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Guest Contributor
Chinese-run supermarkets in ArgentinaPosted by Danwei on Tuesday, April 7, 2009 at 12:05 PM
This article is by guest contributor Nancy H. Liu. She is a health researcher, an NIH/Fogarty Scholar in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and recently completed a Fulbright Fellowship in Beijing. Supermercados chinosby Nancy Liu A manual for Chinese-run supermarkets At first glance, this book may seem uninteresting. After all, nobody reads manuals. But upon closer inspection, you realize that this is a Chinese-Spanish language manual for running a supermarket. Open it and you find the distinctive Rioplatense Spanish of Argentina, with useful phrases such as “Gracias a vos: 谢谢你” (thank you) or “Yo tampoco tengo monedas: 我也没有硬币” (I don’t have coins either). One finer detail of the book is that it is written in simplified Chinese, addressed to a mainland audience. Yet the name in traditional Chinese at the bottom of the cover indicates something about the author — he is Taiwanese. The evolution of the Chinese-run supermarkets provides an interesting snapshot of the changing Chinese presence in Buenos Aires. While most Chinese-run supermarkets were originally opened by immigrants from Taiwan, there is a shift towards these businesses being sold to and run by mainland Chinese. This book is further evidence of that trend. Currently, there are 60,000 to 70,000 Chinese in Argentina. Only about 15,000 to 20,000 of those reportedly identify as Taiwanese. Though the Taiwanese were the first to arrive in Argentina in the 1980s, their population has dwindled in recent years as many left, with a steep drop in numbers occurring after Argentina’s economic crisis of 2001. Meanwhile, the number of mainland Chinese immigrants has proliferated, in step with China’s growing investment in the country and the rest of Latin America. In Argentina, there are about 4,200 Chinese-run supermarkets and their numbers are growing. A 2008 statistic reported that approximately 14 new Chinese-run supermarkets open up each month. The increase of mainland Chinese-run supermarkets may serve as a metaphor for the growing influence of China in Argentina’s market. As Argentina’s number two trading partner, especially in soybeans, China has a strong presence. Moreover, with the recent $10 billion Argentinean peso-RMB currency swap, these Chinese-run supermarkets may just keep on growing. Links and Sources
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Comments on Chinese-run supermarkets in Argentina
It is supermercado, not macado...
It's the strangest thing, but that seems to be a very common typo in English, Spanish and Portuguese.
link
Gordon and Micah: Sorry, my mistake, not Nancy or otherwise. Cheers for the links, good to see it's common － makes me feel slightly better.
That means that one in every fifteen Chinese people in Argentina runs a supermarket? That's pretty crazy...are those statistics right?
hi mike: reported rates vary but here's an article approximating 4,000 chinese-run supermarkets. using this number, it would roughly be about 1 in 18.
walking around, it's not completely unbelievable. but perhaps outdated census data and/or an underreporting of chinese people contribute to these numbers.
Hi Nancy,
great article. Two Qs:
1) what Mainlanders are running the supermarkets (Canton/Fujian or other regions)? If they're from the same part of China, is there any chance they form little associations to help each other out (buying wholesale etc.)?
2) Do the supermarkets tend to focus on poorer urban areas? There must be plenty of large supermarket chains that compete with them...
I'm basing myself on the Brazilian case, which I am more familiar with.
Cheers
hi iacob:
1) yes many of the mainland chinese here are from fujian. indeed there are associations that not only help with reducing costs, but also legal issues or employee health insurance. here is an example of one and its objectives.
2) the supermarkets can be found in both rich and poor neighborhoods. while large supermarket chains also exist, they are usually very big (physically)--which can lead to inconvenient locations because streets here can be quite narrow. this may be one reason why, at least for now, they don't seem to provide much serious competition for the chinese-run markets.
also, while i am speaking from a mainly buenos aires experience, i've heard of a growing number of chinese-run supermarkets in the greater province, as well as in other major argentine cities, like rosario.
finally, related to an earlier comment, i recently learned that some owners run multiple supermarkets, which could also be driving the numbers above.
Hi Nancy,
Are you still in BA? My family emigrated from China/Taiwan to Argentina in the 1950s. I was born there but now live in the US. I'll be interested in talking to you about this and will be in BA the first half of Nov and a few days in mid-Dec.
thanks-
sandra
hi sandra,
i've since returned to the US. however, if you would like to be in touch, please send me an email: nancyhhliu@gmail.com.
my grandfather Son Kan Chou, was the first to start a supermarket in Buenos Aries. He just passed away this weekend.