the nearby travel: discourses on exoticism and competition in … · 2018-05-26 · 73 the nearby...

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The Nearby Travel: discourses on exoticism and competition in the Chinatown of Madrid*

Gladys Nieto**

The economic take-off in mid-1980s positioned Spain among the world’s most developed countries and also attracted migratory lows coming from the EU and some developing countries. In fact, in 2010 Spain positioned itself in the eighth place among top ten immigration countries in the world, receiving approximately 6.4 million foreign migrants. Currently those ig-ures have lessened reaching up to 5.3 million, due to the strong economic crisis and high unemployment rates in the reception country. Foreign migra-tion actually comprises 12 per cent of the total population living in Spain. Nowadays the presence of the Chinese community in Spain is signi icant not only because of its population igures –with approximately 182,000 migrants – but for its impact on trade business, as a sign of an economic globalized process that shows itself in urban settings.

In this article I analyze some discourses that were spread through the Net (especially texts proceeding from blogs or institutional web pages) and the Spanish press, on the establishment of one or several Chinatowns in Madrid. Even though, as I shall explain below, Usera neighborhood is where most Overseas Chinese are concentrated in Madrid City, the texts compiled tag other sites as de ined by containing Chinese ethnic marks in diverse locations. The main aim of this study is to seek how such discourses label urban space with ethnic Chinese hallmarks, and how this linkage is per-ceived and symbolized by local people, especially with regards urban small entrepreneurs. The symbolic building-up of Chinatowns in Madrid City through these discourses seem to convey two diff erent meanings. On the one hand the idea that Chinese businesses exert a harsh economic competi-

* This study was done in the framework of the Research Project FF 12011-25897 funded by the Spanish Ministry of Education and Competitiveness, State Secretary of Research, Development and Innovation. I hereby express my thanks for its support and also Prof. Gary McDonogh for his comments on this paper.

** Universidad Autónoma de Madrid.

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tion on the small indigenous enterprises. And on the other hand a general outline that praises exoticism, and depicts Chinatown as a touristic site, a nearby travel to the ethnic diff erence within a modern and globalized city such as Madrid.

The methodology employed for this inquiry irstly derives from discourse analysis applied to a corpus of written texts and images taken from the Net. The search terms were “Chinatown Madrid” and “Chinatown Usera”1 –con-sidering the district where Chinese migrants concentrate the most. Com-piled documents were 40 in total, covering a time interval from 2006 up to 2013. Most were written in Spanish and some in English. All of them had an open access to the public. The sources were diverse; some were articles issued from main Spanish newspapers (El País, El Mundo, ABC), free daily ones (20minutos) and some locality press (online news in Estrecho neigh-borhood, Madridiario). Some others essays or commentaries were available in social trends, multimedia communication and design websites, as well as architecture, urbanism and economy forums (SkycraperCity, Burbuja.info) and blogs written by overseas Chinese themselves in Spanish. Comments from travel guides deserve a special mention (Hedgehog guides, Madrid Man, La Playa de Madrid or the Madrid of icial tourism website). The format of the documents combined texts and images, some added advertising, and in many cases comments from readers. The latter were very useful infor-mation for the understanding of common perceptions of the audience on a topic. Considering the people that could be reached by such discourses, needless to say that blogs and local design websites have a lower scope and reception than national press.

Discourses are both understood as being part of social life and also as devices for creating social life2. In this sense they channel meanings, gazes, world arrangements. In fact, discourses in diverse formats (written, oral, images) reveal social, historical and identity conditions, operating in a level that goes beyond an individual outlook3. When interpreting documents or texts I have also taken into account their own appearance environment (i.e., a newspaper of an ideological orientation, a magazine of certain character-istics), the agents who produced them and their discursive aims.

1 I preferred to use the borrowing English term Chinatown instead of the Spanish barrio chino because of the multifaceted meanings assigned to the latter.

2 Helena Calsamiglia Blancafort y Amparo Tusón Valls, Las cosas del decir. Manual de análisis del discurso, Barcelona: Ariel, 1999.

3 Lupicinio Iñiguez Rueda (ed.), Análisis del discurso. Manual para las ciencias sociales, Barce-lona: Editorial UOC, 2006.

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The Nearby Travel: discourses on exoticism and competition in the Chinatown of Madrid

Secondly, regarding the analysis of press media documents I have also applied to Olivier Reboul perspective that considers one of the functions of the words to induce the receptor to be ideologically positioned. So news-papers headlines channel the reader attention and encourage him/ her to adopt an ethic or ideological standpoint through rejection (taboo-words) or adhesion (shock-words)4.

