartily endorsing incumbent Letizia Moratti in her bid for mayor. Moratti also has the hearty support of the prime minister. That such a mainstream candidate in the financial, industrial and supposed ‘moral’ capital of Italy (an old horse now picked up to flog by PdL, Berlusconi’s party) is anywhere but on the fringes along with the neo-Nazi Forza Nuova where he belongs is incredible. What if David Duke or Nick Griffin actively campaigned for Michael Bloomberg or Ken Livingston? (Such an analogue is, of course, happily unthinkable in Washington, DC.)

Back from where? Hajech is home to the prestigious art academy of Brera

But perhaps such sentiments are to be expected in a country where the Lega Nord is in the ruling coaltion, and where Gianfranco Fini is seen as a viable and sane alternative to Berlusconi or Bossi.

Until the opposition is able to do more than make commuting hell on Friday afternoons and mobilize a few columns of art school students to march around Duomo, who carry banners announcing that they are ‘back’ (I presume to the barricades, of which there were none) and nothing more, expect more of the same.

The promise of the Expo: a cosmopolitan Milan?

Further down the street, a series of flags of all nations put up for the Expo 2015 showcases Milan’s cosmpolitan nature and promises of worldliness.  At the end of one encounters Lega’s tent, where a woman curses the students as delinquents.  One wonders what her take on the flags and what they represent is.  Among them I note Egypt and Turkey.  I half expect Allam or the Lega’s next posters to show off this morning’s tragic crash off of Lampedusa, where another rickety boat spilled 500 migrants into the sea [update: 400 rescued].  That is truly something that should never happen again, but I think that point would be lost on Allam and his backers.

...not when the Lega's racists enjoy pride of place.

Perhaps they will next celebrate the death of Osama, if they are even that tuned into happenings beyond Italy’s borders.  With Lega’s 2009 Indian poster in mind and bizarre violence that it did to notions of race, hegmony and power in the West, one almost hopes that they are not.  Geronimo indeed.

BREAKING: The pope in Venice has told Catholics “not to fear others.” Given pious Veneto’s strong LN base, one hopes that this won’t fall on deaf ears. Maybe even Allam will listen.

 

Sarpi on Sunday

Capitalism in a sack

This is just a first impression.  And first impressions tend to mislead.  But a Sunday stroll on via Sarpi finds an amazing bustle of activity.  Fashionable, well-dressed people shop for shoes and crowd into grocery stores, arms full of fresh meat and vegetables.  Every shop is open.  A gaze into some shows that, beyond the storefront where wares are displayed, that there are many more rooms deep inside, extending all the way back into a courtyard.  Men rush into these courtyards with handtrucks stacked with heavy plastic bags packed with merchandise.  Window shopping aside, this is, of course, more or less how the neighborhood is  every weeknight.  Consumption and production thrive.

The point to take away is that every one of these shops is Chinese.  Every single Italian shop is closed, which is totally normal for a Sunday, but the contrast is sharper given the amazing activity of the Chinese.  And I should point out that although the Italian shops are closed, plenty of Italian shoppers are around, looking at the shoes, cautiously examining vegetables at the market, getting take-out pasta or roast chicken from the deli that also sells barbecue ribs and fried squid.

The first article of the Italian constitution is that it is a “democratic republic, founded on work.”  The presence of a via Sarpi shows what kind of future Italy is being created today.  Those who ignore it will not be able to do so for much longer.

Immigration is Not Zero-Sum

Elisabetta Burba had a story in this week’s Panorama on Italy’s Chinese population.  It’s really not bad writing in that it lists many success stories and is generally favorable.  It includes details I didn’t know, such as a quote from one expat Chinese saying that “the Filipinos will work under a boss, but we all want to have our own business, be our own boss” — something any red-blooded Italian should take heart with.  But before I get too giddy handing out the accolades, I should say that the print version includes maps of five different city streets and store-by-store diagrams indicating which businesses are foreign-owned.  This is an issue, especially when coupled with making note that the particular Chinese who come to Italy are called “China’s Jews.” Perhaps not intentional, but tasteless at best, as were the cover (see graphic) and at least part of the title (“We Were Evicted — We’ll Win” — why must someone lose, Chinese or Italian?).   Hard to find online, but here’s a terribly-formatted version. In Italian.

