Chinese Tourists Firenze Florence Italy

Chinese on Tour, Chinese in Bondage & a Memorandum for Professor Milton Friedman Burning in the Fiery Fires of an Eternal Hell

I

t was a muggy summer evening (3 August 2007) and I raced to the bus stop in front of the Santa Maria Novella train station to catch the 20:30 ATAF (Azienda Trasporti Area Fiorentina) public transport to my home. Within two minutes, I could see the 2 CALENZANO bus coming on to reach the ten or so of us waiting in the heat. As the bus lurched to a stop, I was taken aback when I

saw it jampacked and further bedazed when I reckoned that the occupants were all Chinese tourists—the first I had ever seen in Italy since coming here in 1983. The Chinese stood out from the rest of the occupants. Firstly, they were Chinese. They were not dressed as elegantly as were the Italian passengers. They were young adults, students. They conversed in Chinese. It was most unusual. I had met before many Japanese tourists who had sojourned in hotels near my home, and they had been extremely gracious to me for pointing out the right bus stop for them to get off at their destinations. Japanese tourists are well-appreciated by Florentines because they shop in the elegant shops on Via Tornabuoni, and walking all about Firenze, one can see Japanese shoppers publicizing world famous brand names printed boldly on particularly beautifully designed shopping bags. Japanese are offered Tuscan smiles; no one in the bus beamed cordially at the happy-go-lucky Chinese students. In fact, some Florentines were disgusted by their presence. After a couple of minutes scrutinizing the group, I approached one and asked, in English, where he had come from. He did not understand me, and was quite perplexed about why I had questioned him. I had with me one of my ads for English classes and translation work that my friend Lin Lai Hua had translated for me into Chinese, and I gave it to the bewildered chap. He immediately broke into a smile and called to a young lady to come to us so that she could interpret. He was anxious to know what I wanted to find out. The miss was in her early twenties and was extremely exuberant and happy to answer the questions I put to her about the troupe. She told me she had studied some months in the United States, and she was particularly proud to tell me that her father was an economist and her mother a doctor. She emphasized, swelled with satisfaction, that her physician mother was very much respected and loved by her patients for the care she offered them. Her friends were Chinese students from poles-apart parts of China. There was a joie de vivre in her bearing which I construed as being both charming and innocent. She had nothing unspeakable to say about anything or anyone, and she was pollyannaish about her plans to continue studying languages so that she could work in the Chinese tourist industry. She loved to travel and meet people.

2

I tried to fix her in my mind along with those ideas I have gathered from my copies of China Today (www.chinatoday.com.cn) which the staff of the Chinese consulate in Firenze is pleased to give me when I visit with them. China Today is a wonderful magazine filled with extraordinary pictures of China and stories and statistics which reveal a great deal about the third largest country in the world, the nation with the most prodigious population, and where the mostspoken language has been mouthed now for millennia. In this publication, which I suspect is the best of its type, the reader is taken on a truly interesting and revealing journey of discovery. We see China's Past and the importance it has played in the development of the people's republic. But more importantly, there is a showcase of events and outcomes which clearly indicate that China has the desire to progress, modernize, care better for its people, and, genuinely momentous, join in with the rest of humanity in trying to make this world a better place for all of us. Like so many public relations' efforts, China Today harps on what is so much pleasant to say about China and winnows out most of the seedy elements which we have come to know about this enormous mass of humankind. Why should it? Why should it not? With the emphasis on progress, individual development and harmony in human relations, which is indeed crucial to understanding Chinese philosophy, I could see that both this young, high-spirited girl on the 2 Calenzano-bound bus, and my copies of the splendid China Today, offered me a particularly gratifying impression of China and its people. There is a verve imbued within the Chinese citizenry which is extraordinary. Their way of life is one of the most formidable on the planet. The Chinese have survived, it seems, perpetually, and now they are so sure of themselves, they feel confident enough to display their manner of doing things for all of us, in all parts of the world. Cotton tee shirts are no longer going to cost €1.00. The 2008 Olympics this year will be an economic and social watershed for this eastern Asia Goliath. It would be tragic for us to reject them and sad for them to spurn us. History has shown that men and women are to be more remembered for their conflicts than for their good will and community spirit. Who would know this better than the Chinese? How long have they been on our planet? Why would they want to possess nuclear weapons? Or not?