Thirdly, images and photos that accompany texts were also examined through reading images skills5. Images may have an objective interpreta-tion (objects and people’s description, observation guidelines, foreground, camera angle, color, uses of light, etc.) and a subjective one (society values, suggestion degree, hidden messages, contrast between an image and a real model, etc.). Images found in compiled documents have been used to stress representations of groups (in this case the Chinese community) and places (Chinatowns).

Chinese Community Distribution Pattern

The Chinese community with 182,000 people only comprises 3.32 per cent of the total foreign population in Spain but it is located on the seventh place among the largest foreign groups6. Some of the causes for the arrival of Chinese migration to Spain –mainly during 2000s– lie on the structural changes operating in the origin country in the last decade, such as the restructuring of state owned-enterprises in the Northeast region consist-ent with the increasing of unemployment rates, and the turning of China into the most important recipient of foreign capital and the world largest manufacture site. After China’s entry into the World Trade Organization in December 2001, import channels in Europe multiplied, and the import-export business in Overseas Chinese hands that had slightly began during the 1990s successfully boomed. In Spain, the opening up of wholesale and retail shops (shoes, clothing, and accessories), big bazaars (a kind of baiy-uan dian or a Spanish todo a cien – “everything costs 100 pesetas”) and gro-cery stores somehow replaced or complemented the initial stage economic involvement of Overseas Chinese in the catering sector.

4 Olivier Reboul, Lenguaje e ideología, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1986.5 Roberto Aparici y Agustín García-Matilla, Lectura de imágenes, Madrid: Ediciones de la Torre,

1989.6 Permanent Observatory of Immigration, 31 March 2013.

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The distribution of the Chinese community in the Spanish territory is currently uneven. There is a high concentration of newcomers in big cities as well as more experienced migrants search small cities and localities in order to open their business in an environment of less economic compe-tition in trade and catering sectors7. Main cities that attract the majority of Chinese migrants are Madrid with 30,286 people and Barcelona with 15,9208.

Considering the specific concentration within Madrid City the spa-tial distribution of the Chinese community is alike the one followed by other migratory groups, due to socioeconomic and housing conditions suitable to low wages workers. Among the 21 districts that have the capital city, the southern attracts mostly Chinese migrants, as Table 1 illustrates.

7 Jesús Tébar, Mapa del Chinatown de Madrid, Madrid: Bubok Publishing, 2010.8 Data from the Inhabitants Local Census, 1 January 2012, National Statistics Institute (INE

Spanish acronyms).

District Figures

Usera 6,052

Carabanchel 3,483

Puente de Vallecas 3.252

Centro 2,094

Table 1. Madrid city districts with chinese migrant’s concentration

Source: Madrid Inhabitants Local Census (1 January 2013).

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The urban model in Spain during 1960s and 1970s promoted the estab-lishment of functional zones and split places according to residence, work and consumption. Such development acted favoring the separation of classes according to income diff erential attributes9. Usera as the main destination district for Chinese citizens in Madrid as well as other southern districts show speci ic features that make them appropriate places for immigrants’ settlement. Such peripheral neighborhoods off er prices for house renting and propriety that are more aff ordable for migrants’ income level. Accord-ing to the index of income per capita, Usera and Puente de Vallecas districts

Graph 1. Madrid city districts with chinese migrant’s concentration

Source: Madrid Inhabitants Local Census (1 January 2013).

9 Report on the state of social integration of migrants and refugees in 2009. Spanish State Sec-retary on Immigration and Emigration, Ministry of Labor and Immigration.

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are the worst positioned within Madrid City. While Salamanca –the highest income district– moves around € 26,900 and € 27,400, Usera and Puente de Vallecas shifts between € 17,900 and € 18,30010.

Regarding demographic variables in Usera there is a key presence of aged people (more than 65 years old) and minors (below 15 years old). Foreign population is also high as compared to other districts, reaching up to 22.1% over a total population of around 140,000 people. Even though the Chinese are the irst migrant group there, they comprise 20.7 per cent of whole foreigners. Bolivians represent 15.6 per cent and Ecuadorians 13.7 per cent. Other foreign groups with a lower representation come from Romania, Colombia, Peru, Dominican Republic and Morocco as Graph 2 exempli ies.

