Where is China Street in France?

The Chinatown in Paris is located in the 13 area, not far from Piazza Italia. The roads extend in all directions and the traffic is very convenient.

Walking in the streets here, everything seems so familiar. The signboards in front of almost every store are written in Chinese characters, and the architectural pattern is also built according to the traditional style of China. Several big shops, even carved beams and painted buildings, are very particular. In front of some small restaurants, there are "scorpions" that are rarely seen in China today. Seeing that I stopped to look, my face was full of curiosity. My friend who accompanied me shopping leaned in and explained half jokingly, "Look, this is the place that highlights the characteristics of China! Many foreigners come here, and this is what they rushed over. " Said, and pointed to the small "wine complications" dancing with the wind. In fact, knowing the development history of Chinese in Paris, it is not difficult to understand the painstaking efforts of the shopkeeper.

It is said that people from China came here one after another as early as the 7th century. A large number of China people really set foot on French territory during the First World War. As a participating country, it has exported labor services to France, Britain, Russia and other countries, reaching 230 thousand people. There are 6.5438+0.4 million people who arrived in France. Although they didn't go to the front to fight in person, they did a lot of dirty work in transportation, rescue, and even digging trenches and burying the dead. Nearly ten thousand people have become ghosts of foreign countries and stayed in this land forever. After the war, most people returned to the motherland, and only a few people stayed and became expatriates. When celebrating the 70th anniversary of the victory of World War I, the French President personally awarded the Knights of the Legion of Honor to the two surviving China laborers living in a foreign land in recognition of their "spirit of international cooperation". But the pain brought by the war to the people of China can't be made up by just two medals. The only consolation is that the history of hundreds of thousands of Chinese workers bleeding and sweating has finally been affirmed by the local government.

After the mid-1970s, the situation in zhina was turbulent. As a suzerain, France has accepted many refugees from Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos. More than 80% of them are descendants of Chinese. The Paris government has set aside a simple residential area where local people do not want to go to settle these people. Who knows, in just over ten years, the "slums" with narrow streets and cross-flow of sewage have undergone earth-shaking changes. High-rise buildings have sprung up. Flat and wide roads extend in all directions. There are rows of shops on both sides, and all kinds of goods are dazzling. Today, it has not only become one of the enviable residential areas in Paris, but also a tourist hotspot for tourists from all over the world. As the locals joked, "Buy a subway ticket and you can visit China."

Speaking of the glory of Chinatown today, it is inseparable from the efforts of the older generation of expatriates and the efforts of the new generation of expatriates. In the early years, people who left their homes and came here only rented in some short shacks not far from the railway station. Make a living by sewing some small leather goods such as bags by hand, or open a small grocery store and set up a food stall. Ben is selfish and often bullied by white people. But they all survived. They work all day, cherish the rewards of hard work and live frugally. Later, some people started their own small restaurants and workshops with a little money accumulated over the years. But most of them are just husband and wife files, or family-run enterprises. In this way, some Chinese-led enterprises have gradually developed and various forms of associations have been organized. This will not only strive for equality and respect with the collective strength, but also help some China people who have no livelihood to get out of the predicament as soon as possible. Chen Brothers Company is an outstanding representative of these successful enterprises in China. Since they 1975 moved from Laos to Paris, Kunzhong, whose ancestral home is Guangdong, and his wife have opened a supermarket, dealing in goods from China and Southeast Asian countries. Good quality and low price, complete product variety, diligent work style and continuous improvement of business performance, it has now become one of the top 100 enterprises in France. In addition, South China Food Company, which supplies spring rolls to major supermarkets in Paris, introduced the "Double Happiness" table tennis made in China to French Xinyou Sporting Goods Company, Lingnan Thailand Bakery, which specializes in Cantonese-style cakes, and Huafeng domestic products company, which deals in Asian goods, especially China goods, has sprung up like mushrooms after rain. Listening to their legendary development experience is really touching and exciting. In them, don't they just reflect the traditional virtues of our Chinese nation's diligence, wisdom and perseverance?