Be sure to click on the above link to read about Burba’s role in the run-up to the war in Iraq.

La Chinatown milanese

The blog has been on hold recently due to my moving to the area around via Paolo Sarpi – Milan’s “Chinatown.”  This is a fascinating neighborhood that has exploded in the past decade or so with Chinese wholesalers.  It is an ideal place to see how immigration, trade and globalization effect modern Europe.  The small streets brim with outlets selling cheap clothes, costume jewels and watches, plastic toys, electronics, industrial items, and every other type of mass produced good imaginable.

A shopkeeper watches over his wares

(Although I’ve yet to find an outlet for cheap kitchen goods as serviceable as Ma Cosa?! in my old neighborhood on via Farini.)  The Chinese food on offer looks to be much more adventurous than what you typically find in the West, and the density of the old streets, full of purposeful activity, lends the place a vibrant air that is at once familiar and alien – that couldn’t be more different from the Chinatown in my last place of residence, which was based more on tourist’s eating habits and less on trade and commerce.  Along via Rosmini and via Bruno, most of the shops appear to be tiny storefronts. A proprietor stands guard outside in the mild fall weather, and at various points during the day men rush masses of boxes into the store.

A link in the global supply chain

A less cursory look reveals that many that many storefronts are essentially warehouses that sell only to wholesalers.  Many of the shops adjoin large ring-shaped apartment buildings ringed around a central courtyard.  More boxes arrive via van, truck or in the case of smaller streets, the ubiquitous bike outfitted with sturdy wooden shelves above both wheels.

Keeping the balance of trade

Yet it’s hardly monoethnic: I hear Italian spoken as often as Chinese, and in the mass of overwhelmingly Chinese storefronts one spies the typical Italian bar, trattoria or even a highly-vaunted vintage shop.  (I’m told Milanesi come from far and near to shop at Grani e Vaghi.)

A rave review of a Chinese-managed Italian restaurant

In perhaps a sign of the shape of things to come, these trattorie that make risotto alla milanese or osso buco have Chinese cooks or managers; I struck up a conversation with a Chinese butcher working at the deli counter of a decidedly Italian grocery as he cut me prosciutto, immeasurably thin just like most Italians like it.

These experiences are, or should be, commonplace to any resident of northern Italy – Corriere della Sera publishes a Chinese edition, the Duomo’s tourist office has signs written prominently in both languages, and even tiny Veneto hamlets like Villanova del Ghebbo have burgeoning Chinese communities – but might come as a surprise to the non-resident, who might’ve read news of the 2007 ‘riots’ in Chinatown with a hint of surprise that such a place even exists.

This post, in addition to being an update, should serve to remind the reader on the other side of the Atlantic that the Chinese influence is being felt in a myriad of ways, across both sectors and geography.  No matter what the area of competitive advantage, China cannot escape notice.

Just inside a doorway, a warehouse bulges

So, in New York talk may center on the (under)valuation of the renminbi; down in DC, Congress and the Pentagon publish volumes guessing as to China’s military capability; but here in Italy the focus is, of course, on clothing, shoes and leather – Italy’s historic areas of advantage.

A diverse capital for a monoethnic party?

The Northern League often proclaims Milan as its Padanian, and presumably monoethnic, capital.  The most cursory visit to Milan’s via Sarpi should reveal the folly of this.  The Chinese are here to stay, and I look forward to updating readers on the goings-on in this nexus of cultures and economics.

Underwriting Milan's mortgages
A match rooted in the travels of Marco Polo... va tranquilo, Senatur!