Considering the demographic pro ile of a district that is symbolically built-up as the Chinatown in Madrid, one should state that local population there makes up more than three-quarters of the total inhabitants igure, and Chinese migrants only represent one- ifth of the total amount of foreigners

Graph 2. Population in Usera Districy

Source: Statistical Exploitation of Inhabitants Local Census (1 January 2012).

10 Economy Barometer of Madrid City, num. 34, 4.º trimester 2012.

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dwelling there. So, why Chinese presence in a neighborhood is highlighted? Why a place that is judged by possessing Chinese ethnic marks conceals the imprint of not only autochthonous inhabitants but other migrants groups living there? What are the signs –at least from mass media and blogs dis-courses– that de ine a Chinatown? For answering those questions I need irst to introduce the concept of Chinatown.

What’s A Chinatown?

Dictionaries de ine a Chinatown as a “district of a large non-Chinese town or port in which the population is predominantly of Chinese origin”11 or “an area in a large city that has many Chinese restaurants and shops and where the population is mainly Chinese”12. Both meanings connect a space with an ethnic or origin label, and demarcate common and homogeneous cultural features to a site. Chinatowns identi ied as places with a strong Chinese presence suggests many images in Western collective imagination: ghettos, ma ia organizations, sites of social evils and bad habits –drugs smuggling, gambling, prostitution– and colorful display of traditional festi-vals13. Chinatown as a study object has been meaningful in North America, Australia and Southeast Asia, but less in Europe. From a human geogra-phy standpoint there are two frameworks to study Chinatowns. The irst one de ines it as “towns within cities”14, an oriental community living in a Western urban setting. In such case Chinatown is a physical entity which is subjected to a cycle of natural growth and decay. The second model consid-ers Chinatown as a cognitive entity, a racialized construction that proceeds from the cultural hegemony of people (mostly European) in power. Thus Chinatown is embedded within a macrostructure of power relationships in a historical process15. From the accounts produced by other social research-ers (anthropologists, historians, and sociologists) there are many variables playing in the historical structuring of Chinatowns in many cities of the world and their resulting types. Those variables are the con iguration of a

11 Oxford Dictionaries (http://oxforddictionaries.com/).12 Macmillan Dictionary (http://www.macmillandictionary.com).13 K. Scott Wong, “Chinatown: Con licting Images, Contested Terrain”, MELUS, 20 (1), Spring 1995.14 David Chuenyan Lai, Chinatowns: Towns Within Cities in Canada, Vancouver: University of Brit-

ish Columbia, 1988.15 Kay J. Anderson, “The Idea of Chinatown: The Power of Place and Institutional Practice in the

Making of a Racial Category”, Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 77 (4), 1987.

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Chinese associative network and its in luencing ability on Chinese commu-nity matters; the composition, size and place of origin of Chinese migrants and how they aff ected the making of native institutions; the degree of segregationist or discriminative policies, and the political economy at the receiving country, among others16. This way the scarce Chinatowns formed within Europe –in England, the Netherlands or France– was not segregated neighborhoods as in the US. Nor they had an umbrella associative organi-zation17. As I shall show below the so-called Chinatowns in Madrid may join Chinese migrants’ residence and commercial activities, or only display the latter. They can be bridges for the incorporation of Chinese migrants to the host society, providing employment and social services, but they can have none of these functions, and be only clusters of commercial activi-ties oriented to a non-Chinese clientele. Due to global economic forces, the spread of capital and diversi ication of Chinese migration worldwide, cur-rent settlement patterns are wide-ranging. Those considered traditional Chinatowns (New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles) that are located close to downtowns are undergoing social and economic changes (middle-class migration to the suburbs, investments in new economic activities, stress on tourism attractiveness, etc.). But new forms of settlement have emerged as Luk states18. There are new Chinatowns in cities’ suburbs, known as Chi-nese ethnoburb –a cluster of Chinese settlement and economic activities that gather people from diverse national and ethnic origins, where Chinese migrants have a key weight in its booming economy– and Chinese Busi-ness District (shangquan ), a kind of spatial extension of Asian theme malls. Nevertheless some authors understand such settlement patterns changes as proceeding from a satellization process19, a replication of Chi-nese neighborhoods from an original point into many spots far away from an initial site. Such theoretical viewpoint essentializes historical cities and population developments, linking ethnic Chinese marks to places. In this study the building-up of Chinatowns’ portrayals that mass media create is interpreted not only from a physical and spatial basis (the concentra-tion of Chinese population and ethnic businesses) but also from a symbolic

16 Bernard P. Wong, “Introduction” in Bernard P. Wong & Tan Chee-Beng (ed.), Chinatowns Around the World: Gilded Ghetto, Ethnopolis and Cultural Diaspora, Leiden: Brill, 2013; pp. 1-18.

