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The Building of Chinese
Ethnicity in Rome
Networks without Borders
Violetta Ravagnoli
 The Building of Chinese Ethnicity in Rome

“Highly original and elaborately reasoned, Violetta Ravagnoli’s work is packed

with unanticipated insights into immigrants who live complex transnational lives in
the emerging, fractious global society of the twenty-first century. A seamless com-
bination of ethnography, oral history, and cultural studies, this book imaginatively
presents the Chinese presence in contemporary Rome, from their perspectives and
from the perspectives of their Italian neighbors.”
—David Gerber, Distinguished Professor Emeritus of History,
State University of New York, Buffalo (SUNY)

“Dr. Ravagnoli’s book is an exciting and important contribution to the field. It is

theoretically significant and empirically rich, illustrating the importance of the
“glocal” approach in studying migration and ethnicity. The numerous migrant
stories highlight the diversity of migrants’ experience, marked by flexibility and
fluidity that the author terms “an enduring translocality.” This includes family and
hometown networks that have remained the strongest bonds transcending borders
and distances. The effective glocal analysis is based on the author’s diligent and
masterful collection and examination of sources in different languages across local
and national boundaries, particularly the vivid and unique oral history and partici-
pant observation facilitated by the author’s fluency in the Chinese language and
her own background as a migrant navigating different spaces and cultures. The
author’s writing style is also distinctly engaging. She names one of her main inter-
viewees after Shan Tao, the sage of the third century in China, both a humorous
tribute to her interviewee and a testimony of her deep knowledge of Chinese his-
tory. While adopting an inherent multidisciplinary perspective, the author’s his-
torical insights also stand out, including her scrutinization of the history of
Esquiline from the foundation of Rome to present to unravel the myth of the “old
splendors” of the region (thus the nativist sentiments against the “Chinese inva-
sion”) and to show that ethnic identity is flexible and historically and situationally
constructed. In a word, the book is an important contribution to the field and,
with its unique case study and writing style, will be useful for both specialists and
the general audience interested in migration, race, ethnicity, modern Chinese his-
tory, and China-Europe relations.”
—Lisong Liu, Professor of History, Massachusetts College of Art
and Design (MassArt), Boston
“The Building of Chinese Ethnicity is an important study that explores the lived
experience of Chinese trans-locality in Rome. Ravagnoli reclaims the term glocal
for her subjects, arguing their experiences must be understood in terms of interna-
tional events and policies on local environments both in their host and sending
cities. Through her extensive use of oral interviews, Ravagnoli allows us to see the
complexities, difficulties, and contradictions inherent in the translocal experience
in very personal ways that nevertheless shed critical light on the larger, transna-
tional context. The Building of Chinese Ethnicity in Rome is imaginative, sensitive,
and innovative.”
—Heather Streets-Salter, Professor of History at Northeastern University
and Associate Vice-Chancellor for Global ConnEXions
 Violetta Ravagnoli

The Building of
Chinese Ethnicity in
Rome
Networks without Borders
Violetta Ravagnoli
Department of History
Emmanuel College - Massachusetts
Boston, MA, USA

ISBN 978-3-031-07024-2    ISBN 978-3-031-07025-9 (eBook)

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-07025-9

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer
Nature Switzerland AG 2022
This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the
Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of
translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on
microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval,
electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now
known or hereafter developed.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this
publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are
exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information
in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the
publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect
to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The
publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and
institutional affiliations.

This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature
Switzerland AG.
The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland
 Contents

1 Introduction  1
Methodology   6
Roman-ness  17
“Chinese-ness”  22
Timeframe  25
Chapters  28

2 Chinese
 Migrations in the European Context 31
EU-China Relations  32
Chinese Migrants and the EU  35
Italians and the EU  37
The EU, Migration, and The Paradox of Fortress Europe  38
Conclusion  45

3 Oral
 Accounts of Chinese Migrations to Italy: A History
of Translocality 47
Vignettes  48
Shan Tao  50
Early Comers  58
The Changs  60
Mrs. Wang  61
Recent Comers  62
Mrs. Ye and Mr. Liu, the Journalists  62
Mr. Feng  63

v
vi Contents

A Glance at Second-Generations  65
Conclusion  68

4 Problematizing
 the Roman Chinatown 71
Media Power  80
Comforting Traditions  84
Conclusion  86

5 Roman
 Theater: Italians versus “Others” 89
Social Life in the Esquiline: Attitudes of Interviewees Toward
Chinese Migrants  98
The Rancorous 100
The Indifferent 105
Conclusion 109

6 Historical
 “Fact Checking”: Chronicles and Legacy
of the Esquiline113
Piazza Vittorio 114
Italian Nationalism and the Esquiline 115
#1 Commerce 118
#2 Religion 118
#3 Demographics 119
The Reality of the Esquiline 120
Rome and the Esquiline in Latin Texts 126
Ancient Rome and the Esquiline 129
Medieval Esquiline and the Growing Presence of the Church 133
Conclusion 136

7 Once
 Upon a Time in China: Reverberations of Identities139
Chinese Government and Migration 140
Zhejiang: A Sending Province 144
Wenzhou 144
Qingtian 147
Conclusion 161
 Contents  vii

8 Epilogue: Toward a Glocal Oral History165

Bibliography173

Index189
 CHAPTER 1

Introduction

Don’t ask us for the phrase that can open worlds,Just a few gnarled
syllables, dry like a branch.This today is all we can tell you,what we are
not, what we do not want.
—Eugenio Montale (1925) (Eugenio Montale (1896–1981) is an
Italian writer who won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1975. The
quote above is part of a poem titled: “Non chiederci la parola” or “Do
not ask us for the phrase,” published in the poetry collection entitled
Ossi di seppia—Cuttlefish Bones

On September 1, 2017 La Repubblica, a prominent Italian newspaper,

published an article declaring the failure of the dream for ethnic integra-
tion in the Roman neighborhood of the Esquiline.1 Since the late 1990s,
the number of migrants arriving and settling in Rome grew by 115%,
while the native population of Rome shrunk instead.2 During those years
of incoming migrations, the Esquiline became the symbol of a multicul-
tural Rome that would potentially lead the country to a new, open and

1
Lagioia, Nicola, “Esquilino e dintorni, il sogno multietnico infranto [Esquiline and sur-
rounding area, the multiethnic dream disrupted]” La Repubblica, from the newspaper online
archive, accessed online at www.larepubblica.it on May 2, 2020.
2
Censis (Centro Studi Investimenti Sociali), “È boom di stranieri: sono il 12.7% a Roma”
[Increase of foreigners: they are 12.7% in Rome] La Repubblica June 22, 2015 accessed on
May 2017 on www.repubblica.it.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 1

Switzerland AG 2022
V. Ravagnoli, The Building of Chinese Ethnicity in Rome,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-07025-9_1
2 V. RAVAGNOLI

blended society. This ambitious vision, held in high consideration espe-

cially by progressive politicians and intellectuals, was supposed to reshape
the geography and the sociality of the Esquiline and to lead the whole city
into a new era of harmonious cohabitation. Nicola Lagioia in his book
Esquilino explains how the dream of a multi-ethnic Rome that could
potentially become a model for hospitality for the entire peninsula—ide-
ally leading it toward the implementation of a peaceful multicultural soci-
ety—was instead a shattered dream that had miserably failed.3
The Esquiline today is often referred to as the “Roman Chinatown,”
definition that carries a sense of despair, loss, and carelessness. In another
article on La Repubblica, the Esquiline is defined as a place for melting pot
“vaccinara style” evoking a traditional Roman dish made with the scrap
pieces of a cow, specifically the tail, simmered with a mix of vegetables.4
This stew is expression of a Roman-ness made of thriftiness, ingenuity,
joviality, but also of a poverty-induced laxity; and in the article, it symbol-
izes the controversial designation and existence of a “Roman Chinatown.”
This research started almost twenty years ago, when as a student of
Chinese language, I was eager to find places to practice Mandarin and
meet people of Chinese origins. That was when one of my classmates
enlightened me on a very welcoming Evangelical Church in the Esquiline.
I went for a stroll around Piazza Vittorio but could not find the Church.
The Internet was not mainstream, and it was hard to find precise addresses.
I was looking for a building resembling my image of a Church and not
able to contemplate a place of worship that looked like an apartment or a
store. Nevertheless, the trip was not made in vain, as never had I experi-
enced Rome as I did that day: a city made of small shops, crammed with
“ethnic” goods sold inexpensively and not at high prices as in the “radical-­
chic” shops5 in the most prestigious areas of the city center. Piazza Vittorio
and its surroundings offered, back then, a glimpse of a world to come. The
“ethnic” shops were mostly run by people from South and East Asia and
crowned the famous market in the middle of the Piazza. They grew and

Lagioia, Nicola, Esquilino, (Rome: Edizioni dell’Asino, 2017), p. 25.

3

D’Albergo, Lorenzo “Musei, Melting Pot e Degrado. L’Esquilino in chiaroscuro,

4

[Museums, Melting Pot and Degradation. Contrasts of the Esquiline]” La Repubblica

(Rome: 2018).
5
Term inspired by Tom Wolfe’s book and commonly used in Italian to define the elitist
culture of progressive intellectuals.
 1 INTRODUCTION 3

changed together with the legendary MAS store (Magazzini Allo Statuto),6
which had been a commercial institution for the neighborhood. It opened
during the early 1900s as Castelnuovo, from the name of the Jewish family
who started the business, and later became MAS. It sold inexpensive fab-
ric, textiles of different sorts and for different clienteles, from extravagant
pieces for artists and actors, to clothing for special occasions like weddings
and other religious ceremonies, to batch of nice fabrics like linen and silks.
It was paradoxically the larger versions of contemporary Chinese stores
now dispersed all over the area. MAS closed in 2013, but the three-story
building, the signs, the furniture, and even some of the merchandise, have
not been dismantled yet. As if to symbolize the trajectory of the neighbor-
hood, the abandoned warehouse has become a nostalgic marker of time
passed and ancient glory spoiled.
In those first years of the twenty-first century, “multi-ethnic” had
become a buzz word. I was intrigued by the change I was witnessing.
Immediately after graduation, I decided that it was best to practice my
Mandarin in China, so I left Rome for Nanjing. Every time I was back in
Rome, I inquired about the Esquiline and in exchange I received continu-
ous interrogations about China and its people. In this curiosity I noticed
an intensifying desire to understand this distant “other,” ever more pres-
ent in Rome. Toward the end of the first decade of the 2000s, I perceived
a drastic change in perspectives and attitudes: less curious, more biased.
Since my college years, I never lived in Rome again, and this distance
increased the questions I had about the remaking of Rome, about the
transformation of the city and its people amid interactions with other pop-
ulations. I was then an immigrant myself and questions of identity and
emplacement had become my daily bread.
Today in Rome it is not uncommon to hear phrases like the one Flavia
told me: “I could not find an apple slicer anywhere, then I went to the
Cinese (Chinese) and of course I found it.” She continued “It is a cinesata,7
but it costed only one euro.” The use of the noun and adjective Chinese
has become a synonym for going to the store of last resort, a store that
sells a jumble of low-quality (and, in people’s mind, most probably toxic)

6
Sisti, Enrico, “I magazzini MAS, le macerie del Titanic di Piazza Vittorio a Roma [The
MAS warehouse, the debris of the Titanic of Piazza Vittorio in Rome]” La Repubblica
March 21, 2021, accessed in May, 2021.
7
Proper of the Chinese store, which implies made in China, with cheap and unsafe materi-
als, by workers in poor working conditions.
4 V. RAVAGNOLI

kitchen supplies, Christmas decorations, home appliances, school materi-

als, and “dangerous” children’s toys. Ordinary conversations related to
the Chinese express a mix of derisory dislike and preoccupied contempt,
but in the end, everybody buys in those stores because Chinese prices are
unbeatable, especially in times of financial crisis. Thus, in the last two
decades it has become common practice to state that one is going to the
grocery store (alimentari), the bread store (forno), the hardware store
(ferramenta), or the Chinese. Chinese stores are now established every-
where in Rome, but they first appeared in great numbers in the Esquiline,
which became the contested area that is at the heart of this research.
In the second decade of the twenty-first century, similar confining clas-
sifications have been applied to a new group of migrants increasingly pres-
ent in Rome: the Bangladeshis. They are referred to as Bangla and have
little stores around Rome, reminiscent of small American 7/11s. These
sell small amounts of vegetables, wine, juice, milk, and a few selections of
home supplies and cleaning items. In a city where stores close for lunch
from 1 pm to 4 pm and even the larger supermarkets shut their doors at 8
o’clock at night, these small convenience stores, managed mostly by peo-
ple from Bangladesh, are lifesavers. When migrants from Bangladesh
started opening their stores, they did not concentrate in one neighbor-
hood, but spread their activities consistently all over the city. This strategy
helped their image as they were never perceived by natives as an invading
horde slowly taking over Roman spaces. This happened instead to Chinese
migrants in the Esquiline. Bangladeshi stores are appreciated and there is
even a smart phone application to locate the least expensive and closest to
you Bangla. This app is called Bangla di Roma (Bangladeshis of Rome)
and the description in the Apple Store says, “Their service is needed for
the survival of a wide section of the population (especially students),
whose lives happen at different hours with respect to normal citizens and
whose pockets are almost always empty.”8
Besides the Chinese and the Bangladeshis, there are the Pakistanis, the
Moroccans, the Senegalese, the Romanians, the Filipinos, among many
others. Each ethnic group is associated with a type of store or a specific
profession. I have often had conversations in Italy where to “call a
Romanian” meant to hire somebody that would renovate a room in your
apartment, to “find a Ukrainian” meant to hire someone to take care of
the elders in your family; to “ask your Filipino” meant to ask your cleaning

