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CHINESE POWER IN SPAIN:
Their passage through history and economy of Spain


CHINESE POWER IN SPAIN:
Their passage through history and economy

The history of Chinese people in the history of Spain is not recent. They came long time ago, as an invisible minority, opening their own businesses without a big involvement in the affairs of our country. However, in the last ten years, thenumber of Chinese people in Spain has increased and also their businesses and importance in the economic activity. It has been increasing the racist feelings towards them, and Spanish people have realized that they are a threat, because of the way they work and the price of the product they create and sell. In fact, they have recovered the culture of local small shop, that were disappearing in Spainand they are also creating wealth for Spain. These and other aspects are what this review is going to be focus, in order to make people understand better the situation of Chinese immigrants in Spain.

Phases of the history of Chinese in Spain

There were between three or four phases in the migrations of Chinese people to Spain, over forty years since then first ones came to Spain, untilnowadays. The relations with Chinese culture although dates back several centuries, because of the Silk Road. We can see still now this relation in some parts of Spain, as they are Murcia, Granada, Cádiz or Valencia, where there are workshops of manufacture of Silk garments. Even in the flag of the Valencia appears a bat, which is an icon from the Chinese culture that means an omen of good luck, basicallybecause of phonetic coincidence with the word “fú” 福 (happiness) and “fu” 蝠 (bat). Could be is not the original reason because we have a bat in our flag, but could be was a part of it.
We had really good commercial relations with China, and even some writers went to China long time ago to learn about their culture and to make them know about ours. Spain was the nexus between Europe and Chinaduring a long time, until they started their relationships with other countries.
After that, in the mid twentieth century, in 1970, the first Chinese arrived to Spain with the Second Republic. It could be because of the information arrived from Spain, and to search another better life. The type of Chinese people that came in this age was families, consisting of parents, sons and daughters. The 80%came from Qingtian (Zhejiang) 青田（浙江), in the south of China. Those were the first ones in create the Chinese restaurants that we know today and little stores. They were people isolated, that just wanted to join with other Chinese people, and not with Spanish people, and didn’t want to be involve in the normal life of Xibanya 西班牙, as they call Spain.
In the years before, more Chinese came toSpain because they heard about how the other expats were living here, and how much money they were earning, and sending back to China. But the market of Chinese restaurants was saturated, and new immigrants had to invest in other businesses, and started to buy some local stores and companies that Spanish people left. The biggest increased of the immigration to Spain was in the nineties, before theentrance of European Union and the Olympic Games of Barcelona, what opened the hostelry market and let them start their business all along the Mediterranean coast(Parellada E., 2004).
In the last years, Chinese are founding biggest companies, not just small ones as in the past. This is the age of the great stores in industrial areas, the age of an important integration of this population inside deSpanish society, and the increased of Chinese people being born in Spain.

Chinese lifestyle in Spain

Chinese people come here not to live, but to improve their life, because they are very poor in their countries, and they have the opportunity to earn more money here than there. In fact, the come here, create their business and work hard to just make money and make savings. The reason is...