17 Flemming Christiansen, Chinatown, Europe. An Exploration of Overseas Chinese Identity in the 1990s, London: RoutledgeCurzon, 2003.

18 Chiu M. Luk, “Contextualizing the Emergence of New Chinatowns: An Introduction”, GeoJour-nal, 64, 2005.

19 Bernard P. Wong & Tan Chee-Beng (ed.), Op. Cit.

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viewpoint (the imagery that underlies it). It’s not my intention to take into account what Chinese dwellers think of the neighborhood where they live, but what Spaniards local people think of such migrants’ presence within it. The concentration of Chinese migrants in Madrid City mainly reveals itself in southern districts, as mentioned before. However Carabanchel or Puente de Vallecas are not symbolically addressed by media and blogs’ texts as a Chinatown. Rather labeled places are Usera, Tetuán and Centro districts, as well as Fuenlabrada20 –not a district in Madrid City but a township that administratively depends on Madrid Autonomous Region. These sites dis-play diverse urban scales and features. In Tetuán district the so-called Chi-natown only comprises a street (General Margallo) that gathers a concen-tration of Chinese shops in two or three blocks. Within Centro district three places are identi ied as Chinatowns. The irst one locates itself in Plaza de España, a well-known square which has an underground parking lot with a corridor with many Chinese businesses. One of the irst Chinese supermar-kets opened in Madrid in 1980s is still working there. The second China-town in Centro district is referred to a street very close to Plaza de España called Leganitos. Such street is 400-500 meters long and gathers diverse Chinese businesses – hairdressers, bookshops, electronic devices shops, restaurants, etc. The third Chinatown in Centro is Lavapiés quarter where Chinese migrants live and carry out their daily lives. There is also a high con-centration of Chinese clothes, shoes and accessories wholesale stores in certain streets: Mesón de Paredes or Magdalena. During the years 2005-06 Lavapiés was object of a social and urban restructure plan that seek to ight against what were supposedly for Madrid City Council the key problems in the neighborhood (insecurity, mobility, cleaning and social action). Such plan took some measures such as a high police control on the streets, the establishment of roll-on roll-off time schedule and sanitary inspections that specially aff ected Chinese traders21. As a result of the problems faced among Chinese entrepreneurs in running business in Lavapiés, in 2006 a Chinese association launched an urban and commercial project that expected to build up four big Chinese shopping malls in Madrid four cardinal points. Such project was also addressed as Chinatowns with the aim of developing the biggest representation of Chinese trade in Europe. Even though it was

20 In the last decade Fuenlabrada has become a ‘visible’ Chinese business cluster and was also referred as a Chinatown.

21 Débora Betrisey Nadali, “Empresarios y líderes chinos en Madrid. Prácticas políticas y económi-cas”, CIDOB D’Afers Internacionals, num. 92, 2010.

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openly publicized it could never be implemented. The last site referred as a Chinatown in the corpus of depictions compiled is Cobocalleja area in Fuenlabrada that verify the features of a Chinese Business District (CBD). Cobocalleja is an enormous trade area of around 16,000 square meters that had more than 400 companies run by Chinese people, at least before the police security operation that caught a Chinese businessman responsible for a network of money laundering and income tax evasion happened in October 2012. After such operation22, Chinese entrepreneurs complain about the bad image that aff ected them, the drop on sales and insecurity due to robbery in the area. Having identi ied Madrilean urban locations that the compiled documents tag as Chinatowns, I analyze below the irst broad image created by them: the idea that Chinatowns and Chinese people living in such neighborhoods exert a strong rivalry on Spanish entrepreneurs.