8
Apple Store IT, accessed on October 2013. The author’s translation.
 1 INTRODUCTION 5

lady (or often guy) for something; to “check at the Senegalese” meant to
look for counterfeit imitations of designer bags and other accessories.
Thus, belonging to an ethnic group comes with a variety of applied
meanings that potentially shape your identity and the relations you will
entertain in loco. Therefore, when a migrant who moves to Rome tries to
develop a social identity in the new environment, he will be screened
through lenses made of classifications based on what his ethnic group is
most known for, does best, or is reputed most useful (or dangerous) by
the host society.
Starting with the late 1980s, the social landscape of Rome became
more heterogeneous. Then, with an increase of intra-ethnic relations,
identities started to be captured by over-simplifications with the risk of
becoming collectively accepted labels. This rudimentary understanding of
ethnicity is a commonly used measure for bare definitions of identity.
Labels become often unmediated identifications affixed without the
encounters and the communications that knowledge of your neighbor
would ideally require, transforming a social process in a one-way “other-
ization.” Under these conditions, essentialized identities come to the fore
as predominant signifiers of someone else’s identity. Identities are much
more complicated categories than single labels; and yet, categorizations
like Bangla of Rome, charged with both utilitarian appreciation and sarcas-
tic judgments, ultimately do have an impact on the ethnicization process
and the formation of social identities of migrants, albeit partial they may be.
Therefore, the catalyst of this research has been the simple inquiry to
understand the formation and development of the “Roman Chinatown.”
Such location remains imagined, without exact physical borders; however,
debated and popularized by mass media and political discourses. In such
discourses, economic, political, social, and cultural traits converge all
together, ultimately shaping the process of ethnicization of Chinese
migrants in Rome, which becomes a tangible reality.
This research poses one overarching question about this experienced
and at the same time ephemeral state of affairs: “What factors do influence
Chinese migrants’ perceptions of their identity and their position as ethnic
Chinese within the Italian society?” To answer this question, the book
traces the history of arrival and emplacement of Chinese migrants in Rome
during the twentieth and early twenty-first century.
As in every story of migration, the emplacement process happens trans-
nationally and locally in both sending and receiving societies. Hence, this
book explores the global and local processes behind labeling, which shape
6 V. RAVAGNOLI

individual and collective identities. It looks at the history of Chinese

migration to Rome by focusing on the arrival and emplacement of Chinese
migrants and investigates the formation of Chinese ethnic identity in
Rome across and beyond national boundaries; that is, it examines migrants’
ethnicization (the process of becoming aware of one’s own ethnicity) in
Rome.9 Ethnicization is never a one way and one-dimensional process;
rather, it is transnational, global, and local at the same time.

Methodology
European research and publications on Chinese migrations increased dur-
ing the 1990s, when the phenomenon was more clearly manifesting itself
in society. In Italy, the early scholars engaged on the topic were mostly
sinologists. They possessed the necessary skills to pursue fieldwork with
migrant communities and produced descriptive works based on local
experiences from a variety of different disciplines (e.g., Chinese migrants
in Turin, in Prato, in Milan and their economic activities and social
characteristics).10
In the 2000s, migrations to Europe became a commonly studied topic
in the social sciences. Therefore, theoretical approaches developed in the
United States since the 1930s surfaced in European studies of migrations,
which developed around discourses of assimilation, integration, transna-
tionalism, localism, globalization, and multiculturalism. Social scientists
intervened in major debates by the typical use of case studies and pro-
duced works on China and Chinese migrations in specific cities (London,

9
Reference to “ethnicity” In The Blackwell Dictionary of Sociology, by Allan G. Johnson.
2nd ed. Blackwell Publishers, 2000. Ethnicity is a concept created to refer to a shared culture
and a way of life, which creates an ethnic collectivity. The term was basically absent in social
studies before the 1970s, but it is an important concept to study the formation of “subcul-
tures in complex societies.” https://ezproxyemc.flo.org/login?url=https://search.credore-
ference.com/content/entry/bksoc/ethnicity/0?institutionId=1968.
10
See for instance: Colombo, M. Wenzhou-Firenze: identità, imprese e modalità di insedia-
mento dei cinesi in Toscana (Firenze Pontecorboli Editore, 1995); Ceccagno, A. Ed. Il caso
delle comunità cinesi in Italia. Comunicazione Interculturale e Istituzioni (Roma: Armando
Editore, 1997); Farina, P. Cina a Milano: famiglie, ambienti e lavori della popolazione cinese
a Milano (Milano: Abitare Segesta, 1997); Francesco Carchedi and Marica Ferri “The
Chinese presence in Italy: dimensions and structural characteristics,” in The Chinese in
Europe, eds. Gregor Benton and Frank N. Pieke (London: Macmillan, 1998).
 1 INTRODUCTION 7

Milan, Prato, Turin, Amsterdam).11 These contributed to clarify the time-

frame of Chinese arrivals and to describe the areas where migrants estab-
lished themselves. In addition, they analyzed demographics and migratory
patterns followed by Chinese migrants, described common economic
activities they pursued, and listed business niches migrants employed to
emplace in European cities.12
Nevertheless, until recently this literature remained focused on the
receiving countries’ perspectives, Italy, or other European states. My
research attempts to fill this gap, bridging communities, following
migrants’ networks beyond national borders and through interactions and
communication. Therefore, by building on the early studies, I will discuss

11
Li, Minghuan. We Need Two Worlds: Chinese Immigrant Associations in a Western Society.
Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 1999; Pieke, F. and Hein Mallee, Internal and
International Migration. Chinese Perspectives (Surrey: Curzon Press, 1999); Weber, Maria, Il
miracolo cinese. Perchè bisogna prendere la Cina sul serio (Bologna: Il Mulino, 2001);
Renzo Rastrelli, “L’immigrazione a Prato fra società, istituzioni ed economia”—
“Immigration in Prato between Society, Institutions and Economy” in Migranti a Prato. Il
distretto tessile multietnico—Migrants in Prato. The Multiethnic textile district, ed. Antonella
Ceccagno (Milano: FrancoAngeli, 2003); Christiansen, F. Chinatown, Europe: An explora-
tion of overseas Chinese identity in the 1990s. London and New York: Routledge Curzon, 2003.
12
Luigi Tomba, “Looking Away from the Black Box: Economy and Organization in the
Making of a Chinese Identity in Italy,” in Flemming Christiansen and Ulf Hedetoft (Eds.),
The Politics of Multiple Belonging; Ethnicity and Nationalism in Europe and East Asia,
(Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing Ltd., 2004); Santangelo, A. and Valeria Varriano, Dal
Zhejiang alla Campania. Alcuni aspetti dell’immigrazione cinese (Roma: Nuova Cultura,
2006); Thunø, Mette, Beyond Chinatown. New Chinese Migrations and the Global Expansion
of China (Copenhagen: NIAS Press, 2007); Daniele Cologna, “Il caso Sarpi e la diversifica-
zione dell’imprenditoria cinese” in et al. Un Dragone nel Po. La Cina in Piemonte tra
Percezione e Realta—“The Sarpi Case and the Diversification of Chinese Entrepreneurship”
in A Dragon in the Po River. China in Piedmont between Perception and Reality, eds. Cima,
R. and Dancelli M. (Torino: Edizioni dell’Orso. 2008); Cecchini, Rossella, Lanterne amiche.
Immigrazione cinese e mediazione interculturale a Reggio Emilia (Reggio Emilia: Edizioni
Diabasis, 2009; Luigi Berzano et al., Cinesi a Torino. La Crescita di un Arcipelago—Chinese
in Turin. Growth of an Archipelago, (Bologna: Il Mulino, 2010); Chang, Angela, “20th
Century Chinese Migration to Italy: The Chinese Diaspora Presence within European
International Migration” History Compass Issue 2, (October 2012); Bianchi, C. Il Drago e il
Biscione (Pavia: Ibis, 2012); Berti, F. Pedone V. and Andrea Valzania Vendere e comprare.
Processi di mobilità sociale dei cinesi a Prato (Pisa: Pacini Editore, 2013); Chen, Calvin P.,
“Made in Italy (by the Chinese): Migration and the Rebirth of Textiles and Apparel,” Journal
of Modern Italian Studies, v. 20, n. 1 (January 2015), 111–126; Zhang, Gaoheng, Migration
and Media. Debating Chinese Migration to Italy, 1992–2012 (Toronto: University of Toronto
Press, 2019).
8 V. RAVAGNOLI

Chinese migrating populations from sending communities and in relation

with places of arrival. Below, I combine historical sources, anthropological
and sociological theories, and ethnographic methodologies to create a
comprehensive history of Chinese migrations to Italy around the guiding
question: “What factors do influence Chinese migrants’ perceptions of
their identity and their position as ethnic Chinese within the Italian
society?”
Therefore, to write a history of Chinese migration to Italy centered
around the formation of migrants’ ethnic identity (and their ethniciza-
tion), it is necessary to think about constraints, permissions, limits and
ways-out for each stage of the migratory experience. Therefore, this work
tries to develop simultaneously on different levels of analysis by following
a glocal approach, where reverberances of international relations and poli-
cies can be found in the local environments of both host and sending
societies.
The term glocal is a neologism that received much criticism within the
humanities and social sciences. Scholars have linked the first use of the
term to a translation of the Japanese agricultural practice of dochakuka,
adapting farming techniques to local conditions.13 Edgington and Hayter
explain that this style became the revisited Japanese business practice of
“global localization” used by big corporations like SONY.14 Roudometof,
paraphrasing Thornton, argues that “From a neo- or post-Marxist or criti-
cal perspective, the concept itself can be easily identified with the interests
of corporate elites as an instrument designed to co-opt the local into the
circuits of global capitalism. So, it is hardly surprising that the glocal is cast
in a negative light: glocalization ‘serves capitalist globalization by natural-
izing it, rendering it acceptable by rendering it numbingly familiar’.”15
Roudometof disagreed with this negative view of the glocal and dem-
onstrated that the word’s genealogy remains uncertified as there are other

13
Tullock, S. (1991) Oxford Dictionary of New Words (Oxford: Oxford University Press),
p, 134, cited in Roudometof, V. (2015) “The Glocal and Global Studies” Globalizations,
12:5, p. 775.
14
Edgington, D.W., and Hayter, R. (2012) “Glocalization” and regional headquarters:
Japanese electronics firms in the ASEAN region. Annals of the Association of American
Geographers, 103:3, 647–668 cited in Roudometof, V. (2015) “The Glocal and Global
Studies” Globalizations, 12:5, p. 775.
15
Thornton, W. H. (2000), Mapping the ‘glocal’ village: The political limits of ‘glocaliza-
tion’. Continuum, 14(1), p. 82, cited in Roudometof, V. (2015) “The Glocal and Global
Studies” Globalizations, 12:5, p. 779.
 1 INTRODUCTION 9

examples of the concept and term used for more socially acceptable mat-
ters. For instance, he explains that glocal can be found in practices “more
in tune with ecological efforts to connect the global and the local in order
to create awareness and enhance rethinking of frames of actions” as in the
public utilization of the term by Germany’s Councilor at the 1990 Global
Change Exhibition in Bonn.
In addition, according to Roudometof, the major themes that shape
global studies such as globalization, hybridization, Americanization, trans-
nationalization are often used as synonyms of glocalization, obfuscating
the value of the concept and consequently the literature that makes good
use of it. Those themes tend to be built on the binary perspective of local-­
global, whereas the first is the depository of all communal and social con-
cerns, while the second is interpreted as the manipulative supplier of
corporate or transnational capitalism.16 In this fix dichotomy, the explana-
tory power of glocal remains rather unconvincing.
Then, how can we use glocal studies constructively? In questioning
what does “global studies” mean altogether, Pieterse’s answers resonate
with the historical analysis of Chinese migrations and emplacement in
Rome that I am trying to organize here. He states: “‘Glocalization’ offers
the possibility of a ‘multilevel approach’ that allows for a study of the
interactions between multiple scales, macro, meso and micro.”17 To attain
this multilevel approach, I am fore and foremost inspired by Carlo
Ginzburg’s influential micro history, The Cheese and the Worms, where the
author drew on the oral testimonies of Menocchio, a northern Italian
miller who lived at the end of the sixteenth century and recorded his ideas
during his trial with the Inquisition, which executed him in 1599.
Ginzburg, by using Menocchio’s record, a commoner’s thoughts about
religious and judicial systems during the Renaissance, can reveal where
Menocchio’s ideas intersect with the opinions of the elite (the judges) and
how they shape the social system of the time. Hence, Ginzburg argues for
a “circularity” (a reciprocal impact of elite and commoners’ thinking) of
influences between popular and elite culture, both contributing to the
making of history. Building on Ginzburg and following an inductive tra-
jectory, I try to go beyond Ginzburg’s micro history and present a micro
history within a macro history framework aware of what occurs at the