M

ulling over this inspiring encounter for days after, I could not help thinking about the Chinese settlement that I have seen maturate over the years in the city of Prato some five or six kilometres from my home. I worked on a daily basis in Prato in the 3

mid-1980s, and I witnessed the arrival of the first Chinese—an infinitesimal social organization that would blossom and, in less than twenty years, subvert an 800-year-old textile industry, for hundreds of years ruled in feudalistic style, and plainly rescue Prato from its declining fortunes due in large part to its lack of commercial know-how and a dwindling birth rate, one of the lowest in the world. Without the Chinese immigrants Prato would have succumbed to a financial disaster never known before in its centuries-old history. The Chinese also permeated shoe and leather goods industries not far from Prato and in other parts of Italy. Nonetheless, a price, which would make NeoTheoCons proud, had to be paid—both by the Pratesi and the Chinese. For all the years that the Chinese have thrived in Prato, they have done so as much as possible by themselves. They have had to contend with an often brutal reception on the part of the Italian community, and being victims frequently of racist confrontations, their self-imposed isolation is what would be expected. Sorry to say. Another obvious difficulty that complicates the state of affairs is the language barrier. Italians do not speak Chinese; the Chinese do not speak Italian. Chinese textile, shoe and leather goods employees come largely from the Zhejiang Province not far from Shanghai, and they speak a dialect not comprehended by many Chinese themselves. They lived in squalor in China and few even ever went to school. Without a doubt, the welcome I viewed and which was afforded to these people from rural China was far from Christian. And as I write this article, there is a great ethnic “wall” which separates the Pratesi and Chinese and keeps them so at a distance, there is next to nil community spirit existent between the two—after all these years. The “invasion” of Chinese settlers has humiliated and instigated the Pratesi to reflect upon the demographic disaster their country is experiencing. Still, the Pratesi have done nothing to address this statistical tragedy and, rather, with their accumulated wealth, they have opted to live a nouveau riche lifestyle offering their children all the electronic and fashion amenities available, but failing to tender them the values of study and labour—qualities that form the basis of a prosperous and vibrant economic environment. There are no plans for Prato’s future, and if there were, no one would be interested in implementing them. And the Pratesi continue to blame the Chinese for changing a portion of their medieval city into a “Chinatown” which the Pratesi, from time to time, pass through in their BMWs and Mercedes-Benzs! 4

For their part, the Chinese have had to be clever and selfsacrificing. They are mind-boggling at being so. Obviously, not all Chinese workers are living a lower-rung existence. Many of them, the people in charge, have also progressed to where they own attractive apartments and expensive automobiles. But the backbone of the Chinese success in Prato is the “exploitation” of those Chinese migrants who have left their homeland to come to Italy to earn more than the pittance they grossed in rural China. This fact does not disturb neither the consciences of the people of Prato nor those of the Chinese “capitalists” bent on grabbing still another chunk of the Tuscan textile, shoe and leather goods commerce. There are sweatshops dotted all over the outskirts of Prato, and beyond, where poor Chinese people work slave hours. They live and eat in the plants where they work, and on Sundays, their only free day, they sit on their bunk beds playing cards, drinking beer and smoking cigarettes. Because many of them are illegal entrants, they will not risk visiting the centre of Prato. They are formidable workers. Precise. Capable of working long hours. Quick learners. They are doing the work that the children of the Pratesi did for centuries, a drudgery that today these kids—if they existed even in any substantial number—no longer deem important to their frivolous lifestyles. The textile baton in Prato is slowly being passed to the Chinese. Is the end of the race approaching? Ninety percent of Italian businesses are family affairs. Which means that a small enterprise is stacked with family members who work out among themselves child care responsibilities, rushes to the bank or post office, vacation days, visits to the doctor, and any other necessity that is, from habit, accomplished during work hours. A company will be open about ten-twelve hours a day to fill in the gaps created by family tasks, and complaining family persons in command return home stressed, depressed and pissed-off with the inefficiency of their ventures. When business is profitable, there are sighs of relief. When not, tranquillizer and antacid pills are reached for. These days, the pharmacies are swarming with nervous parvenus, their faces pale. Imagine your mother-in-law, brother, sister-in-law, grandchildren coming to visit you from school, your wife, your cousin…all dropping in to stopover with you while you are on the phone with a client in New York. A pause here, a breather there. You only wish they would all go away. But then, they would say you are not simpatico—a sort of Kiss of Death! You reach for your wallet to pay for a new sweater, a broken car window, a 5

