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| Berlin's landmark Brandenburg Gate :: © Stefan Bader |
Walking around in certain neighbourhoods of the German capital these days, chances are you hear a lot more Spanish, French or English than German. Yes,
Berlin (official site) is a magnet for international tourists and some parts of it feel and look like a somewhat bizarre adventure playground for youthful hedonism.
Ever-growing numbers of tourists aside, there are also many, especially younger, foreign visitors who decide to stay for good.
The incredible hype about Berlin in the last decade or so has certainly been over the top; nevertheless, it remains an avowed dream destination for the young, hip (whatever that means), well-educated, freedom-loving crowd as the city boasts, not wholly unfounded, of cultural spaces galore, relative tolerance, a thriving start-up scene, a good share of like-minded souls and (still) low costs of living.
But what about the Chinese?
First of all, the Chinese community in Berlin is pretty small in comparison with other big European cities, such as London or Paris.
According to the
latest report (pdf in German) by the Statistical Office for Berlin-Brandenburg, the capital city was home to 7,989 officially registered Chinese nationals at the end of 2014 (this number includes residents from Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan).
Compare that to the 98,659 persons strong populace of Turkish, 53,304 of Polish or 14,825 of Vietnamese descent.
Don't expect to find anything resembling a genuine Chinatown because there is none. The only area with a substantial cluster of Chinese restaurants, antique dealers and furniture stores, small food shops or practitioners of Traditional Chinese Medicine is located around Kantstrasse in the old western district of
Charlottenburg.
Even the largest Asian Market that houses a plethora of different traders in eastern Lichtenberg, the so-called
Dong Xuan Center (link in German), is heavily dominated by the Vietnamese.
This hasn't been always so.
Historically, Berlin had its share of Chinese emigrants as early as the beginning of the 19th century.
The first two of them, the Cantonese Feng Yaxing (also Feng Yasheng) and Feng Yaxue, gained a dubious notoriety when they were being displayed as exotic human exhibition models to a curious, paying 'white' audience in 1823.
Not much is known about the small community in the 19th and beginning of the 20th century. In 1923, more than 1,000 Chinese studied at Berlin's universities, around 200 small traders gathered in the so-called 'Yellow Quarter' and the first sociocultural centers emerged.
It is easily forgotten that many political activists and even luminaries of the Chinese revolution, such as Zhou Enlai or Zhu De, spent some time in the German capital in the 1920s. After the Nazi regime took power, the Chinese population soon became a target for increased control, persecution or worse (for more information in German, see
here).
At present, students again make up a large part of the Chinese community, constituting the single biggest group of foreigners enrolled at local universities. According to the
latest statistics (pdf in German) by the Statistical Office for Berlin-Brandenburg from June this year, over 2,000 Chinese nationals were registered in total.
The tiny community also includes artists, entrepreneurs, managers, doctors, shopkeepers and, of course, the ubiquitous restaurant owners and their staff. Lately, some of these have become more brazen, daring to confront their customers with authentic cuisine from different regions, thus giving foodies a long-awaited alternative to that dreaded westernized mess that normally goes for Chinese.
As a matter of fact, the majority of the Chinese you presently encounter in the streets of Berlin may actually be tourists. Their number has risen continuously over the last few years as the
latest figures (pdf in German) of the Berlin Tourism & Congress GmbH prove (in 2014, there were more than 210,000 overnight stays by visitors from China; that's an increase of 12.5% compared to last year).
This group is highly coveted by the local tourism industry, because Chinese visitors tend to spend quite a lot of money, are known to be picky and very much appreciate services tailored to their specific needs. It's no surprise that high-end designer boutiques and flagship stores are increasingly desperate to find Chinese-speaking sales staff to indulge this free-spending crowd.
Being the capital of Germany, Berlin has attracted a number of institutions and companies over the years.
Air China and
Bank of China (link in German), for example, both have set up branches at central Leipziger Platz.
In November 2011, tech giant
Huawei (link in German) was the first Chinese company to formally establish an office in the capital city. There is also a regional branch of
The German-Chinese Business Association that is active in promoting business relations with China, although Berlin and the surrounding federal state of Brandenburg are hardly the most important hubs for economic cooperation and mutual investment across Germany.
More or less official activities aside, there is a small bunch of private initiatives promoting inter-cultural understanding and exchange. Chinese film clubs, German-Chinese cultural associations or organizations set up by Chinese students and scholars count among these non-official ventures that present / represent China and the Chinese in the German capital.
All things considered, the Chinese presence in Berlin is still rather limited and it remains to be seen if the global rush to find a temporary or permanent domicile in the city will also include rising numbers of people from China in the years to come.
