In communist Cuba, Chinatown bustles with business
Story Highlights
. Havana's Chinatown was granted special permission to run private
restaurants
. Restaurant owner: Government leaves us alone; "I could be in my own
country"
. Cuba grants licenses to small businesses, but Chinatown has fewer
restrictions
. Cuban staff wears traditional Chinese garb, earn better tips than at other
eateries
HAVANA, Cuba (Reuters) -- In communist-run Cuba, a land of ration books and
rusting Chevrolet taxis from the 1950s, there is a tiny pedestrian street
where capitalism is flourishing.
Beneath hanging paper dragons and tasseled red lanterns, a dozen Chinese
restaurants are doing a bustling trade serving up spicy pork noodles, fried
rice and crispy duck, washed down with a Cuban beer or a mojito.
Havana's Barrio Chino, or Chinatown, was granted special licenses a decade
ago to run private restaurants, a move aimed at revitalizing a once-vibrant
area that was hit by the 1959 revolution and almost snuffed out completely
when Cuban leader Fidel Castro took over small businesses in 1968.
Redeveloped largely as a tourist draw, some see the lively strip as a
glimpse of the street-level entrepreneurial culture that Cuba might one day
embrace without necessarily changing its socialist colors, much like China
has done.
"When I arrived, this street was empty. Now the flavor is completely
Chinese. I could be in my own country," said Tao Jin Rong, 66, who came to
Cuba from Shanghai in 1995, the year Castro first visited China.
"The government leaves us alone. I see it as a test. Cuba could do this in
other places, or it could shut us down, it all depends," he said, sipping
Jasmine tea at his restaurant, Tien Tan, in the barrio's main strip, Calle
Cuchillo.
Cuba's economy is 90 percent state-controlled, but since communist bloc aid
dried up with the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, the
government has issued a limited number of self-employment licenses for
people to open small businesses like book stalls or family-run restaurants.
The country's roughly 180,000 private entrepreneurs must work within strict
rules and size restrictions, however.
Chinatown's Cuchillo street has gone a step further -- it is the only place
in Cuba where private restaurants compete side by side, running as real
businesses with flowing profits, menus several pages thick and as many chefs
and waiting staff as they want.
Employees' pay is much higher than the meager wages in government
restaurants.
The barrio's other oddity is its dearth of Chinese nationals, so voluptuous
Cuban waitresses are squeezed into high-collared red and gold-stitched
dresses, and dark Cuban waiters are serene in mustard or navy silk suits.
"I can earn much more with tips here than in a government job," said waiter
Carlos White, 22, who studied gastronomy at college and dreams of having his
own restaurant.
"This is how I want Cuba to be. Because now, life is very hard. Everybody
here dreams of Cuba changing."
Thousands of Chinese poured into Cuba in the mid-1800s, hired to work in
sugar cane fields after slavery was abolished. Most stayed, married Cubans
and moved to the capital.
More came, fleeing communism after China's 1949 revolution, and the Barrio
Chino grew into a sprawling maze of noodle bars and laundries, as well as
notoriously lewd sex shows.
At its peak there were more than 100,000 Chinese here, but after 1968, most
left for the United States. There are only an estimated 300 Chinese-born
immigrants left, most of them white-haired and increasingly hard to spot.
The barrio's wafer-thin Chinese newspaper Kwong Wah Po, set by hand on a
century-old press, sells just 600 copies.
Yet some Chinese culture is being kept alive by the 3,000 Cuban-Chinese here
and by closer trade relations that are filling Cuban homes with Chinese
televisions and fridges.
Chinatown is buzzing again, mainly feeding tourists, government officials
and foreign diplomats.
There is just one government-run Chinese restaurant on the strip. It is
often empty, has waiters in black and white suits and includes pizza and
seafood on the menu.
"Maybe it's not so efficient," ponders Tao. "But Cubans are good workers. My
staff are attentive. They earn good tips."
"Cuba is already changing. I think it would be better if it develops more.
But the change must come from within."
http://www.cnn.com:80/2007/WORLD/americas/04/03/cuba.chinatown.reut/