Roudometof, V. (2015) “The Glocal and Global Studies” Globalizations, 12:5, p. 781.
16

Pieterse, J. N. (2013) “What is Global Studies” Globalizations, 10:4, p. 11, cited in

17

Roudometof, V. (2015) “The Glocal and Global Studies” Globalizations, 12:5, p. 781.
10 V. RAVAGNOLI

meso level. Thus, I hope to contribute to the understanding of the

­building of Chinese ethnic identity in Rome as a consequence of the “glo-
cal circularity” of ideas and perceptions about place, culture, and societies
that shape the process of ethnicization.
Sociologist Glick Schiller suggests not to use “ethnic groups” as units
of analysis. She argues that they circumscribe research within the confines
of methodological nationalism and “believe[s] that international migra-
tion warrants investigation because it is fundamentally problematic for the
cohesion of the ‘host society,’”18 and contributes to anti-immigration
public moods and policies.
Alternative interpretations have emerged among urban geographers,
who have argued for a more global approach to migration, especially con-
sidering urban centers that are reshaped by a globalized economy; they
discuss migrants not as “ethnics” but rather as active agents in the restruc-
turing of capital and rescaling of global cities.19 The concept of scale is
indeed useful to organize research founded at the intersection between
local, national, and global systems. For instance, Ceccagno in her latest
work on Chinese in Prato’s fast fashion industry, City Making and Global
Labor Regimes, applies the notion of migrants as “scale-makers” as sug-
gested by Glick Schiller and develops a multi-scalar analysis of the pro-
cesses that “weave together to create the peculiar history of Prato, a city at
the same time battered by global shifts and where a new structure of
opportunities has emerged.”20
Ceccagno concentrates on labor and labor mobility with an approach
that Kloosterman defined as “mixed embeddedness,”21 when agency is
combined with structure, and argues that by bypassing “the ‘ethnic’
approach” she is able to “unveil the mechanisms of a working regime were
only co-nationals are employed and show that they are linked to the global
18
Glick Schiller, Nina (2012) “Migration and Development Without Methodological
Nationalism. Toward Global Perspective on Migration” in Migration in the 21st century.
Political Economy and Ethnography, Eds. Barber, P. G. and Winnie Lem, (New York:
Routledge), p. 39.
19
Glick Schiller, Nina (2012) “Migration and Development Without Methodological
Nationalism. Toward Global Perspective on Migration” in Migration in the 21st century.
Political Economy and Ethnography, Eds. Barber, P. G. and Winnie Lem, (New York:
Routledge), p. 41.
20
Ceccagno, Antonella (2017) City Making and Global Labor Regimes. Chinese Immigrants
and Italy’s Fast Fashion Industry (Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan), p. 12.
21
Ceccagno, Antonella (2017) City Making and Global Labor Regimes. Chinese Immigrants
and Italy’s Fast Fashion Industry (Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan), p. 16.
 1 INTRODUCTION 11

capital transformations and the ability of the supply chains to find ever
newer ways of generating profit.”
Nevertheless, Ceccagno does not disregard the ethnicization process
altogether, yet she situates it in the framework of global production and
local labor dynamics. This framework criticizes neoliberal theories that
analyze migrations as functions of the laws of the market. Against these
backdrops, migrants’ lives are examined as corollary of labor and produc-
tion, flows of capital and capital reproduction, flexible accumulation, and
overall, under the impersonal umbrella of economic hierarchies and global
power struggles. In this way, Ceccagno aims to divert the attention from
the reifying discussions on ethnic communities and ethnocultural
differences.
Anthropologist Elizabeth Krause, in her latest work on Chinese
migrants living and working in the Italian industrial district of Prato,22
conceptualized a mode of investigation that she defined as encounter eth-
nography (an analysis of locality revolved around different sites for encoun-
ters: structural, genealogical, and fieldwork) to capture the many
dimensions of the migration process of Chinese coming to Italy and to
avoid methodological nationalism. The latter segregates migration issues
within the borders of nation-states, and Glick Schiller urged “migration
scholarship to move away from binary divisions of foreigner and natives,
which is legitimated through the adoption of the nation-state as the unit
of both study and analysis, [and which] leaves no conceptual space to
address questions of the global restructuring of region and locality that
serves as the nexus of migrant incorporation and transnational connection
and to which migrants contribute in ways that may rescale cities.”23
Therefore, Krause follows Glick Schiller’s suggestion not to center research
on the ethnic group, but rather to develop a “locality analysis” of a global
power paradigm [which] places migrants and natives in the same concep-
tual framework.24 Hence, she writes about Chinese migrants in Italy as a
function of global and neoliberal capitalism and wishes to move beyond

22
Krause, Elizabeth (2018) Tight Knight. Global Families and the Social Life of Fast Fashion
(Chicago: Chicago University Press).
23
Glick Schiller, Nina (2012) “Migration and Development Without Methodological
Nationalism. Toward Global Perspective on Migration” in Migration in the 21st century.
Political Economy and Ethnography, Eds. Barber, P. G. and Winnie Lem (New York:
Routledge), p. 47.
24
Glick Schiller, Nina (2012) “Migration and Development Without Methodological
Nationalism. Toward Global Perspective on Migration” in Migration in the 21st century.
12 V. RAVAGNOLI

the two-dimensional perspective of world system; that is, one explained

through culture or the other analyzed through economic lens. This meth-
odology—“locality analysis” through ethnographic encounters—allows for
scalar movements across levels of analysis. To avoid the risk of falling into
schemes of methodological nationalism, I also employ ethnographic
research to study the interactions of individual actors from different
collectivities.
In sum, I use glocal here outside the structures of business and eco-
nomics that have obscured the concept, but more as a “sophisticated ver-
sion of globalization.”25 Khondker explains that the concept of glocal is
more dynamic than just “global” as it is able to incorporate elements that
can be controversial, like ethnicity, and yet crucial for migration studies.
I do wish to move away from the “ethnic” analysis criticized by Glick-­
Schiller, which emphasizes the binary division of “us” versus “them” and
that stresses hierarchy and power within a nation-state. However, I remain
convinced that the process of ethnicization is at the core of migrants’ pro-
cesses of encounters with the host society and emplacement in it. Therefore,
ethnicity cannot be bypassed while tracing the history of Chinese migra-
tion to Rome, especially not when recording oral history of migrants
within a historical bottom-up perspective.
In the vitality of the glocal approach, I see the possibility to be critically
reconciled with the use of “ethnicity” as a flexible identifier. Beneficial ele-
ments of the glocal approach are: the awareness that diversity is the essence
of social life and that differences can never be completely erased; “that
history and culture operate autonomously to offer a sense of uniqueness
to the experiences of groups (whether cultures, societies or nations), and
that glocalization removes the fear that globalization resembles a tidal
wave erasing all differences; finally, that glocalization does not promise a
world free from conflict but offers a more historically grounded and prag-
matic worldview.”26 Khondker’s glocal framework is the optimal back-
ground to reevaluate the use of “ethnicity” and all its composite derivations
when studying migrations.

Political Economy and Ethnography, Eds. Barber, P. G. and Winnie Lem, (New York:
Routledge), p. 46.
25
Khondker, H. H. (2005), “Globalisation to glocalization: A conceptual exploration.
Intellectual Discourse,” 13(2), 181–199, cited in Roudometof, V. (2015) “The Glocal and
Global Studies” Globalizations, 12:5, p. 777.
26
Khondker, H. H. (2005), “Globalisation to glocalization: A conceptual exploration.
Intellectual Discourse,” 13(2), 181–199, cited in Note 2 in Roudometof, V. (2015) “The
Glocal and Global Studies” Globalizations, 12:5, p. 784.
 1 INTRODUCTION 13

Henceforth, I do look at the construction of ethnicity of Chinese in

Rome, and by building on Barth’s seminal work on ethnic groups and
ethnic boundaries, I problematize ethnic characterizations based on the
internal constitution of separate groups.27 I rather read the implications, in
migrants’ social lives, of features that allegedly constitute an ethnic group
and that directly and indirectly influence the continuous creation and
maintenance of boundaries marked by membership to a group or lack
thereof. I wish to do this by focusing on encounters and communications
because as Stuart Hall states: “Identity arises, not so much from the full-
ness of identity, which is already inside us as individuals, but from the lack
of wholeness which is ‘filled’ from outside us, by the ways we imagine
ourselves to be seen by others.”28
I understand ethnic identity not as a static concept, but instead as a
process shaped in a dialogic way and intertwined with migrants’ lives.
Migrants persevere in the new environment but are not confined in it; in
fact, they maintain strong ties with their ancestral homes. In the glocal
framework, I analyze the lives of ethnic Chinese in both their global and
local environments, and I move beyond the limits imposed by national
borders and follow overseas Chinese in their multi-hopping migration
routes. Across their journeys, migrants become anchored to more than
one locality; they interact with individuals from both sending and hosting
communities and endure because of the networks they create. This project
is built on the networks and relations that make Chinese migration an
overall successful story in the wide realm of migrants’ lives in both the
European and the Italian context. Chinese social and business networks
facilitate mobility, and Chinese can fluidly cross borders and perform and
reshape their identities. These networks allow them to be transnational
and span from Asia to Italy and to countries within the EU, whose struc-
ture per se facilitates movements of ethnic Chinese.
Most research in the social sciences on the topic remain confined in a
framework of causes and consequences of capitalist processes because they
are responses to neoliberal theories of globalization even when acknowl-
edging migrants’ agency and change in social structures. In the discipline
of history, much has been written about Chinese migrations to America
and the major scalar assumptions have divided these histories between

27
Barth, Fredrik, Ethnic Groups and Boundaries. The Social Organization of Culture
Difference (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1969), p. 15.
28
Stuart Hall, “The Question of Cultural Identity” in Modernity: An Introduction to
Modern Societies, ed. Stuart Hall et al. (London: Blackwell, 1996), p. 608.
14 V. RAVAGNOLI

local events, national struggles or have been interpreted through the lens
of international imperialistic systems.29
Historian Beth Lew-Williams, inspired by trends in world and global
history, in her The Chinese Much Go, proposed a new “transcalar” approach,
where she looks at the interrelations of global and local processes and
concludes that history itself is multi-layered. She states “Each layer must
be seen as distinct—with different forces at work, state logics in play, and
constraints on human agency—but linked by ideas, structures, and net-
works. This transcalar history keeps these multiple layers simultaneously in
view, with an eye for conflicts and connections.”30 Naturally, Liu-Williams
acknowledges that scales are constructions of both historical actors and
historians, making the study of each scale interdependent with the under-
standing and the formation of the other scales. Therefore, it is hard to
isolate scales when unpacking a global phenomenon like migration, where
a “multilevel,” “multi-layered,” and “transcalar” approach results are nec-
essary. Building on Liu-Williams’ notion of the “transcalar” view, I wish to
uncover stories of migrants nested between scales and recenter the atten-
tion toward the primary actors, looking at their daily encounters with
institutional, structural, and social realities across spaces and time.
Thus, this is a “glocal transcalar” analysis of global and local aspects of
the migratory processes. It looks at the different levels of social constraints
(international, national, and local) as they influence individual and collec-
tive identities at home and abroad. Choy describes this as the “two shore”31
approach, which should look at sources and data in both places touched
by stories of migration.
I recorded individual stories of commoners, Italians and Chinese, and
their interactions with the surrounding environments. I interpreted these
individual stories through the “transcalar” lenses they were captured in,
and I ultimately read them in the glocal context they progress in. I con-
ducted interviews and participant observation in China (Summer 2012)
and in Rome for a period of six months (between 2013 and 2014), and I
refer to these autobiographical narratives, as I recorded them. I have
investigated ideas that Chinese have of their position in the Italian society,

