When in Rome… eat Chinese?

I never thought I’d be that kind of tourist. The kind that didn’t bother to learn a few useful Italian words before arriving in Italy. The kind that (gasp) sought out Chinese food in the land of pasta and pizza.

But here I am in Italy. And this is the tourist I have become.

As most readers might know, I’m in Europe doing research for my book on Chinese migration to this continent. Instead of hanging out at the Louvre in Paris, I was in the neighbourhood of Belleville where there is a growing Chinatown. Instead of touring Barcelona’s Sagrada Familia, I was in the suburb of Fondo, where many new Qingtian immigrants both live and work. And in Italy, instead of seeing the leaning tower when I landed in Pisa, I instead drove straight to Prato to see how the Chinese are making big bucks, mass producing fast fashion “Made in Italy.”

So before coming to Europe, I brushed up on my Chinese. Nearly all of my interviews have been conducted in Putonghua. And, getting around Europe using English has worked just fine. Until I got to Italy.

Maybe it’s just bad luck. But during our first week in Italy, we encountered at least five people who were upset we could not speak Italian and hostile when we tried, in vain, to communicate.

“Italiano,” said the man in Torino, minding the front desk that night. He glared at me sternly. It happened again in Monselice, a town near Padova. A man at the front desk of a hotel refused to try and talk to me when I inquired about hotel prices. And then again when we tried to buy bus tickets at a bar. I may not understand Italian, but I know when someone’s pissed off — it has often come in the form of one speaking rapid fire Italian to him or herself while rolling their eyes and throwing up their hands.

I should have a thicker skin. I’m a trained journalist and I know what it’s like to be sworn at, to have doors slammed in my face, to be hung up on, to battle other reporters in a scrum. Alas, it still gets to me when people are less than courteous.

To be fair, I have met a good number of nice Italians. Italians who saw us admiring a church in Verona, came over to ask where we were from, and said: “Welcome to Italy!” We have met wonderful hotel staff across the country. People who go out of their way to make us feel comfortable.

But we get shouted at a lot. “NI HAO”s in bars and on the street. Perhaps it’s just their way of being friendly. But I find it condescending. I feel, at times, I am a spectacle. For them to shout “NI HAO” and to get a response is a thrill. Sometimes, I respond with: “Hello.”

For sure, this kind of greeting doesn’t just happen in Italy. I was constantly called “China-man!” in Havana, Cuba. In China, foreigners are often greeted with a jeering: “HALLO! HALLO!” It can be really, really annoying. And when I was still living in New York — multicultural capital of the world — a friend and I were out for the evening and stopped briefly in the Times Square subway station to watch the performers who often gather just outside the famous Latin music store. A young, black performer came up to the crowd and asked everyone to take a step back. When he saw my friend and I (both Chinese), he pressed his hands together and bowed deeply to us, saying: “Konichewa!”

My friend was not amused. He stared the young man down and said: “Dude, I’m American.” The boy seemed surprised by my friend’s reaction, thought for a moment, then extended his hand and said: “Sorry, man, just jokes.”

But never have I ever felt so out of place than here in northern Italy. I have been in the country for more than two weeks now, going back and forth from Torino in the west to Padova, Venice and Rimini in the east. Most of my time has been spent in smaller cities and towns along the way, where there are sizeable Chinese communities who remain largely invisible because most immigrants spend their days and nights in garment factories outside of the city centres. In recent years, the Chinese have started buying up bars in Italy. This puts them in a (better) position where they must interact with Italians on an every day basis. But the community is very insular and largely keeps to themselves. To many Italians, the Chinese here are “mysterious” and “secretive.”

Growing up in multicultural Toronto, I’m used to seeing immigrants everywhere — in school, at work, on the bus, in the subway, at the parks. But here in northern Italy, I often find myself looking around and noticing ‘wow, I’m the only Asian here.’

So I have started to do something I thought I’d never do — I have, on several occasions, sought out Chinese restaurants in Italy. Please, before you start with me, just let me say: I love pasta! Rigatoni, Penne, Lasagna, Gnocchi, you name it. I love pizza! With a glass of wine? Heaven. And the fromaggio! Oh, how I do love cheese.

But there’s just something about having a warm, bowl of soup noodles and a nice helping of dumplings in my tummy. Or rice. A nice steaming bowl of fragrant white rice, with crispy stir-fried vegetables, maybe some garlic shrimp, and some spicy tofu. Slurping up the flavours! Biting into juiciness! But this isn’t only about comfort food. There’s something else: it is *so* nice to be able to go into a restaurant and order with fluency. No need for wild hand gestures. No need to second guess. No surprise dish showing up on the table.

I find myself looking for Chinese people on the street when I’m lost and need to ask for directions, even though in my experience, the Chinese suck at giving directions. But, here, it’s just so much easier than trying in Italian.

So here I am, doing exactly what I think Chinese immigrants shouldn’t do when they are in a foreign country: Speak only to other Chinese and eat only in Chinese restaurants.

Over the course of my research, I have found that most of the Chinese immigrants arriving in Europe seem to be having a challenging time integrating into their new communities, adapting to the foreign culture, and learning the local languages. For the immigrants employed in factories across Italy, it has been especially tough. They spend their days and nights surrounded by co-workers who are also Chinese immigrants, and their food and lodging is provided by their Chinese immigrant bosses. I have spoken with factory workers who have been in Italy more than ten years and still cannot speak more than a few sentences in Italian.

It’s very easy to be unsympathetic. “Here are these immigrants coming to a new country and just building mini Chinatowns, with no regard or respect for the local language and culture…” But over the past few weeks, I have been given a small taste of what it must be like for these new immigrants, many of whom have little education and no grounding in any Western language. Already, I am at a huge advantage as a Chinese born Canadian. But I have experienced first-hand what it’s like to feel like an alien — isolated and alone. Not being able to speak Italian in Italy is a major impediment. And the urge to find someone who looks like you and speaks the same language as you, can be irresistible.