Chinatowns as representations of powerful trade rivalry

Several texts refer to Chinese migrants’ presence in Usera as a threat and menace to local neighbors with regards the occupation of their territory and the misappropriation of local resources. Many times Chinese presence is represented as an avalanche that penetrates the neighborhood, mainly the urban space, as a Spanish owner of a laundry in Usera states: “What 15 years ago was a popular neighborhood of alluvium now is increasingly a Little China. [Chinese] are keeping everything even block the streets with their whacking great cars” (El Mundo, 5 March 2010). The competition over the control of wealth between Chinese migrants and local people is focused in the small urban trade. Its descriptions are usually associated to a battle (“The Asian Siege in the South”, ABC, 20 May 2012), an annihila-tion (“[Chinese] are killing the Spanish business”, ABC, 20 May 2012), an invasion (“[Chinese] have already captured 60 per cent of traditional shops of Madrid”, El País, 9 March 2012), a devastation (“The Chinese commu-nity has convulsed the foundations of small shops in the city, an expansion that full with doubts traditional retailers”, El Mundo, 24 April 2010) and inally the replacement of business ownership from Spaniards’ to Chinese

hands (“The Chinese take the baton to the Spanish businesses”, ABC, 20 May 2012). In these designations certain economic practices are linked to racial and ethnic features which are used as arguments to discredit Chinese

22 http://artdaily.com/index.asp?int_sec=2&int_new=61990#.UcbILdj_Fr0 (Seen June 26, 2013).

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migrants’ activities in the neighborhood. Thus, the Chinese sell plastic, poor quality, cheap, fake and urgent products. And hold their business practices on the basis of trickery, breach of rules – sometimes through personal con-tacts with Administration personnel– and/ or unfair competition, as shown by these statements: “Everything is sold [by the Chinese] at a price much lower than any Spanish dealer” (El blog del bolsillo, 18 October 2012); “They open whenever they want, at any time, no one can compete against them. It’s impossible” (El Mundo, 3 July 2012). All these portrayals come together in a questioning of the way in which Chinese migrants accumulate wealth in a foreign country. Some positions on this issue are intended to be justi ied under the evidence of a so-called “Chinese parasitic economy” which has evident xenophobic overtones23. It is also embedded in common sense notions in many everyday ields, considering that Chinese business do not bene it the host society and Chinese people take advantage of Span-ish social services. This and other so many images work together to build a dividing line between Us and Them (where Chinese migrants are posi-tioned) that are excluded from social belonging, through the use of the igure of the neighbor. Urban dwellers are distinguished by means of adjec-

tives as “traditional neighbors” and “new neighbors”. The new neighbors are targeted through fear and danger rhetoric since they are supposed to be a physical and material threat (because they take resources from locals) and also a symbolic one (as they are displayed as invaders)24. As this para-graph af irms regarding irst necessity consumer goods: “The Chinese is not a person but a commercial establishment, a product, an article (…) useful for the daily supply of small things, bread, fruit or shampoo that was before sold by neighbors [here Chinese are supposed to be another kind of neigh-bors] and now is supplied by suspicious, sullen and exotic aliens encapsu-

23 The “Chinese parasite model of economic expansion” has been reported by Professor Julián Pavón, director of a Center for Graduate Studies in the Polytechnic University of Madrid. In a brief, simplistic and xenophobic video that had more than 1.27 million of Youtube web visits, he says that China and its emigrants leverage other countries’ resources to bene it economically and thus dominate the world. He analyses thoroughly three elements of para-sitic functioning. First, the Chinese create Chinese companies that employ their citizens to sell Chinese products also manufactured by Chinese in China. Second, the income obtained through Spanish consumers is incorporated into Chinese banks that take money to China and increase their reserves in foreign currency. And third, with such reserves China is able to control the supply of raw materials in Africa and Latin America, and control the world economy. Ending with the following expression: “… and in the meantime Spain has 5 million unemployed people”.

24 Observatorio Metropolitano Madrid, Madrid ¿La suma de todos? Globalización, territorio, desi-gualdad, Madrid: Tra icantes de Sueños, 2007.