29
Liu-Williams, Beth (2018) The Chinese Must Go. Violence, Exclusion, and the Making of
Alien America (Cambridge: Harvard University Press), note 23 of the Introduction, p. 265.
30
Liu-Williams, Beth (2018) The Chinese Must Go. Violence, Exclusion, and the Making of
Alien America (Cambridge: Harvard University Press), p. 10.
31
Choy, Catherine Ceniza (2003) Empire of Care. Nursing and Migration in Filipino
American History (Durham: Duke University Press), p. 191.
 1 INTRODUCTION 15

their perceptions on the locality mostly associated with Chinese in Rome—

the Esquiline and have examined migrants’ perceptions of their status back
in the hometowns. The elements and details presented by each single oral
account, as offered to me by Chinese and Italian interviewees, became
building blocks for this history of migration and ethnicization.
As far as sources go, I employed what Ceccagno calls a “multistranded
methodology”; that is, I have compiled and analyzed a mixture of sources
used in different disciplines such as archival materials, participant observa-
tion and interviews, analysis of policies and statistics, media reports, TV
series, local literature, in both sending and receiving societies and at the
cross-roads between those.
To conclude, this research moves between a specific neighborhood in
Rome, the Esquiline, to one village, Qingtian, in the prefecture of the city
of Wenzhou in Zhejiang, a Southeastern province of China. It starts with
an analysis of Chinese international migrations to Europe, then, it delves
into a spatial and social analysis of migrants established in Rome. By look-
ing at their daily lives, it presents the context within which migrants live.
Then, it introduces the point of view of their fellow Italians, whom Chinese
migrants encounter every day, directly or indirectly. Hence, it explores
how migrants shape their identity in relation to Italians; and finally, how
their status as migrants both in the motherland and in the host society,
shapes their identity and feeling of belonging.
In analyzing the “glocal circularity” of ideas through people’s interac-
tions I have noticed how Italian interviewees often utilized the concept of
Roman-ness to identify themselves vis à vis the “immigrant other,” and
Chinese interviewees used the notion of Chinese-ness to explain the cul-
tural unicum in which they felt they transnationally belonged to.
Terms with a “-ness” suffix create suggestive systems of ideas, of cul-
tural representations, and are often aimed at producing meanings of
national cultures, of cosmopolitan belonging or of more localized identi-
fications (i.e., Italian-ness or Roman-ness). People use Chinese-ness and
Roman-ness to fill an intangible and seemingly bottomless bucket filled
with identity profiles and assorted feelings of belonging. These notions are
malleable fillers for contingent definitions of belonging, but they also con-
tribute to the creation of essentialized ethnic identity. Balibar criticizes
these abstract definitions of culture as a racism “whose dominant theme is
not biological heredity but the insurmountability of cultural differences”
and cultures become “a way of locking individuals and groups a priori into
a genealogy, into a determination that is immutable and intangible in
16 V. RAVAGNOLI

origin.”32 In fact, they represent two notions of exclusionary belonging

that Chinese migrants and Romans apply in their relationships, mostly
based on an “us” versus “them” dialectic.
The problematic role of “-ness” concepts is that they portray static
cultures as the substance of differences and neglect the agility of such con-
cepts once actually embodied by people. A complete description of this
book’s interdisciplinary methodology cannot overlook the analysis of the
notions of Chinese-ness and Roman-ness. I do so by following Chow’s
recommendation to unpack such notions by studying specific texts and
media, and in this case personal stories of migrants, to “chart the myriad
ascriptions of ethnicity.”33 Therefore, during my fieldwork, I noticed that
Romans tended to refer to movies and monuments to create boundaries,
chanting to an all-shaping Roman-ness that diversifies “them” from the
“others.” On the other hand, Chinese migrants tended to refer to history
and culture for the same purpose—to collect staples of ethnicity and use
them as signifiers for identity definitions. Roman-ness and Chinese-ness,
as well as other “-ness” notions, have representative power, constitutive of
identity formation even if they congregate a confused mixture of notions
such as ethnicity, race, citizenship, and nationhood.
Especially interesting for this research is the fact that both Chinese and
Roman identities are linked to primordial ideas of the greatness of their
past empires, where connections to a magnificent ancient culture, geopo-
litical power, superior civilization, exceptional ethical or religious tradi-
tions, as well as powerful linguistic unity, merge with historically confused
territorial claims. Hence, these -ness ideas hold highly symbolic and repre-
sentational significance, because they are openly linked to powerful and
glorious past times of unity and splendor; they conflate an aura of absolute-­
ness to what Herzfeld describes as “structural nostalgia”34 while Hirschfeld

32
Balibar, Etienne, “Is There a Neo Racism?” in Balibar Etienne and Immanuel Wallerstein,
Race, Nation, Class: Ambiguous Identities (London: Verso, 1991), p. 22.
33
Chow Rey, “Introduction: On Chineseness as a Theoretical Problem” Boundary 2 Vol.
25, No. 3, Modern Chinese Literary and Cultural Studies in the Age of Theory: Reimagining
a Field (Autumn, 1998), pp. 1–24.
34
Structural Nostalgia: “that the nation-state’s claims to affixed, eternal identity grounded
in universal truth are themselves, like the moves of all social actors, strategic adjustments to
the demands of the historical moment” in Michael Herzfeld, Cultural Intimacy. Social
Poetics in the Nation-State Third Edition (New York: Routledge, 2016), p. 10.
 1 INTRODUCTION 17

calls it “folk sociology,”35 that is, the fixed and essentialized representa-
tions of self and group identities. In other words, -ness notions are com-
monsense sectional rationalities or “easy to think” social ontologies. Even
though they could be dismantled or denied in individuals’ instances of real
life, it is undeniable that they do play a role in shaping the local environ-
ment as well as the international realm. As a facet of identity, the “-ness”
concepts are used to define and confine somebody inside a certain perim-
eter or outside of it, both at the local and more personal level, as well as at
the national and international level.
Declarations of identity seasoned with -ness concepts represent “insider-­
outsider” contentions and are ephemeral utterances that shape the “glocal
circularity” of migrants’ feeling of belonging. Because these -ness notions
are key elements of interactions of the two groups of people under analy-
sis, Italians in Rome and Chinese globally; below, I discuss some aspects of
these controversial concepts as foundational in the encounter of Chinese
migrants and Roman dwellers.

Roman-ness
In 1870, Rome became the capital of the newly unified Kingdom of Italy,
and a new approach to life reshaped the city. Consequently, the institu-
tions of the new government and all the ministries and government offices
were established in Rome and many new government employees moved
to Rome. After the unification, the urban landscape of Rome was quickly
reorganized to welcome high and low officials from other regions. During
this time Rome experienced the creation of entire neighborhoods ex novo,
modeled upon the more modern northern city of Torino. The new areas
were built to host government agencies’ headquarters as well as offices for
employees. The modernization of Rome comprised also the building of
high-end housing for top rank public officials as well as lower-quality
housing for laborers. Nevertheless, such changes were not final. Rome did
not become a settlers’ city because two world wars were yet to happen.
Unsurprisingly, the wars forced the structure of the city to readapt and
keep changing. During the fascist era, the city of Rome had become
imbued with physical signs of the fascist promoted Roman-ness
(Romanitas).

35
LA Hirschfeld. Race in the Making: Cognition, Culture and the Child’s Construction of
Human Kinds (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1996), 20.
18 V. RAVAGNOLI

The word Roman-ness is the English translation of the Latin word

Romanitas used for the first time by Tertullian in the third century A.D. It
merely means of Roman manners, and it had not been used frequently in
ancient Roman texts. Tertullian, in fact, used it pejoratively against his fel-
low citizens of Carthage, who were corrupted to Roman mores and cus-
toms. Nevertheless, during the fascist period, the idea of Romanitas took
a central role in Mussolini’s nationalistic campaigns (the word becomes
romanità in contemporary Italian). In 1926, Mussolini, the Duce, from
the Latin word Dux, a title given to Roman military generals who used to
return to Rome after winning battles, announced in a public speech that
Italians had a historical right to the Mediterranean world for their Roman
heritage. Mussolini’s patriotic campaign was aimed at reproducing the
ancient grandeur of Rome and the Roman power in the Mediterranean
and to make Italy the new Rome. A fascist intellectual, Goffredo Coppola,
was one of the first advocates of the new and revitalized concept of
Romanitas. Coppola connected it to the myth of the “sleeping Augustus”
who is supposed to be waiting in the market of Trajan for a new conductor
to rise to power. Coppola argued that Benito Mussolini was the man who
would bring ancient splendor and power to Italy.36 Mussolini even estab-
lished the Roman salute, which in the fascist era was the most striking and
recognizable gesture to constantly remind Italians, and Romans in par-
ticular, of their renewed supremacy and glory in the Mediterranean and in
the world.
Mussolini in a speech in 1924 proclaimed the all pervasiveness of
Romanitas Roman-ness as an:

Art, together with law, has marked with its stamp the unifying expansion of
the Latin world. In Rome, and wherever Rome arrives in the world with its
legions and its powerful spirit, we feel we are in front of a force of beauty
that is not only a manifestation of a state of the spirit and civilization, but has
in itself the brilliant germ of Italian art, and you, gentleman, have conse-
crated all of your proper forces and all with an unstoppable (non estingui-
bile) passion, if not with life. […] The style is the eternal and luminous
­characteristic of the race (stirpe) and will […] give to man the standard for
creating the future cities, […].37

36
Moriconi, Emma, “Goffredo Coppola, il propugnatore della Romanita” Il Giornale
D’Italia, February 14th 2014 accessed on March 21, 2014.
37
Nelis, Jan “Constructing Fascist Identity: Benito Mussolini and the Myth of Romanità”
Classical World, Volume 100, Number 4, Summer 2007, p 413.
 1 INTRODUCTION 19

During the fascist era, Rome was revolutionized to create these signs,
which are still noticeable in Rome. Just as an example, Mussolini built a
new Coliseum, known in Rome as the Squared Coliseum, an architectur-
ally doubtful reproduction of the ancient masterpiece, erected to pay
homage to the Italian Civilization, with allegorical statues representing
Italian heroism, architecture, history, etc. The following inscription
engraved on it encapsulates the intrinsic meaning of the monument: “Un
popolo di poeti, di artisti, di eroi, di santi, di pensatori, di scienziati, di
navigatori, e di trasmigratori” [A population of poets, artists, heroes,
saints, thinkers, scientists, sailors, and explorers]. The echoes of such ideas
of past magnificence are still pervasive in attitudes of Romans, but they
coexist with sly, cynical, and polemical attitudes. Such inclinations are
sneering to the point that Romans call the modern Coliseum the “Gruyere
building,” because of its squared shape with hollow arcades that makes it
resemble a big slice of Swiss cheese. This wittily insolent and all-Roman
way of describing the fascist redefinition of Roman greatness as a lump of
Helvetic milk curds reflects the reality of a cultural intimacy that shapes
contradictory social practices. Herzfeld states that “Such creative mischief
both subverts and sustains the authority of the state” and ultimately shapes
everyday interactions; especially when “facing different sides of a perceived
boundary.”38
After the destruction of the Second World War, luckily Rome experi-
enced a phase of reconstruction and then great prosperity. During this
florescence, the aesthetics of Roman-ness (Romanitas) linked to the leg-
acy of a distant past, resurfaced, and became crucial in the development of
a post-war Roman mass identity. In the midst of a shaken and still forming
ideology of political and national unity, to be Roman, in the common
imaginary, became a more defining fact than being just generally Italian.
Belonging to Rome became an empowering, even if fictionalized, reality.
Amid this imaginative representation of Roman-ness, Piazza Vittorio
holds a special place. In fact, it has been a central theater for literary and
cinematic perceptions of Roman life and portrayal of Romans’ attitudes.
Among the many Romans I interviewed I often noticed common refer-
ences to an idealized Roman-ness deriving mostly from literature and cin-
ema; therefore, writers and directors have contributed to the creation and
corroboration of the characteristics of Roman-ness. In the height of

38
Herzfeld, Michael, Cultural Intimacy. Social Poetics in the Nation-State (New York:
Routledge, 2004), pp. 36–37 and 230–231.
20 V. RAVAGNOLI

post-­war reconstruction, when mostly sojourners resided in the eternal

city, and as part of the great push for national alphabetization, literature
and fiction became powerful vehicles for the formation and perpetuation
of a Roman identity. Reverberances of images of Rome and the Esquiline
inspired by such books and movies were used by my Italian interviewees
to describe the current situation of degradation, to compare it to its glori-
ous and gone past, a condition that many linked to the presence of immi-
grants in the area.39
As an example, in 1902, a market was inaugurated in the center of the
Esquiline, Piazza Vittorio. In the imaginary of citizens and foreigners, the
market of Piazza Vittorio, represented a typical expression of common life
in Rome. Novelist Carlo Emilio Gadda in Quer Pasticciaccio Brutto de’ Via
Merulana [That Awful Mess on Via Merulana] tells the story of two
crimes committed in Rome in 1927 in the same building. The building
was known as the “palace of gold” for two reasons: first, the architecture
of the building in Via Merulana, a few blocks from Piazza Vittorio, was
very luxurious—marble stairs, frescos in the foyer and other golden col-
ored decorations; second, several wealthy families lived there.
Gadda was an early twentieth-century writer, who moved to Rome
from Milan. He was a northerner who migrated to the eternal city; so, he
needed to be helped by local poets to write in Roman popular slang. In
fact, many dialogues in the book are written in Roman dialect to portray a
true and realistic image of the demotic background of Rome, and of the
Esquiline in particular. In Gadda’s book, there are vivid descriptions of the
market in Piazza Vittorio. The novel offers a suggestive picture of the
seller of roasted pork, known as the Porchetta of Ariccia, a little town situ-
ated in the surrounding countryside of Rome. The words used by the
seller to incite people to buy his item—stuffed pork meat—hold a signifi-
cant place in the symbolic reproduction of Roman-ness. This typical dish
is cooked by roasting the entire pig with spices and then slicing it in thin
pieces to be eaten in between two slices of bread. In the scene of the book,
which is still today a popular assigned reading among high schoolers, the
seller of porchetta has a stall in the market of the Esquiline, and to attract
customers shouts the following elegy of his roasted pork while sharpening
the blades of his knives:

39
Today Piazza Vittorio is associated with Chinese migrations, it is unofficially called the
“Roman Chinatown” as we shall explore in the rest of the book.
 1 INTRODUCTION 21