parking fine, medicine for your mother, tickets to Sunday’s La Fiorentina football match against Juventus, your wife’s mammogram, a video game for your favourite grandchild…they keep darting at you—even in your sleep. With all this stress, you try to trust that when the father of George Bush II, George Bush I, flew in private jet from Milan to Lugano, Switzerland a few days after the 9 September 2001 tragedy to patch up a bit the capitalistic system, he didn’t get hold of your secret Swiss bank account number which one day Italian internal revenue authorities (they are not simpatici) might bargain for to keep you out of jail and your weak-kneed Italy on its feet. With all your fifs (funny inside feelings) and acts of simpatia, you, Italian small businessman or woman, par excellence, are emotionalising yourself right out of business! You are in via d’estinzione and so frail you are not even cognisant of the fact! But Chinese businessmen and women in Prato, whose kids work their asses off and study, will remember small-time Italian factory owners the most for their teaching skills. If you visit an Italian firm it is not that it is overcrowded with family every minute of the day. (Worse, it is the idea that your mother-in-law just might drop in the next hour!) Clients, having first preference anyway, usually know when to pass by: at lunchtime, after hours, never when school is out. Those damn little monsters! Interestingly enough, all visits by clients and tertiary workers (once Italian but now Chinese) are accepted at work tables in the factory and not in the administrative offices at the back of the factory or on the floor above it where a sister (she handles the accounting) is also babysitting a three and four-year-old who are screaming their lungs out. When the Chinese came to Italy to work, they were given free lessons on how to make elegant shoes, beautiful leather bags, exquisite jackets and whatever watching employees go about their trades while the owner was busy on the phone or looking for a mop to give to his wife so she could clean the bathroom floor. The Chinese studied well. They did not sit twiddling their thumbs in some waiting room at the company’s entrance. They memorized tools, learned by heart work techniques, put to memory production processes…and, miraculously, in twenty years came to shine as workers—expert workers. One day when I arrived at one manufacturer’s concern, his wife was furious with the workmanship of a product of theirs which had been allotted, I thought, to Chinese artisans. I suggested that she should have patience with the Chinese because they were learning. Time would be needed. This infuriated her the more: “This work wasn’t done by the Chinese! It was done by the Italians!” She went on to explain to me that when a Chinese person 6

makes a mistake, he or she runs back to their workshop to adjust the problem. An Italian would not even think of doing such a thing. If the order calls for 30 stitches, the Chinese will comply meticulously. The Italian will 28-29 it. She told me point blank: “Here, we prefer to work with the Chinese!” But why? € € €, naturally! Or at least, most importantly! Sure, the Italians get the well-done Chinese craftsmanship. However, they obtain it at an outlay which is unbelievably subdued—at least for now! With these low to the ground fees, brand name companies and cheats are lining up to do business with the Chinese. There are three ways, that I know of, that these exquisitely-manufactured dirt cheap products are sold in the marketplace: the famous-name brands sell a Chinese-made bag in their posh boutiques for $1,500; an outlet sells the same bag for €300; and, a poor Senegalese man will plod through sands along the beaches in Versilia selling the same handbag for €50-100! And no one is the wiser! Except the Chinese! (Professor Milton Friedman—and I know you are dead and burning in the Fiery Fires of an Eternal Hell for being such an economic imbecile while you were on Earth—who is more ignorant than an Italian small businessperson? A Wall Street banker in the “shadows!”) The most palpable conclusion that we may deduce from this economic heartbreak is this: Why should the Chinese (it is said there are about 15,000 in the Prato area, perhaps the largest Chinese colony in Europe) remain in Italy and take all this Italian crap any longer when they can bring all that they have learnt back to China and craft their own articles? That would leave a large chunk of the Italian economy is disarray. Why should one buy a GUCCI bag for $1,500 when a GUCCHANG bag, of the same quality, could cost $500? Elementary, my dear Watson, elementary! But how have the Chinese not lucked out, you might ask? The Chinese have been put up against an incredibly stubborn resistance to their presence in Prato and still more so in Rome. And, to compensate, they have closed in upon themselves. They have been treated worse than the black men from Senegal. And, with their numbers, the Chinese have been forced to create a huge emotional barricade to keep themselves away from the Italians. Many will argue that twenty years is a very short time for a people to incorporate themselves into an unfamiliar culture. This is true. But it is also accurate to say that twenty years was enough for the Chinese to dominate that same society (Prato) and bring it to its 7

economic knees. There is no compassion coming from the Chinese. (There was never any empathy exuding from the Italians.) As a consequence, the Chinese have lost out on a great opportunity to sort themselves out with, at least, the Italians. And I find this, personally, distressing and inopportune.