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lated in a kind of inbred bubble” (ABC, 17 October 2012). Texts compiled appeal to discursive strategies which reinforce some representations on Chinatowns and Chinese people through the replica of ordinary people’s talks (mostly native Spaniards). Such strategies help to convey the natu-ralization of a vision of the world and the social order regarding Chinese migrants supported by the “language of the street”. Expressions referring to “traditional neighbors” (such as the owners of lifelong shops, traditional stores, honorable lifelong shops: the haberdashery, the stationery shop, the hardware store; the traditional commerce and the lifelong neighborhood) all of them contribute to label an urban territory that would belong to certain subjects: locals linked to a homogeneous culture. The branding of the ter-ritory is also reinforced by pointing the temporary, generational and his-torical continuity of native agents in the production of this space, exclud-ing newcomers, as it can be seen in the following examples: “Jaime owner of a fashion boutique that started 20 years ago” (ABC, 20 May 2012); “An establishment founded in 1860 (…) says this mature businesswoman who embodies her family’s fourth generation in the care of the business” (El Mundo, 25 April 2010); “Alzira a neighbor carrying her entire life in the neighborhood remembers with nostalgia as not so long ago Usera was a peaceful neighborhood of working people” (El blog de El Bolsillo, 25 Janu-ary 2011). The naturalization that “traditional neighbors” (supported by the elapsed time of residence) would be legitimately recognized subjects to inhabit the neighborhood; at the same time deny “new neighbors” the right to occupy such urban space25. The division between Us and Them moreover focuses on the distinction between an urban space of a time past and a cur-rent time, where the main cause of social change directs to trade brought by Chinese migrants. This contrast functions distinguishing in a dichotomous way between a romanticized and bucolic unde ined past versus a homog-enized and eroded current time, as examples reveal: “Before it was a charm but this, there is no one who could recognize it (…) they [The Chinese] have the same things in the stores” (ABC, 20 May 2012); “The neighborhood is not what it used to be, in fact it is already theirs [of the Chinese]” (El blog de El Bolsillo, 25 January 2011); “I remember the street (…) it was so pretty, full of shops and bars where you were off ered some mouth-watering tapas, it was a Spanish pure-blood street and now it’s a Chinatown (…) the essence of what it was is now lost” (comment by a reader, ABC, 20 May 2012). In

25 Nirmal Puwar calls those bodies that share a space but are not recognized the right to occupy it, “space invaders”, Observatorio Metropolitano Madrid, Op. Cit.; p. 563.

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the latter, a Spanish pure-blood essence would seem to correspond to a native way of life threatened by polluting aliens. However, pollution would show itself in those neighborhood zones that reveal a discordant aesthet-ics regarding ethnic, national, racial or even classist conditions, as the fol-lowing cases depict: “[Chinese stores] have an aesthetic that devalues both the environment and the building where they are located” (El Mundo, 24 November 24, 2012); “Since 2005 the number of Chinese businesses in this neighborhood [Usera] has increased considerably, which has brought a total shift to this Madrilean area physiognomy, which has always been a working class area” (El blog de El Bolsillo, 25 January 2011); “Some of these stores [Chinese] work with brand names of Spanish women: Carmen, Irene.., a few meters away one from the other. Inside only Chinese language may be spoken” (ABC, 20 May 2012); “I think that those horrible stores do not contribute with anything to the place and that the only thing they bring is degradation and devaluation to the area (…) If you want to fuck up a neighborhood, open a Chinese store and will see how the level decays at a vertiginous pace” (El Mundo, 24 November 2012)26. Discordant aesthetics of the urban landscape points to the decoration of shops, to the use of Chi-nese language and writing as well as the bodily presence of these migrants in the neighborhood. After all, as Puwar says certain bodies – with particular physical attributes and associated behavior – are linked to certain spaces, which have been marked as territories belonging to subjects with particu-lar bodies27, called in the case of Usera neighborhood, Spaniards and work-ers. I will refer below to a second depiction of Chinatowns in Madrid, as shown by compiled discourses.

Chinatowns as a tourist object

Besides the commercial competition, the various Chinatown in Madrid are also depicted as an exotic object transformed (or in process of transfor-mation) in a touristic site. Texts which re lect this image of Chinatown uses more photographs to illustrate such spaces, especially those that come from travel guides and blogs that aim to discover new social trends. Photos

26 These statements come from an article published in the newspaper El Mundo in November 2012, entitled Not Chinese. The overt racist character of the article was denounced by readers on social networks. The pressure exerted by these agents pushed newspaper to remove it the day of its publication.

27 Observatorio Metropolitano Madrid, Op. Cit.

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mainly highlight the spaces of consumption in the Chinatown, store’s names with Chinese characters, goods from supermarkets, some ornamen-tation with red lanterns, and images of migrants (children, young people and adults).

Figure I.

Source: Made in PRC Blog, 7 May 2012.

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Source: Yorokobu.es, 15 February 2012.

Source: Hedhog Guides, 31 March 2011.

Figure II.

Figure III.