Uno e novanta l’etto, la porca! È ‘na miseria, signori! Robba da fa vergogna,

signori! A chi venne e a chi crompa! Uno e novanta l’etto, più mejo fatto che
detto. Farnese avanti co li baiocchi a la mano, sore spose! Chi nun magna
nun guadagna. Uno e novanta l’etto, la porca! Carne fina e dilicata, pe li
signori propio! Assaggiatela e proverete, v’ ‘o dico io, sore spose: carne fina
e saporita! Chi prova ciariprova, er guadambio è tutto vostro. La bella porca
de li Castelli! L’emo portata a balia a la macchia: a la macchia de Gallerò,
l’emo portata, a mmagnà la ghiandola de l’imperatore Calìgula! la ghiandola
der principe Colonna! Der gran principe de Marino e d’Albano! ch’ha vinto
tutti li peggio turchi pe mare e pe terra a la gran battaja de Levati da li piedi!
Che ar domo de Marino ce stanno ancora le bandiere! co la mezzaluna de li
turchi, ce stanno! La bella porca, signori! porchetta arrosto cor rosmarino! e
co le patate de staggione!
[One ninety for a hectogram, the pork! It is a misery, ladies and gentle-
men! A thing to be ashamed of, ladies and gentlemen! Who buys, who sells!
One ninety for a hectogram, it is more easily done than said! Ladies, come
forward with monies in your hands! Who does not eat, nor does he earn!
One ninety for a hectogram, the pork! Delicate and tender meat, for real
lords! Taste it and you will see, ladies, tender and tasty meat! Who tries it,
will try again; the earning is all yours! The beautiful pork from the Castelli
(countryside close to Rome)! The pork grew wild in the brushwood; in the
brushwood of Gallero’, we took it to eat the acorn of the emperor Caligula,
the acorn of the Colonna princes; of the princes of Marino and Albano! This
pork defeated all the worst Turks by water and by land in the battle of “get
lost!” In the dome of Marino there still are the flags! There still are the
Ottoman flags with the half-moon! The beautiful pork, ladies and gentle-
men! Roasted pork with rosemary! And with seasonal potatoes!]

This description contains several aspects of Roman-ness, which would

populate neo-realist movies and novels of the immediate post-war period.
Roman-ness is a mixture of pride and sarcasm, of irony, street wisdom, and
a bit of self-mocking pretense, rootedness in historical references often
offered by the most uprooted of its residents. In fact, the Porchetta seller
most probably lives outside of Rome where he must rear his animals. He
specifies that the meat comes from the Castelli, the countryside at the
outskirts of Rome. Yet, the seller embodies Roman-ness without being
from Rome.
Therefore, to be Roman became a basic feature, which could be owned,
stated, defended, promoted, confirmed, and invalidated. It is a relative
truth. Roman-ness is a virtual reality, like the notion of identity itself. And
yet, Roman-ness exists because of the process of denomination described
22 V. RAVAGNOLI

by sociologist W. I. Thomas; that is, “what people think, is real, and real
in its consequences.”40

“Chinese-ness”
Lynn Pan describes Chinese-ness as a feature possessed by all the “Yellow
Emperor’s sons,” which can overcome political divergence and frictions
(for instance, with Taiwanese).41 Hence, some overseas Chinese have the
propensity to think of Chinese-ness as a genetic attribute passed on by the
contemporary country, China. This belief is certainly used by China, the
nation, to build and spread nationalistic thoughts, but it also contributes
to the reification of the ideas of both nation and race. For this reason, the
concept of Chinese-ness identified with race and China, has been chal-
lenged since the 1990s. New visions of Chinese-ness as a set of cultural
traits rose to the fore with Tu Weiming’s well-known 1991 issue of the
journal Daedalus.42 Tu Weiming mainly argued that Chinese-ness is a
human attitude more than a political orientation.
Andrea Louie later declared that Chinese-ness is best understood in
diasporic environments. In fact, it is a concept used contextually when try-
ing to define oneself in relation to others; it is an “open signifier, a fluid
and contested category that encompasses a diversity of political, ‘racial,’
and ethnic meanings within varied and shifting contexts.”43 Chinese
migrants living in Italy find themselves feeding off Chinese-ness for strate-
gic purposes, but they also become prisoners of such racialized categoriza-
tions. Yao Souchou in fact argues that “Culture restricts and confines just
as it sustains and liberates. Cultural identity’s affirmation of selfhood
comes with obligations, discipline and most importantly, communal
recognition.”44 In addition, Yao states that identity performance is too

40
Thomas, W. I. (1929) The Child in America (Norwood, MA: Plimpton Press), p. 572.
41
Lynn Pan, Sons of the Yellow Emperor: A History of the Chinese Diaspora, (New York:
Kodansha International, 1994); Xu Wu, Chinese Cyber Nationalism: Evolution, Characteristics,
and Implications (Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, 2007); Kam Louie, Julia
Kuehn, and David M. Pomfret, Diasporic Chineseness After the Rise of China: Communities
and Cultural Production (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2013).
42
The issue became later an influential book titled The Living Tree.
43
Andrea Louie, Chineseness Across Borders: Renegotiating Chinese Identities in China and
the United States (Durham: Duke University Press, 2004), 21.
44
Ibid., 259.
 1 INTRODUCTION 23

open and too free; in fact, “Performance gives access to too many people;
everyone can invitingly have a go at it. In the end, only certain kinds of
people can ‘perform’ Chinese that is accepted and recognized according
to some collective communal criteria.” And in the end: “Culture’s most
effective closure is to racialise it.”45 Unfortunately, Chinese-ness, as rac-
ism, can become a “total social phenomenon,”46 which regulates practices
and defines social relations. Unpacking the use of -ness notions as strate-
gies of self-determination and self-defense, helps decipher social tensions
and discuss the production of identities.
Liyang, one of my interviewees, a second-generation Chinese living in
Italy, once said that Chinese parents anywhere in the world will mark their
offspring with Chinese-ness whether they like it or not, and, little by little,
the second and third generations will be doomed by their Chinese-ness.
Paraphrasing Liyang, whether we want to be as “white” as snow, or “man-
gos” (completely Chinese: yellow inside and outside), we will always be
just “bananas” (yellow outside and white inside).
In the United States, these sentiments are commonly reflected in the
long history of production of Asian American identities, which became
voiced during the civil rights movements and now populates the common
imaginary of Asian Americans. Consequently, a new literary genre also
came to the fore as Asian American fiction. In two passages of a symbolic
Asian American novel The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan, we see a mom
admonishing her America-born daughter by saying: “It’s hard to keep
your Chinese face in America.” However, no matter how she fights her
Chinese-ness, Jin-mei Woo describes how different she felt when she went
back to China in search of her roots. She described her identity epiphany
when the train she was riding crossed over from Hong Kong to Shenzhen
and she declared, “And I think, my mother was right. I am becoming
Chinese” … “Once you are born Chinese, you cannot help but feel and
think Chinese. ‘Someday you will see,’ said my mother. ‘It is in your
blood, waiting to be let go.’”47

45
Ibid., 260.
46
Etienne Balibar, “Is There a Neo-Racism?” in Race, Nation, Class: Ambiguous Identities,
eds., Etienne Balibar and Immanuel Wallerstein (1991), 17–18.
47
Amy Tan, The Joy Luck Club (New York: Palgrave, 1989), 258 and 267.
24 V. RAVAGNOLI

In the context of postmodern views of Chinese identity, scholars

such as Ong48 and Ang49 have discussed new forms of Chinese-ness as
hybrid and flexible cultural features to be chosen to “break free from
essentialism and implicitly, to purge racism from the idea of Chinese-
ness.”50 Anthropologist Aihwa Ong developed the concept of “flexible
citizenship” which “refers to the cultural logics of capitalist accumula-
tion, travel, and displacement that induce subjects to respond fluidly
and opportunistically to changing political-economic conditions.”51 In
other words, people can decide to perform one or another identity, and
they do so opportunistically. People can choose to be represented by
“-ness” notions to move inside or outside certain boundaries. On the
relation between “-ness” concepts and selectively performed identities,
Yao Souchou even suggests that “Performance allows one not to be
Chinese.” More pessimistically, Ien Ang in her book On Not Speaking
Chinese sustains that “‘Who I am’ or ‘who we are’ is never a matter of
free choice”52 and she adds the contradiction for which Chinese-ness
has often been shaped not in China, but rather among diasporic
Chinese. In fact, Chinese-ness is a dynamic self-­identification tool that
“becomes widely used and is not a category with a fixed content—be it
racial, cultural or geographical—but operates as an open and indeter-
minate signifier whose meanings are constantly renegotiated and reart-
iculated in different sections of the Chinese diaspora.”
Intrinsic in lives in the diaspora there is always a production of collec-
tive memories about a mythologized and commonly desired homeland,
which fulfills longing for an imagined return that “ultimately confines
and constrains the nomadism of the diasporic subject.” Ang imagines the
production of identity in the diaspora as an empty third space between
“here” and “there” where actors perform their lives in-between cultures
and space and across time. She argues that “the peculiar meanings of
diasporic Chinese-ness are the result of the irreducible specificity of

48
Ibid.
49
Ang, Ien (2001) On Not Speaking Chinese: Living Between Asia and the West (New York:
Routledge).
50
Souchou Yao, “Being Essentially Chinese,” Asian Ethnicity 10, no. 3 (2009): 251–262.
51
Aihwa Ong, Flexible Citizenship: The Cultural Logics of Transnationality (Durham:
Duke University Press, 1999), 6.
52
Ang, Ien, On Not Speaking Chinese. Living Between Asia and the West (London:
Routledge, 2001), vii.
 1 INTRODUCTION 25

diverse and heterogeneous hybridizations in dispersed temporal and spa-

tial contexts.” Since the concept of hybridity does not erase boundaries,
it results in a useful notion to explain migrants’ trespassing boundaries
and to analyze the creation and maintenance of these boundaries. To
conclude with Ang’s words: “‘Chineseness’ becomes an open signifier
invested with resource potential, the raw material for the construction of
syncretic identities suitable for living ‘where you’re at’.” Therefore, it is
more crucial to look at specific localities because local emplacement and
ethnicization contribute to the larger and ever-changing picture of
mobile lives.
Chinese-ness, Roman-ness, as well as Italian-ness, or European-ness,
provide a criterion for membership, essentialized as they may be, especially
when evocative of art, architecture, and images of historical significance.
Nevertheless, they can become too easily and dangerously racialized. In
this book I try to detect the use of -ness affiliations to demonstrate the
instability and contradictions that can be created when multi-ethnic inter-
actions are based on bounded and static notions of ethnic identity. In
Rome, the Roman-ness of the good old days is perceived as threatened by
the Chinese presence. Chinese migrants respond locally to global forces
and adapt themselves. Within this process, they find sources for memory
and meaning in the notion of Chinese-ness. These “identity signifiers”
nurture both collectivities’ perceptions of their current place in the world
and reach back to primordial times; however, as shall be explained below,
the historical framework of the interactions between Chinese migrants and
Romans occurred mostly during the last one hundred years.

Timeframe
The presence of Chinese people in Europe goes back centuries, but the
twentieth century is when actual migration from mainland China started.
The first wave of Chinese migration reached Europe in the interwar
period. Those who reached Italy during this first wave had first gone to
France, where they worked in factories in lieu of Frenchmen who had
been killed in the First World War. In Italy, they were employed in textile
production. During the 1920s and early 1930s, the Chinese established
themselves in major cities, including Milan, Rome, and Turin, and soon
26 V. RAVAGNOLI

became small entrepreneurs, including peddlers of ties and pearls.53 The

overall number was not great, just a few hundreds. Between the two wars,
probably just a few hundred resided in Milan and Rome, and many of
them later went back to China to spend the last years of their lives.54
A second wave of migration to Europe occurred after the Second World
War, when many Chinese from the rural areas or from the politically trou-
bled areas of Taiwan and Indochina stopped in Hong Kong to then escape
to Great Britain. There, the restaurant business was already saturated;
hence, many moved to other northern European countries, such as the
Netherlands, Germany, and France.55 The first Chinese restaurant in
Rome, called “Shanghai,” was opened in 1949, but it was mostly for
immigrants’ use.56 Only in the late 1970s and early 1980s did Chinese
restaurants establish more stable businesses in Italian cities. In the past
three decades the Chinese have intensified their presence all over the
Italian peninsula and have also increased the variety of businesses by which
they pursue wealth.
The third wave of migration is the most relevant for Italy and the focus
of this book. Until 1975, the presence of Chinese immigrants in Italy was
small (in 1975 only 1000 Chinese were in Italy).57 This third wave coin-
cided with the reforms led by Deng Xiaoping starting in 1978. Deng’s
policies of “Reform and Opening” were aimed at providing prosperity to
all Chinese citizens, although some were to get rich sooner and others
later. For this reason, Deng promoted the formation of Special Economic
Zones (SEZs) that adopted flexible economic policies (e.g., weak unions