P

rofessor Milton Friedman, I wish to tell you now why you have been condemned to the Fiery Fires of an Eternal Hell. Your stupidity on our Earth was such that there was not a Chinaman’s chance for you to be admitted to Cloud Nine. You poor soul! You were so lacking in intellectual acuity! When your brainstorm took off at the University of Chicago, you pursued a way of influencing the whole world with your Kick Ass Economy and sorted out the most sordid collection of bagmen, Republicans, dictators in Southamerica, murderers in Africa, and even socialists in the ex-Union of Soviet Socialist Republics to bring to fruition your heinous conniving. What a magnificent coming together of powerhouses and powerful ones. You mesmerized them with your intelligence and wit, and you convinced all that being a hard-nose was the only way to get underprivileged people off their butts and into the honky-dory times of Kick Ass Economy. Don’t give them a fishing pole to catch fish with; make them make their own poles and who cares what happens to them if they don’t. Just as Ayn Rand would recommend. And Alan Greenspan! And all the other Twentyfirst Century Robber Barons in your entourage of nitwits. You and your Chicago Boys pissed off hundreds of millions of people throughout the world, and if you were alive today, you would not be able to visit any of the countries on this Earth where your daft Kick Ass Economy wrought havoc and ruined people’s lives with abandon. Even John Kenneth Galbraith was not as foolish as you! He quested after a softer touch. JKG (“The responsibility of a government is to make sure that the underprivileged have enough to eat and a job to perform so that they do not disturb the rich. Only a stupid conservative is really conservative;” [my translation from the Italian]), unfortunately, was a sort of capo mafioso. He wanted to take care of his turf in a generous manner, but he forgot that half the world lives on two scanty dollars a day. JKG was both near-sighted and patrician. In a Southamerican dictatorship, he would have been called “benevolent!” But unlike you, MF, JKG had an uncanny insight into economics which, if you had listened to him, might have enabled you to bargain for a place in a Forgiving Purgatory and not the Fiery Fires of an Eternal Hell where you are at this moment burning in perpetuity! (Ha! Ha!! Ha!!!) JKG made the interesting deduction that the success of Kick Ass Economy was its 8

failure. Let me explain. JKG, MF, believed that a successful capitalistic system needed a political arrangement ruled by a few people, a hierarchy (I call it an olisocism) which would “lead” its people along with the hope that they would eventually come up to the level of the more prominent and intelligent members of its “ruling class.” Depending on the quality and preparation of that upper crust, a nation’s achievements or its breakdowns would be graded. The Affluent Society, without a doubt, reflected the responsibilities that the “oligarchy” retains towards its hoi polloi. You, MF, thought otherwise. You did not want to hang around waiting for the masses to get an MBA, so you took on an aggressive appearance and put your Chicago Boys to work around the world inculcating them with the values of the Kick Ass Economy which you thought, as any other messianic cult leader would, could tilt the globe. Your farce went well for a long while until you met up with the Chinese and the Russians. The Russians bit hook line and sinker all the bull that that phoney Jeffrey Sachs dealt them, but they then pulled up Kick Ass Economy stakes and went their merry way. The Chinese? No, they decided to go along with the doctrinaire Kick Ass Economy because they knew that they had the enormous chance, the people numbers, to kick Kick Ass Economy out of the capitalistic ballpark for once and for all. MF, you goofball, you gave them the idea! If JKG’s brain wave that the success of capitalism was its failure could be totted up logically (Karl Marx: “If you give them enough rope, they will hang themselves”), then the only way of promulgating capitalism’s vicious success (your notion), and subsequently shove it down the throats of the Robber Barons and olisocists (really limp-wristed capitalists), was to embrace Kick Ass Economy’s best features. If you figure that 15,000 Chinese immigrants sent to Prato, most of whom cannot even read and/or write, could destabilize an 800-year-old industry in twenty years, imagine what 1,000,000,000 Chinese Boys might do throughout the world! (Western Europe is a demographer’s nightmare; and, the US Census Bureau [2000] reports that the largest European ancestries have decreased in population, while African American, Hispanic, and Asian ancestries have increased. Clash of Civilizations? With whom? European Geriatrics’ Wards?) MF, who needs Weapons of Mass Destruction when we have Weapons of Mass Production! The Chinese agreed to play by your rules. Remember, MF, how the United States of America, The Grand Ship, broke through storms and icy waters to open up the front for Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, and the United Kingdom all of whom basked in the wake that The Grand Ship spearheaded for them? The Grand Ship did all the “dirty work.” Dirty? If you don’t believe me, ask the 9

Africans, Asians, and Southamericans. Ask them what they think of Kick Ass Economy. Do you in all honesty accept as true the idea that this “Big 7” is loved and respected? And, so what if the Chinese Boys take up on Kick Ass Economy? Who is going to point the finger at them? Mother Teresa? That half-wit Professor Peter Navarro at the University of California? An old Chinese warrior once said: “Don’t kill off your enemy with your own arms—use his.” Once you, MF, were King of the Mountain. But no more. You simply forgot one very important corollary which, as far as I know, had its origin on Madison Avenue: IT PAYS TO BE NICE! Milton, you were far from being simpatico! And you are burning in the Fiery Fires of an Eternal Hell for being so stupid! Do you think I will win the Nobel Prize for Economics? You did! ASJ Anthony St. John

Casella Postale 38

50041 Calenzano FI

5 January 2008

10

Italia

3356047381