There’s a chapter in Roberto Saviano’s excellent book Gommorah, about the sometimes violent competition between Camorra run underground garment factories and Chinese run underground garment factories (in Naples). My first thought when reading this chapter was that the Chinese were probably Wenzhounese, because of the sizable Wenzhounese diaspora in Europe, and the city’s general dominance of the garment industry (and the fact they’re shady as hell).
It seems I was right, at least according to the Guardian:
You only need to walk a few hundred yards down Via Pistoiese, a narrow road out of Prato, to feel you have travelled several thousand miles. Beyond the bakery, at number 29, Italy all but evaporates.
The supermarket shelves offer dried lily flowers, bags of deep-frozen chickens’ feet and jars of salted jellyfish. There is a Chinese herbalist, a Chinese jeweller, Chinese restaurants and bars, even a Chinese ice cream parlour.
According to the foreign ministry in Beijing, this Tuscan textile city and its surrounding province has the highest concentration of Chinese in any administrative district outside China itself. Silvia Pieraccini, a local journalist and author of a book, L’Assedio Cinese (The Chinese Siege), reckons there are 50,000 Chinese in Prato, and that they make up about 30% of the city’s population. But no one knows, because so many – well over half, says Pieraccini – are there illegally.
All but a few are from around of Wenzhou, a port in south-east China, and are drawn to Italy by an industry created from scratch in less than 20 years. Pronto moda involves importing cheap fabric, usually from China, and getting it made up to order at breakneck speeds into high-fashion garments that are then sold with “made in Italy” labels.
“The Chinese Seige” you say? Well that guy sounds like a jerk.
The article goes through some of the general problems that country’s have dealing with immigrants, and then adds at the end of each point “but gasp! they’re Chinese.” Generally speaking these problems are registration, taxation, integration, and competition with the locals for jobs. These problems seem to be accentuated by the fact that the businessmen they are working for are not bothering to register their companies with local officials. Still, as far as an immigrant community goes this sounds like an ideal one:
1. They are there to do business, and in the very unlikely scenario that they have no Italian workers, the local community still provides services, inputs and general living arrangements.
2. According to the article they are integrating quite well “Already, you can see around town Italianised Chinese teenagers, the girls particularly conspicuous in their chic, often provocatively cut outfits and heavy makeup.” (that sounds quite pleasant).
3. And the existence of this community eases trade and investment from China.
Or in other words, these communities are supplying Italy with growth, Italy just has to update its bureaucracy to deal with them.
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