53
For a detailed archival description of the first Chinese migrated to Italy and for an accu-
rate analysis of Chinese migrants interned in camps under the Italian Fascist regime during
the Second World War, see Cologna, Daniele Brigadoi, Aspettando la fine della Guerra.
Lettere dei prigionieri cinesi nei campi di concentramento fascisti [Waiting the end of the war.
Chinese prisoners’ letters from fascist concentration camps] (Carocci Editore: Roma), 2019.
54
Renzo Rastrelli, “Immigrazione cinese e criminalità. Fonti e interpretazioni a con-
fronto,” “Chinese immigration and criminality. Comparing sources and perspectives,” in La
Cina che arriva. Il sistema del dragone (China is coming: the system of the Dragon), ed.
Giorgio Trentin (Roma: Avagliano Editore, 2005), 245–260.
55
Minghuan Li, We Need Two Worlds: Chinese Immigrant Associations in a Western Society,
(Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 1999).
56
Redi, Federica, “Bacchette e Forchette: La Diffusione della Cucina Cinese in Italia”
(Chopsticks and Forks: the Spread of Chinese Cuisine in Italy) Mondo Cinese No. 95
(Fondazione Italia Cina: Roma), 1997.
57
Ibid., 22.
 1 INTRODUCTION 27

and low taxes) to increase economic development, favor import-export

trade, and earn foreign currency. Besides these areas, there were also port
cities that experienced relaxed economic rules. One of these was Wenzhou,
in the Zhejiang province, which, together with adjacent small towns, had
a long history of out migration and which represents the major sending
locality of Chinese people leaving for Italy.
Therefore, since the early 1980s, Italy’s largest cities experienced a
growing Chinese presence. Between the late 1960s and the early 1980s,
migrants resorted to illegal means to get out of China and enter Europe.
Some embarked from Hong Kong, arrived in port cities around Europe,
mostly in the Netherlands, France, or Great Britain, and then moved
within Europe. The European Union was still only an ideal then, and to
cross borders many had to turn to the protection of middlemen to travel
across borders. These middlemen, called in Chinese 蛇头 shetou or snake-
head in English, usually received substantial amounts of money to perform
real acts of human smuggling: organizing migrants to sneak into the new
country by crossing remote areas of the borders on foot. One of my inter-
viewees told me she remembers how many Chinese people revered her
father because he was one of the middlemen who had “helped” many
migrants enter Italy through mountainous zones of the Alps at the border
with France. Many other migrants left China through Siberia and entered
Europe from one of the countries of Eastern Europe.
Most of the Chinese migrants who reached Italy entered some other
European country first and only later arrived in Italy. The number of
Chinese migrants increased after the Italian government approved several
amnesties, aimed at legalizing migrants who resided in Italy without
authorizing documents. The government also implemented other strate-
gies, like family reunifications, designed to fight trafficking and human
smuggling and create legitimate and smooth moving processes. The first
amnesty to legalize the status of undocumented immigrants living in Italy
was announced in 1986. After 1986, the Italian government promoted
five more amnesties, specifically, in 1990, 1992, 1995, 1998, and 2002.58
Amnesties and family reunifications offered great incentives for Chinese
around Europe to quickly move to Italy. As a result, Chinese migration to
Italy became more visible in the 1990s especially in big cities like Rome.

58
Antonella Ceccagno, “New Chinese Migrants in Italy,” International Migration 41, no.
3 (2003): 189–190.
28 V. RAVAGNOLI

In the late 2000s the number of Chinese migrating to Italy reached its
historic peak with official data reporting almost 300,000 Chinese residing
in Italy in 2017 and stipulating a projection for the Chinese to become, by
the year 2025, the largest ethnic group present in Italy.59

Chapters
Chapter 2 is an overview of the international environment that Chinese
migrants move through when they leave the motherland in search of bet-
ter economic conditions and job opportunities. Relations between Italy
and China have changed in the past fifty years and the consequences of
perceptions regarding China and its population have had an impact on
individual and collective identities of both Chinese and Italians. I contend
that identities are shaped in response to local environments. Yet, I show
how localized settings are also transnationally hyper-linked and highly
connected. Therefore, it becomes crucial to investigate the history of
Chinese migrations in both contexts, global and local (glocal). In this way,
it becomes easier to understand complex and multifaceted ideas of belong-
ings (e.g., being European, Italian, Chinese in the motherland, Chinese
working in the EU, Chinese migrant to Europe or to other countries of
the European Union). The feeble role of a divided EU influences
Europeans in the international realm, with results that are the opposite of
those hoped for by the EU founders. In opposition to its own motto,
“United in Diversity,” the European Union becomes a land divided in
diversity. On the other hand, Chinese migrants see the EU as an indistinct
land of opportunity. Additionally, the perception of an internationally
strong China (economically and politically), reinforces the resilient con-
cept of Chinese-ness, and nurtures migrants’ transnational and translocal
feelings of belonging.
In Chap. 3, I describe the trip to Italy of several Chinese migrants and
depict how they emplaced themselves first around Europe, then in Italy,
and ultimately in Rome. The chapter illustrates migrants’ stories starting
with Shan Tao, the fictional name I gave to my most effective informant,
inspired by the story of the “Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove”
(205–283 A.D.).60 I introduce the journey to Italy of the contemporary

59
Cologna, Daniele “I Nuovi Cinesi D’Italia [The New Chinese of Italy]” Mondo Cinese
163 (2020): ix.
60
See Chap. 3 for an in-depth description of Shan Tao and for bibliographic notes.
 1 INTRODUCTION 29

Shan Tao and relate the course of events that led me to enter his world. By
entering his circles and his friends’ houses, I obtained a view from the
inside of migrants’ lives. In addition, I discuss the results of interviews
with other Chinese migrants emplaced in the Esquiline since the late
1960s. By surveying the life stories of migrants from different classes and
generations I can show the social practices behind life in a foreign country
and identity adaptations.
In Chap. 4, to better understand the level of emplacement and integra-
tion (or lack thereof) of Chinese migrants in Rome, I questioned the exis-
tence of a “Roman Chinatown” in the Esquiline. According to my
fieldwork, I conclude that it does not exist. The “Roman Chinatown,” as
I experienced it, has never been officially recognized or even accepted as a
functioning local institution; hence, it is a trope used in popular media,
mostly in a derogatory way against Chinese migrants. Not only does it
remain a fictional category applied to the neighborhood, but more impor-
tantly it has a negative influence over the formation of ethnic identity
among Chinese living in Rome.
In Chap. 5, I focus on the Esquiline—the neighborhood of Rome
where Chinese migrants settled their businesses and some of their homes.
I introduce the arrival of Chinese migrants in the Esquiline and explore
social and physical changes that occurred there after the implementation
of local policies. Imagined or real perceptions of the “other” have influ-
enced encounters and interactions between Chinese and Italians. I present
the results of my fieldwork among Roman dwellers of the Esquiline, and I
discuss how identity is shaped at the intersection of situationally driven
individual and collective needs and opportunities.
In Chap. 6, I embark in a deconstruction of the reality of Italian per-
ceptions toward the Esquiline and the intruding “other.” I question per-
ceptions that Romans hold of the locality and also of Chinese businesses,
schools, and cultural associations that flourished in the area. I analyze and
trace back in history specific tropes referring to the negative consequences
of the arrival of migrants to Rome. Specifically, the legacy of the Esquiline
is crucial to grasp those references to collective memories that shape both
Italian and Chinese identities. I conduct a historical fact check of the sub-
stantiality of current notions of Roman identity and belonging based on
the rationale of “us” versus “them.”
In Chap. 7, I trace back to China the stories of Chinese people who
migrated to Europe. Specifically, I examine the networks of my informants
from Rome back to their places of origin around the Zhejiang province. I
30 V. RAVAGNOLI

analyze the changing role of the P.R.C. vis à vis migration issues and
explore migrants’ relationships with their government. Finally, by describ-
ing the glocal lives of Chinese migrants, I underline the “glocal circularity”
of migrants’ lives and the aporetic status of Chinese-ness, which changes
in the motherland and abroad and once in China it paradoxically becomes
a “Chinese-ness with foreign characteristics.”
In the Epilogue, I conclude that identity is a pliable toolbox where local
and global identifiers are circumstantially chosen by migrants. Therefore,
I restate the significance of a glocal approach to study migrations. A glocal
approach allows for investigations of local developments of globalized per-
ceptions, and to appreciate the extent of the “glocal circularity” of ideas as
they influence collective and individual identities of mobile people.
 CHAPTER 2

Chinese Migrations in the European Context

I have always found the word ‘Europe’ on the lips of those who
wantedsomething from others which they dared not demand in their
own names!
—German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck, 1880
Are we all clear that we want to build something that can aspire to be a
world power? In other words, not just a trading bloc, but a political
entity. Do we realize that our nation states, taken individually, would
find it far more difficult to assert their existence and their identity on
the world stage?
—Commission President Romano Prodi, European Parliament,
February 13, 2001
Europe is … a monument to the vanity of individuals,a programme
whose inevitable destiny is failure.
—Margaret Thatcher, 2002

What factors do influence Chinese migrants’ perceptions of their identity

and their position as ethnic Chinese within the Italian society? This over-
arching question must be answered locally because Chinese migrants in
Italy, certainly construct their identities at that level. However, here we
will analyze the global context Chinese migrants move through as national
and international events all contribute to the building of individual and
group identity and affect migrants’ experiences of belonging. Therefore, a

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 31

Switzerland AG 2022
V. Ravagnoli, The Building of Chinese Ethnicity in Rome,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-07025-9_2
32 V. RAVAGNOLI

bird’s eye view of the international framework will be the first step to posi-
tion migrants globally.
In Europe, immigration is considered both a problem and a resource.
The extensive debate on immigration interests every sector and level of the
European society. Immigration issues inflame popular, academic, and
political discussions within each single member state and within the
European Union as a supranational entity. Therefore, Chinese migrants
who live in Italy, one of the EU founding members, are subject to EU
politics and legislation1 and, at the same time, their lives are shaped by the
political situation and Italian social attitudes. In addition, migrants’ per-
ception of their place in the world is undoubtedly shaped from China, the
nation, and its international status as an economic colossus and a rising
superpower.
International relations between the EU and China can be summarized
as opportunistic on several different issues. China maintains an incredible
number of investments in the EU to build up its international image while
the EU, and more precisely, each single member of the EU mostly enter-
tains individual trade exchanges with China on any profitable field, for
high economic returns.

EU-China Relations
The first diplomatic exchange between China and the European
Community started in 1975, when Christopher Soames visited China as
the first European Commissioner. While European media, policymakers,
and academics published prolifically on the issue of EU China relations,2 it

1
For reference see: Leo Lucassen and Jan Lucassen, The Mobility Transition in Europe
revisited 1500–1900 (Leiden: IIHS, 2010); Klaus Bade, Pieter Emmer, Leo Lucassen and
Jochen Oltmer, eds., The Encyclopedia of Migration and Minorities in Europe. From the 17th
century to the present (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011); A. Triandafyllidou and
Ruby Gropas European Immigration: A Sourcebook (Burlington: Ashgate Publishing
Company, 2007); Klause Bade, Migration in European History (Malden: Blackwell Pub,
2008); Michael R. Marrus, The Unwanted: European Refugees in the twentieth century
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985), among others.
2
Nicholas Rees, “EU-China Relations: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives,”
European Studies 27 (2009): 31–46; Fraser Cameron, “The Development of EU-China
Relations,” European Studies 27 (2009): 47–64; Richard L. Edmonds, “China and Europe
since 1978: An Introduction,” The China Quarterly 169 (2002): 1–9; Kay Moller,
“Diplomatic Relations and Mutual Strategic Perceptions: China and the European Union,”
The China Quarterly 169 (2002): 10–32; Nicola Casarini, “The Evolution of the EU-China
 2 CHINESE MIGRATIONS IN THE EUROPEAN CONTEXT 33

was only in 2003 that the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA)
published the first complete document on the Chinese policies toward the
EU.3 The Chinese leadership kept toward Europe an attitude defined by
self-interest. Therefore, despite the dearth of official documents on
China-EU relations, China did not remain idle toward Europe. In fact,
starting in 1978, China signed several trade agreements with the EU and
established separate economic and diplomatic relations with individual
European nation-states.4 The 2003 MFA paper is important because it
recognized for the first time the EU as a “major player in the organization
of the world,” a world that China wishes to be ordered by multi-polar
forces instead of unipolar authorities.5 The concept of a multi-polarization
of the world order includes a new look at the relations between major
powers and a growing role in the global scene of developing countries and
their regional associations (such as ASEAN, OPEC, Mercosur, etc.). Yinan
Jin describes multi-polarization as “the democratization of international
relations. It has all along been the strongest call that mankind has ever
made for the fate of itself and nations in the past century.”6 In reality, the
goal of a multi-polar world is to indirectly contrast a unipolar, US domi-
nated, world order. Hence, Chinese leadership now evaluates the EU as “a
major player” for a global balance of power, where China can gain some-
thing by stepping in, even if the EU still lacks a real and effective sover-
eign power.
From the perspective of the EU, China is first and foremost a tremen-
dous economic opportunity. In dealing with China, single EU nation-­
states manage to set aside domestic economic interests only when
confronting diplomatic and security decisions. On the contrary, at the EU
level, sentiments of individual states are in strong competitions with each
other in regard to economic issues. Therefore, the EU has not been able

Relationship: from Constructive Engagement to Strategic Partnership,” European Union