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In the making of this representation of the Chinatown, speeches resort to the idea of an internal, nearby, easy and cheap trip to the diff erence. It gives shape to a kind of tourism at home, accessible to everyone who is will-ing and open to experience other cultural forms, as this headlines demon-strate: “A trip to China for a Euro” (Viajeros Express28, 17 January 2011). The trip itinerary is also an exploration addressed mainly to consumption in supermarkets, restaurants, clothing stores, hair salons, karaoke bars or tea shops. Representational building-up of a Chinatown in Madrid –whether in Tetuán or Usera– achieves through the appeal to its authenticity. On the one hand, Madrid Chinatown is considered more genuine and real than the traditional Chinatowns currently existing in Europe or the United States. On the other hand, it is supposed to be more original than the neighbor-hoods that might be found in China itself. Here are some examples: “We are not talking about Chinese lanterns and dragons for tourists as in other Chi-natowns in the world, Usera ‘is’ China in Madrid” (Yorokobu29, 15 February 2012); “This Chinatown is not an attraction like the ones in London or New York, but I think this is more genuine: Chinese shops, Chinese walkers, Chi-nese drivers, this is a Little China in the middle of Spain” (Hedgehog Guides –In English, 18 October 2012); “Our particular Chinatown is more real than what you might ind in Shanghai or any other Chinese provincial city” (Via-jeros Express, 17 January 2011). Thus this space is singled out, assigning it non touristic and non folkloric features but true and genuine aspects, which range from food to the own daily activity of the neighborhood: “You are going to feel yourself as an authentic Beijing man” (Turismo Madrid30, 2 February 2011). In anthropological studies on tourism, the search for authenticity is set as one of the main travel motivations, especially when it is about to travel to diff erent, exotic or ‘primitive’ societies that are con-structed from the otherness. The paradox posed by the building-up of the authenticity regarding a ‘culture’ as a tourist object, is that while observers are attracted by the genuine, the observed modify their practices according to the needs of the tourist market31. In this sense, the symbols linked to the

28 http://www.viajerosexpress.com/2011/01/un-viaje-china-por-un-euro.html (Last seen June 19, 2013).

29 http://www.yorokobu.es/chinatown-usera/ (Last seen June 19, 2013).30 http://www.turismomadrid.es/en/planes-mas-vistos/11142-ano-nuevo-chino-ingles (Last

seen June 19, 2013).31 Ana Alcázar Campos, “’La Cuba de verdad’. Construcción de alteridades y turismo en la con-

temporaneidad. Ph.D. Thesis, Granada: Editorial de la Universidad de Granada, 2010.

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cultural authenticity of the Chinatown of Madrid give an account of its con-struction as a tourist object. The ful illment of this internal travel to cultural diff erence requires crossing a personal inner experience, as referred from compiled discourses. The understanding of the tourist object in its origi-nality goes by isolating the spatial, social, and cultural context and expe-riences a move towards a diff erent and exotic reality, as revealed by next statements: “We give him three Euro convinced that, without any doubt, we are in another country (…) We look around and we are the only Western-ers” (Viajeros Express, 17 January 2011); “As soon as alight Usera metro sta-tion, West becomes East. It’s called Usera but it could be called Shanghai” (Yorokobu, 15 February 2012); “To enjoy a Chinese eff ect you should not go to Hong Kong as an ordinary tourist. It’s better to stay in Madrid and see any Wong Kar-Wai movie as Chunking Express. Already imbued, stroll to Plaza de España, down to the parking lot, and then the essence of the East will strike you” (La Playa de Madrid32, 7 March 2012). The journey also involves other sensorial experiences, linked to the senses of taste, smell and sight. These new sensations occur through making exotic certain prac-tices and objects that are common in everyday life. Thus, within a Chinese supermarket everything transforms itself: “But the combination of bags of colors that off er their shelves makes them irresistible” (estrecho.eu, August 2011); “The irst thing that surrounds us when entering is the penetrat-ing, extremely sharp, unclassi iable aroma (…) and then the explosion of colors: gold, red, green, enters through the eyes. The packages are so fasci-nating, so exotic that one would like to taste them all” (Yorokobu, 15 Febru-ary 2012); “Gastronomically speaking these parties [Chinese New Year] are a feast for the senses” (TurismoMadrid, 2 February 2011); “The unknown spices smell, everything draws attention and simultaneously discourages” (Colorsandia33, March 21, 2011). And some common and known things in daily life are transformed in an orientalist process when they make contact with Chinese characters, as stated by this article: “Across the street of the Chinese there is not a single Chinese restaurant but an establishment which by curious could not miss in this review of the peculiar Soho of the capital: A Chinese real estate company!” (estrecho.eu, August 2011). And one might ask how much of curious could a real estate agency have, or how the experi-ence of entering a store could lead us to the future: “to be tele transported

32 http://www.laplayademadrid.es/archives/1999 (Last seen June 19, 2013).33 http://colorsandia.es/2011/03/asia-a-la-vuelta-de-la-esquina-ii-el-chinatown-madrileno/

(Last seen June 19, 2013).

