The Chinese Way

Some while back I posed the ethno-hospitality question - how many Chinese restaurants does a place need? It was asked in respect of Puerto Alcúdia where anyone on a fortnight's holiday could eat Chinese in a different restaurant every day and still not get round all of them. But now it is not just the Chinese restaurant that proliferates, it is also the Chinese bazar. So plentiful are these bazars, that they are causing problems for the indigenous shops.

Apparently there is an annual increase of between 10 and 15 per cent of Chinese businesses in Mallorca, and this has caused losses in terms of turnover of up to 20 per cent for shops and 10 % for bars in areas near to Chinese shops and restaurants.

In today's "Diario", it is reported that the "traditional" businesses are being obliged to rent their "locales" out or to put them up for traspaso. And the problem is at its greatest in tourist areas, with Puerto Alcúdia, Puerto Pollensa and Can Picafort all listed as being areas especially affected.

I am aware of a number of these bazars. It is the case that you seem to walk in many a main commercial area and there will be a Chinese bazar. During a break from my internment last week at the printers, I took a hobble on the bad toe around part of Inca. There was a Chinese bazar. Never noticed it before.

Personally, I am rather mystified as to the arrival of so many of these shops. Take a look around one and, to be blunt, the stuff is very much Mekong as opposed to Milan. Cheap in other words. But the low prices are one of the reasons why the bazars are putting the more traditional shops to the sword. The other is that they are open all hours. Anyone with even a passing acquaintance with the Chinese work ethic will know that they would gladly be open 24 hours were they allowed to be. And perhaps it is this work ethic that is the real issue. Those traditional shops with their haphazard opening times, their siesta breaks and their very "tradition" are struggling because that tradition has bred complacency. The Chinese (and also it must be said the Indian) bazar is another market change, and the traditional business does not know how to respond.

But I am also somewhat mystified as to what these "traditional" shops are. The bazars stock a range of stuff, much of it household, stationery and the like. Accordingly, maybe the ferreterias have seen an erosion of their sales for items likes of cutlery, but hang on a minute, go to a market and you will find all manner of cheap household stuff for sale. So the bazars are just, in a sense, making permanent the cheap elements of the weekly market. If any traders are likely to suffer I would have thought it would be those stallholders and not the regular shops. Perhaps though they doth protest too much about the Chinese bazars. The current economic climate has seen a decided drop in consumer spend, and this has nothing to do with the bazars except of course that, at a time of economic difficulty, cheap can become very attractive to the consumer.


QUIZ
Gerry and the Pacemakers and Frankie Goes To Hollywood both registered number ones with their first three singles. And how do you get from Frankie to "I'm Not In Love"? Yesterday's title - Marvin Gaye. Today's title - which group?

(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)