Institute for Security Studies 64 (2006); David Shambaugh et al., eds., China-Europe
Relations: Perceptions, Policies and Prospects (London: Routledge, 2008); Jing Men,
“EU-China Relations: from Engagement to Marriage?” EU Diplomacy Papers 7 (2008).
3
MFA “China’s EU Policy Paper,” October 2003, accessed January 2015, http://www.
fmprc.gov.cn/mfa_eng/wjb_663304/zzjg_663340/xos_664404/dqzzywt_664812/
t27708.shtml.
4
Taube, Markus (2002) “Economic Relations between PRC and the States of Europe”
The China Quarterly No. 168 Special Issue: China and Europe since 1978: An European
Perspective, pp. 78–107.
5
Yinan Jin, “Multi-polarization irrevocable trend,” China Daily, July 15, 2002.
6
Yinan Jin, “Multi-polarization irrevocable trend,” China Daily, July 15, 2002.
34 V. RAVAGNOLI

to agree on a unified policy toward China yet.7 With respect to economic

gains, the EU lacks the unity, steadiness, general pride, and self-awareness
China, and most Chinese people, hold.
Chinese authorities are well aware of the great economic leverage China
currently exerts on European countries. China adopted the strategy of
“setting aside differences and seeking common ground,”8 which means
that China will collaborate on issues as long as the EU does not interfere
with Chinese internal politics. Consequently, China has been skillfully
exploiting the diplomatic role of the EU in the world to show the willing-
ness of the Chinese government to collaborate on important issues such as
human trafficking and terrorism. However, since there are not real strate-
gic gains to be achieved by China through a cohesive EU-China policy,
China does not push for stronger political ties with the gargantuan
European parliament. A series of negotiations started in 2013 to formu-
late a China Investment Agreement (CAI). These concluded only in
December 2020, when China namely agreed to comply to a series of
requests put forward by the EU to rebalance the conditions for future
bilateral investments, to prohibit forced technology transfer and to disci-
pline Chinese State-Owned enterprises (SOEs), which make up 40% of the
Chinese economy.9 In May 2021, the ratification of the agreement was
halted because of political tensions about human rights violations against
ethnic Uyghurs in Western China10 and only in July 2021 the talks resumed
with a joint communication between the EU and China, but the agree-
ment has not been signed yet.11

7
Franke Krumbmuller, “Despite Thaw, EU struggles to find unified policy on China,”
World Politics Review, March, 2014.
8
Jenny Clegg, “China Views Europe: A Multi-Polar,” European Studies 27 (2009):
123–137.
9
European Commission, “EU-China comprehensive agreement on investment” https://
trade.ec.europa.eu/doclib/press/index.cfm?id=2233 accessed in June 2021.
10
Ridgwell, Henry, “EU suspends China Trade Deal as Tensions Grow Over Xinjiang,
Hong Kong” VOA May 10, 2021 https://www.voanews.com/east-asia-pacific/voa-news-­
china/eu-suspends-china-trade-deal-tensions-grow-over-xinjiang-hong-kong accessed in
July 2021.
11
According to latest speculations, it possibly won’t happen until 2023. Source: Yen Nee
Lee, “EU-China Investment Deal is Still Possible—but not before 2023, analyst says” CNBC
June 15, 2021 https://www.cnbc.com/2021/06/15/eu-china-investment-deal-still-­­
possible-but-not-before-2023-analyst.html accessed in July 2021.
 2 CHINESE MIGRATIONS IN THE EUROPEAN CONTEXT 35

Chinese Migrants and the EU

Before traveling Chinese migrants typically perceive Europe as a united
land of opportunities.12 Because of this imagined perception, migrants link
themselves to it in order to 发财 facai—get rich; Europe represents the
possibility of making money, no matter in what country of the Union they
end up living. From the point of view of Chinese migrants, the EU is a
land of peace, unity, and prosperity. I argue that Chinese migrants see it as
undifferentiated because the majority moved opportunistically around the
EU following the best conditions to succeed.
Liyang, a young Chinese-Italian, declared that when his parents told
him they were going to 意大利 Yidali Italy, he had no idea where Italy
was. Liyang’s father left China when he was only three years old, and they
were unable to reunite with him until Liyang was eleven. His dad had
spent eight years in Italy working any kind of job; yet the boy could not
picture where Italy was on a map or how it looked before moving there.
When Liyang moved to Italy, he first flew into Germany, and when he
landed in Frankfurt, he thought he had arrived at his final destination.
Only after another clandestine trip by train with a fake Japanese passport
provided by the “snakehead” did he finally arrive in Milan to discover that
Europe was not one big country, but many.
During the last forty years Chinese migrants have moved more or less
freely around Europe, especially after the approval in 1995 of the Schengen
treaties, which allowed freedom of movement within the countries that
signed the Schengen agreements. In China, a young fellow I interviewed
expressed to me his willingness to migrate. His plan was to get a visa for
any country in Europe; it did not matter which one as long as it took little
time to get the documents. He knew that once he got a visa that would
admit him to any country of the Schengen area, he could go anywhere he
pleased. That would open for him as infinite set of possibilities, as he knew
so many people around Europe.
In the early 1980s, Chinese society had just started to recover from
Maoist policies and the Cultural Revolution. At the time, obtaining a pass-
port and traveling documents was not an easy task. Therefore, anyone
who had the possibility to go abroad would go, stated Mrs. Xu, a

12
In her book about Chinese in the Netherlands titled We Need Two Worlds, Li Minghuan
argues that when a Chinese person decides to migrate, it does not matter which specific
country of Europe he/she is moving to. Europe is perceived as a whole and single entity.
36 V. RAVAGNOLI

long-term migrant to Italy I met in China, even if they knew nothing

about life abroad and the foreign countries. Many that moved had only
heard numerous stories that circulated in their villages about going abroad
and becoming rich. Chinese migrants I interviewed in Italy told me they
also were inspired by enticing stories of riches and prosperity, circulating
among friends when still in China and therefore, as soon as an opportunity
arose, they migrated; others, instead, migrated simply because a friend or
a relative told them to do so. As in many migration stories before theirs,
the audacious Chinese migrants were pulled by hopeful narratives and
personal ambitions and were often welcomed instead by hardship, indif-
ference, and frustration.
Chinese migrants have been arriving in Italy by many different routes.
Some climbed the Alps and accessed the peninsula by trespassing isolated
and unattended areas of the Swiss borders; some flew into France or
Germany or Holland and then sat on trains with fake passports (often
disguised as Japanese as Liyang, one of my informants explained); and
some arrived by sea in city ports around Europe and Italy itself. The moti-
vating factors were always the same: finding a better life, chasing better
opportunities, reuniting with fathers, mothers, wives, or husbands, always
with the help of real or fictive uncles and aunts. Once they set foot in
Europe, opportunities and networks would guide the lives of these new
migrants. Italy has been very attractive for two main reasons: the numer-
ous amnesties aimed at giving a chance to undocumented migrants,
already living in Italy, to file for resident permits and the great opportuni-
ties to work in the informal economy.13 Informal economy guaranteed
Chinese entrepreneurs the opportunity to prosper in Italy, through the
establishment of niche businesses (ready-to-wear fashion, household
products, catering business, leather business). The niche business thrived
because of the significant number of low skilled and low paid laborers
introduced from China across the kinship networks (authentic or invented
as they were) and for the ability of Chinese entrepreneurs to create local
ad hoc systems of production (the mobile regime in general14 or the

13
By “informal economy” I mean an economy that is not taxed or controlled by the gov-
ernment; an economy that eludes official monitoring.
14
Ceccagno, A. (2015). “The mobile emplacement: Chinese migrants in Italian industrial
districts” Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 41(7), 1111–1130.
 2 CHINESE MIGRATIONS IN THE EUROPEAN CONTEXT 37

“sleeping regime” in Prato)15 capable of responding and adapting to the

needs of the local economy.
Once having entered Europe, all Chinese migrants would look for ways
to repay their initial debt to relatives or “snakeheads” and then work hard
to succeed. Many Chinese migrants do, in fact, succeed because they are
usually able to exploit interstices, contradictions, and benefits of a united
Europe. Chinese migrants, to some extent, have been able to perceive
what former Italian prime minister Matteo Renzi urged to create as soon
as he took office in 2014, the United States of Europe, which are instead
a utopian realization still.

Italians and the EU

When flipping the coin, Italians’ view of the international realm is highly
influenced by the perception of a very divided EU, with opposite results
from those hoped for by the EU founders. Against its own motto, the
European Union becomes a land divided in diversity by diversities, instead
of a land united in diversity. The locally preoccupied Italians do not hold
the perception of a cohesive Europe; they encounter, instead, big obsta-
cles in appreciating the full extent of a vision of the EU that, instead, many
Chinese migrants hold—a united land of opportunities.
While at the early stages of the European Union Italians were very
enthusiastic about the building of a united Europe, the 2011 Eurobarometer
report revealed Italy as the most Euroskeptic of the twenty-seven mem-
bers.16 And again in 2015, a survey conducted by the Demos and Pragma
Institution as part of the 7th Report on European Security conveyed that
only 27% of Italians see the EU positively.17 In addition, the Report states
that Italians accept the EU out of caution and fear, and not for the ideal
design of a supranational entity able to preserve dreams and realize ambi-
tions, as it appears instead to many Chinese migrants. It seems that Chinese
immigrants hold a perception of Europe closer to that envisioned by EU

15
Ceccagno, Antonella (2017) City Making and Global Labor Regimes. Chinese Immigrants
and Italy’s Fast Fashion Industry (Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan).
16
Il Tempo, “Italiani piu’ poveri e delusi dall’UE” (Italians poorer and disappointed by the
EU), March, 14th, 2012, accessed on March 15, 2012, www.iltempo.it.
17
Diamanti, Ilvo, “Dietrofront degli Italiani, ora sono i piu’ euroscettici,” Politica in La
Repubblica, February 23, 2015, www.repubblica.it.
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
The Project Gutenberg eBook of Perttunen kiinni!
This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States
and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no
restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it
under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this
ebook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the
United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where
you are located before using this eBook.

Title: Perttunen kiinni!

1-näytöksinen ilveily

Author: Sakari Ruotsalo

Release date: December 2, 2023 [eBook #72284]

Language: Finnish

Original publication: Jyväskylä: K. J. Gummerus Oy, 1925

Credits: Tapio Riikonen

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PERTTUNEN

KIINNI! ***
PERTTUNEN KIINNI!

1-näytöksinen ilveily

Kirj.

S. A. RUOTSALO

Jyväskylässä, K. J. Gummerus Oy, 1925.

HENKILÖT:

SOINISKA, Amerikan leski.

SELMA, hänen tyttärensä.
PERTTUNEN, aikanaan kuulu suurrosvo.
ERVINKI, maallikkosaarnaaja.
ALAPEREEN AUKUSTA, elähtänyt neiti, matkustajakodin pitäjä.
3 vahtimiestä.

HUONE:

Tupa, jossa on leivinuuni keskellä peräseinää; uunin etupuolessa

hella. Huone on seinällä jaettu kahtia: isompi oikea puoli on keittiö,
vasempi kamari, johon tuo ovi hellan edestä. Keittiön oikeassa
seinässä ulko-ovi liki yleisöä, sen vieressä sänky vuoteineen;
peräseinässä ikkuna verhoineen ja sen alla kaappipöytä
tavaroineen. Kamarin peräseinässä ikkuna verhoineen ja alla olevine
pöytineen; vasemmalla piironki peileineen, oikealla sänkysohva
vuoteineen. Tuoleja siellä täällä ja meriltä tuotuja tauluja ja koruja.
Kamarin lattiassa kynnyksen alla avattava luukku, josta mennään
kellariin. On syyskuun iltapuhde; tuli hellassa, ei lampussa.
 SELMA (hellan edessä pyyhkii juuri valmistunutta kahvipannua ja
laulaa)

Jo lienet kuullut, veikkonen,

Tuon mainittavan Perttusen?
Hän oli aina hurja mies
Ja metsäpolut tarkoin ties!

Ei työhön ollut tottunut,

Vaan varastamaan oppinut;
Siihen vain taipui luontonsa —
Ja harjautui jo lapsena.

PERTTUNEN (on ilmestynyt ovelle ja kuunnellut)

Mistäs se Selmakin on tuon uuden arkkiveisun oppinut?

SELMA

Kas! Eera Manninen Kalajoelta! (kättelee) Tervetuloa! Istumaan!

PERTTUNEN (ympärilleen pälyillen)

Oletko yksin kotona?

SELMA

Olen. Äiti on vieraansa kanssa hihhulien seuroissa. Mutta mikäs

suden saareen saatti, minkä sinutkin meille, ja miten sinä mökkimme
löysit, vaikket ennen olekaan sisälle poikennut?

PERTTUNEN
 Vaikeatapa tänne olikin osata, kun vastaantulijat lensivät kuin
hullut sen suuren varkaan perässä, josta juuri lauloit, eivätkä
joutaneet neuvomaan. (Istuu keinutuolissa.)

SELMA

Muistatkos vielä, miten tutustuimme? (Panee kuppeja ja pannun

tarjottimelle.)