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to another country” (Colorsandia, 21 March 2011). In the representation of the Chinatown of Madrid, the city labels their status as global when includ-ing an exotic destiny –in a similar way to other major cities of the world34 – open to multiculturalism and the approach to unknown experiences (although it only becomes a reality through consumption). This Chinatown in turn is anchored as a door towards modernity and originality, at the fore-front of cultural processes.

Moreover, for those reasons the narratives which build Chinatown as a modern and avant-garde asset for Madrid City ascribe positive qualities to the neighborhood, trying to reverse stereotypes and prejudices that evoke the Chinese community in Spain. Hence unfair competition is transformed into the possibility of buying great copies of Gucci or Louis Vuitton, and acquiring very cheap goods, the running of Chinese children in the shops because of their parent’s carelessness brings the place a more family-friendly environ-ment, shabby restaurants are really clean and some lazy workers crave to serve customers.

Besides the above-mentioned images of Chinatowns in Madrid, two more alternative narrations can be rescued from the texts analyzed. They are almost insigni icant around its extension and ampli ication; and are only

Source: Photo included in “Chinatown Usera”, Yorokobu, 7 February 2012.

34 Gary McDonogh & Cyndy Hing-Yuk Wong, “Beside Downtown: Global Chinatowns” in Marina Peterson & Gary W. McDonogh (ed.), Global Downtowns, Philadelphia: University of Pennsyl-vania Press, 2012.

Figure IV.

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represented by two articles. But it’s worth mentioning them as long as they pose a challenge to former established images. One of them proposes an integrative vision of the Chinese population in the urban space. The arti-cle comes from Yo Dona –a women-oriented magazine published by one of the best-selling newspapers in Spain– and its title denotes the incorpo-ration or fusion of Chinese migrants into Spanish society: “Spanish Pure-blood Chinatown” (Yo Dona, July 13, 2007)35. In contrast to the narratives that distinguish between new and traditional neighbors, this article rec-ognizes the Chinese migrants’ right to occupy and utilize the urban space, sharing it with local dwellers. Here is one of its statements: “The Chinese have been established as full- ledged inhabitants thanks to his work, which has made them a regular presence on the streets. The next generation of young people (…) will enrich the Spanish society of the 21st Century” (Yo Dona, July 13, 2007). The other contribution comes from a blog written by a lawyer, a Chinese second-generation migrant who has grown up in Spain since childhood, and currently resides in the Spanish East Mediterranean area. In his blog he titled an entry: “Chinatown in Madrid. Little China in Plaza de España” (Made in PRC, October 19, 2012), and describes a store in the basement of the parking lot at Plaza de España which identi ies as mythi-cal and emotionally linked to his personal and also communitarian history: “Attached to this mythical store is one of the most authentic restaurants in Madrid, famous among the Chinese community and other fans to the authentic Chinese food, although some people consider it tacky” (Made in PRC, October 19, 2012). In this entry the author describes the shop and his memories when he traveled with his family to Madrid in order to perform bureaucratic procedures at the Chinese Consulate and how they used to buy some Chinese products in this supermarket that were very dif icult to obtain in the 1990s. This account is eff ectively presented as an alternative to the previously mentioned discourses, because it writes a story of belong-ing as well as recognizes the traces of these migrants’ agents in the urban space, making a collective and symbolic appropriation of the urban space.

Conclusion

In short, both portrayals of the Chinatown(s) in Madrid show the point of view of the local population (with the exception of the last one that refer to

35 http://www.elmundo.es/yodona/2007/06/29/revista/1183108718.html (Seen June 23, 2013).

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the narratives of the own community), which ranges between demonizing Chinese migration in the neighborhood and praising it into an extreme exot-icism. Both positions are built from otherness and the exclusion of Chinese migrants from the collective life of the neighborhood, contributing to the spread of xenophobic feelings and orientalist viewpoints. Although there are some alternative representations that incorporate Chinese migrants in the daily life of the neighborhoods, they are still scarce and fragmentary, and here stands an opportunity to break such dichotomy in the future. When urban dwellers are not classi ied as distinct neighbors, and buy in a Chinese supermarket in Usera only suppose to provide that necessary to make the meal, we will be heading for a closer understanding to the Chinatown phe-nomena in its reality and social context.

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