PERTTUNEN

Muistanpa tietenkin. Sinä olit menossa tuohon naapurikylään

laulamaan Sivistysseurain kuvaelmassa. Kun tulin vastaan,
virvoittelit sinä maantielle tuupertunutta ukkoa. Minä autoin sinua, ja
meistä tuli heti ystävät, avomielisiä kun ollaan. Vai pidätkö minua
vielä ystävänäsi?

SELMA (on nostanut tuolin P:n viereen hellan suun eteen ja istuu
vastatessaan)

Totta kai! Sinä olet minusta nuoren maamiehen perikuva harmaine

nuttuinesi ja pieksusaappainesi, pestyine poskinesi ja kammattuine
hiuksinesi olet minun miesihanteeni (silittelee P:n poskea). Mutta
kauan sinä olet ollut poissa näkyvistäni. Missä?

PERTTUNEN

Kotona Kalajoella. Heinänteko ja elonkorjuu pidättävät

isäntämiestä. (kaivaa taskuaan) Minä olen tuonut sinulle muistoksi
tämän äitivainajani kellon perineen. (Ylös.) Huolitkos? (Pistää tytön
kaulaan.)
SELMA

Kiitos, kiitos! Tämä on kuin äidiltäni varastettu kello, mutta siinä ei

ollut periä. Isäntämiesten lahjat ovat suuria. (Selman epäluulo on
herännyt, ovelle koputetaan.)

PERTTUNEN (säikähtäen)

Joko äitisi tulee?

SELMA

Jaa! Manninenpa taisi panna porstuan oven lukkoon? Mutta ei se

äiti vielä ole, sillä hänellä on avain. Vieras se on. Manninen istuu
tuolla kamarissa ja juo kahvia. (Vie pannun tarjottimella ynnä kupit
kamarin pöydälle ja käskee Perttusen istumaan ja juomaan.) Juopas
nyt! Minä tulen pian. (Menee, avaa porstuan oven, josta Alapereen
Aukusta tulee.)

AUKUSTA

Iltaa!

SELMA

Iltaa! Tapasitteko äitiä?

AUKUSTA

Tapasin. Hän käski sanoa, ettei sinun tarvitse varata kahvia eikä
ruokaa. Soiniska syö saarnamiehineen siellä.

SELMA
 Jokos seurat sitten loppuivat näin aikaisin?

AUKUSTA

Vasta ovat puhuneet Pere, Penttilä ja Soiniskan pappi, vielä

puhuvat Rahikka, Rasi, Runtti ja Rappi, niinkuin pojat veisaavat.
Mutta minä luulen, ettei äitisi ole loppuun asti, kun Pennaska on
aamupäivällä leiponut ja seuratupa on kuuma kuin pätsi. Voi Antti ja
Taavetti, kuinka kauheasti ne pääuskovaiset olivat riemussa!
Nenolaiskakin konttasi neulansilmän läpi. Arvaapas, miten se kävi.

SELMA

En arvaa.

AUKUSTA

Hän ryömi tuolinjalkojen välitse, se lihava tyllerö. Kun tuolilla

sylitysten istuvat pojat eivät liikahtaneet, tarttui eukko kiinni. Lopulta
hän rupesi nipistelemään poikia, ja pojat kiljumaan. Lysti sitä oli
suruttoman katsella. Mutta kun meidän vieraskodissamme on
kortteeria muiden muassa se konsulin vararouva kaupungista, se
Noppa-Katti hyväkäs, täytyi siksikin lähteä jo, sillä se pakana on
pitkäkynsinen. (Tekee lähtöä, panee huivin päähänsä, saalin
hartioille lattialta.) Kuule. Tiedätkö, mitä tuo ulkoa kuuluva huuto on?

SELMA

Siellä kuuluu ajettavan Perttusta takaa.

AUKUSTA
 Niin, sitä suurta voroa. Ihmiset juoksevat pitkin kujia ja lääviä. Hän
on viime yönä kierrellyt kirkonkylällä ja ammuskellut nimismiehen
akkunoita. Aamulla hän kuuluu Punaisesta mökistä vaimonpuolen
puvussa tulleen tännepäin. (Kaivaa povestaan kuvan) Tässä on
hänen kuvansa, että tietäisit juosta pakoon, jos eteesi sattuu.
Leikkasin tämän Oulun lehdestä. Hän on sievä mies. Branderin
mamselli sanoikin: »Minä ottaisin tuon miehekseni, jos ei häntä
odottaisi ikuinen kakola».

PERTTUNEN (on Selman ja Aukustan puhellessa avaimillaan

aukonut piirongin laatikot, tukkinut taskuunsa lusikoita ja sormuksia
sanoen samalla):

Tämä on minun työtäni, tähän minä olen jo lapsena tottunut, kuten

veisussa sanotaankin. Varas varastaa morsiameltaankin. (Istuu
kahvia juomaan.)

SELMA (katselee kuvaa, kalpenee)

Hiljaa. (Vetää Aukustan ovelle.) Minä luulen, että juuri tämä mies,
tämä Perttunen, istuu perikamarissa ja juo kahvia. Menkää ja
ilmoittakaa pyytäjille! Minä narraan hänet, koska hän on pettänyt
minut, narraan kellariin muka äitiä piiloon.

AUKUSTA

Vai on siellä joku. (Kovasti.) Ei, nyt minä juoksen kotiin. Hyvästi.
(Menee porstuaan, palaa takaisin.) Kuule! Kun tulet kaupunkiin, niin
soita sieltä uutisia.

SELMA
 Ei sitä viitsi, kun se keskuksen akka kaikki kuuntelee ja kaikki
kertoo koko kylälle.

AUKUSTA

Ei se enää uskalla. Rouva Setälä paransi hänestä sen taudin. Hän

soitti Ouluun ja kertoi salaisuutena muka, että yhtiön johtokunta on
tarjonnut hänen hoidettavakseen kaupungin keskuksen, kun tämä
Mareliuksen Fiinu kaikki kuuntelee ja kertoo. Se auttoi. Fiinulla on
siitä asti ollut pikilappu suulla. Ei. Hyvästi! (Lyö mennessään
porstuan oven kiinni.)

SELMA (yksin)

Oletkos siis todellakin sinä Eera Manninen tuo katala Perttunen!

Ja tämä kello on varastettu tämäkin. Hyi! (Viskaa uunille.) Malta,
malta! Miehet sinä olet aina ja kaikkialla kekuloinut, mutta nainen on
heitä ovelampi. Saatpas kokea. (Menee kamariin, kuuluu kolinaa.)
Nyt äiti tulee ja Ervinki, se meillä asuva saarnamies. Manninen istuu
vain täällä ja juo kahvia, tulen heti. (Menee keittiöön, Perttunen
kuuntelee).

SOINISKA

Terveisiä seuroista! Istu Ervinki ja riisu! Hullu se on tuo Pennaska,

kun korventaa saarnatuvan kuin saunan. Huhui! (Pyyhkii silmiään.)
Ei sinun tarvitse kahvia eikä ruokaa tuoda. Mene maata, tyttö. (Istuu
pöydän päähän, nostaa 2 pikaria ja pullon kaapista.) Tuossa
Ervingillekin vähän sydämen vahvistusta. (Juovat molemmat,
Soiniska riisuu kengät ja hameet.) Juo pullo tyhjäksi, muuten vilustut
hikeiltyäsi hirveästi. Mutta ei sinun tarvitse tästä seuroissa saarnata.
Minulla on tilkka takana alituisen koliikini vuoksi. Pahe sinä maata
tuohon sänkyyn. Minä menen tuonne uunille. (Kiivetessään.) On
täällä tilaa sinullekin. Jos rupeaa vilustamaan täi haluttamaan, niin
kämmi tänne, kuten ennenkin eräillä kerroilla.

ERVINKI

Kyllä, kyllä, jahka Selma nukkuu. (Panee maata.)

SELMA (on kuunnellut oven raosta, Perttuselle)

Uskooko Manninen, että tuo Ervinki rietas tulee tänne

reistailemaan heti, kun äiti nukkuu. Se kiusaa minua.

PERTTUNEN (kattelee)

Mutta pääseekös sieltä varmasti ulos?

SELMA

Vielä häntä kysyy. Pian nyt! (Perttusen laskeuduttua alas Selma

vetää portaat ylös, mutta jättää luukun auki) Ei saa ennen ovea
survoa, kuin äiti nukkuu, minä ilmoitan. (Vähentää vaatteita, vetää
ikkunaverhot kiinni.)

ERVINKI (nousee ylös, riisuu alusvaatteilleen ja hiipii kamariin

kääry kädessä)

Sst! Hiljaa, Selma! Tässä sinulle tuon pienen — — — (Putoo

samassa luukusta kellariin.) Mitä pirun vehkeitä tämä?

SELMA (sulkiessaan luukun)

 Olkaa siellä, mokomat sulhaset, älkääkä huutako, ettei äiti herää.
Minä lähetän vahtimiehet Perttusta kiinni ottamaan. (Kuuluu
kolkutusta ulko-ovelta.) Nyt ne tulevat! (Menee avaamaan)

PERTTUNEN (paiskaa luukun auki, putkahtaa permannolle,

sieppaa Selman vaatteita ylleen, hiipii Selman puhellessa sängyn
päähän piiloon.)

SELMA

Menkää kellarin oven eteen kaikki, minä viskaan kamarin

akkunasta avaimen, se on pöytälaatikossa siellä. (Menee kamariin,
mutta putoo hänkin kellariin.)

PERTTUNEN (huutaa uunille)

Laskekaa portaat kellariin, jotta Selma sulhasineen pääsee pois.

(Juoksee ulos varastettuaan Ervingin puvun.)

SOINISKA

Mitä, mitä tämä melu on? Ja mistä tämä minun varastettu kelloni
on uunille ilmestynyt? (Kuuluu kolkutusta kellarista ja huutoja
ikkunan alta, Soiniska paitasillaan permannolla huutaa akkunasta.)
Mitä siellä elämöidään? Tulkaa sisälle!

ERÄS VAHTIMIES (tulee)

Mihin se sinun tyttölintusi katosi, kun kellarin avainta ei

kuulukaan?

SOINISKA
 Mitä te sitten minun kellarissani tekisitte?

VAHTIMIES.

Sinne on kätketty Perttunen.

SOINISKA

Valehtelet! Minä en ole mikään rosvojen huoltaja. Että uskoisitte,

niin menkää katsomaan. Täältä luukusta sinne pääsette ilman
avainta. (Menevät kamariin.) Tuossa on luukku ja tuossa portaat!
Hakekaa tarkoin! Minä puen päälleni riepuja.

VAHTIMIES (asettaa portaat alas; kun toisetkin ovat tulleet,

huutaa)

Jos siellä joku on, niin ylös ja äkkiä!

SELMA

Putosin pimeässä kellariin, kun Perttunen karkasi luukusta. Äiti,

viskatkaa sängystä hameeni!

SOINISKA

Ei täällä sinun hameitasi näy.

ERVINKI

Anna, Soiniska, takkini ja housuni tuvan tuolilta.

PERTTUNEN (lyö ruudun rikki kamarista, pistää päänsä näkyviin)

 Ei niitä siellä ole. Tuossa on morsiameni vaatteet. (Viskaa kääryn
ikkunasta.) Perttunen herrastelee saarnasaksan puvussa. Hyvästi!
Ottakaa Perttunen kiinni!

15

VAHTIMIEHET (hölmistyneinä hyökkäävät ulos)

Ottakaa Perttunen kiinni! Ottakaa Perttunen kiinni!

SOINISKA (kellarista kömpivälle Ervingille)

Pahuusko sinut sinne viskasi?

ERVINKI

Minä kävelin unissani.

SOINISKA

Unissasi!

ERVINKI

Se oli seuraus sinun sydämenvahvistuksestasi.

SOINISKA (Selmalle)

Entä sinä?
 SELMA (lattialla jo)

Minä läksin viskaamaan avainta tuosta ikkunasta vahtimiehille,

mutta putosinkin kellariin.

SOINISKA

Miksi luukku oli auki?

ERVINKI

Siellä kellarissa oli todella toinen mies. Se kiepsahti kuin orava

olkapäilleni, paiskasi luukun auki ja pakeni, mutta ei auttanutkaan
minua ylös, vaikka lupasi. Olikohan se pahuus se Perttunen?

SELMA

Oli se. Tunsin hänet kuvasta, jonka Alapereen Aukusta antoi.

Kahvittelin häntä kamarissa ja olin olevinani morsian, että Aukusta
ennättäisi hakea vahtimiehiä. Hän se antoi minulle tuon kellon, joka
on äidin kädessä.

SOINISKA

Ja jonka Noppa-Katti varasti minulta.

ERVINKI

Ja Perttunen Noppa-Katilta.

SELMA
 Varas varkaan varasti. Perttunen olikin ovelampi minua. Minä
menen katsomaan, saadaanko se kytketyksi. (Pois.)

SOINISKA

Minä en usko, että Ervinki unissa käveli. Selmaa sinä ahdistit.

Mutta menetitpä vaatteesi! Kutti! Mutta tuon luukun, jota Selman isä
sanoo hentunsilmäksi, kun tahtoo mustasukkaisuudessaan minua
kiusata, minä naulaan huomispäivänä umpeen ja iäksi.
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