Night Boat To Cairo

If it's the 20th May, must be update day. Follow-ups to the Chinese bazar and tourism density stories.

On the first one, it's been bugging me since I wrote that piece. Then I realised what it was I'd failed to mention the other day - the existence of other "bazar"-type shops; other shops not run by Chinese, but run by Spaniards, Mallorcans even.

In Alcúdia, there are three shops of this nature - De Tot Un Poc by the market square, one up near the tourist office and a third by the old hospital. Maybe there are more. In Puerto Alcúdia, there used to be one quite big cheapo place in what was taken over by a combination of the Petits i Mamas shop and Genius toy store, the latter now Engel & Völkers. It was pretty good; my household still has some decent towels to testify to that. Puerto Pollensa has at least one, as does Pollensa town, both of these, like one of the shops in Alcúdia, made a thing of selling stuff for one euro.

The point is that the cheap and cheerful Chinese bazar is not significantly different to any of these Spanish-run shops. Except in one respect - Chinese. I'm not sure if one can draw any conclusions, but let's just say that the low-cost shop phenomenon was not unknown before the arrival of the Chinese bazar and is also not unknown as a line of business for the local Mallorcans. I leave it to you to draw a conclusion.


And so to the tourism density issue. Having declared Can Picafort the tourist-sardine centre and having asked for any suggestions of somewhere that could rival Can Pic's claim to this award, I duly got one. Seamus volunteers Peguera. Something about more hotels than you'd find Frauleins in Lederhosen in Munich. Which does raise a whole different issue, but let's not dwell on that. But I take the point. In fact Peguera is a sort of German colony. There is, I understand, even a German school there. There again, Can Pic was essentially a German colony as well; before the Brits started to occupy to some extent. Mallorca can seem like another of the Bundesländer, and Peguera is like a Hauptstadt, one of hotel-squeezed sunbedsraum.


And weather. No surprise to learn that May thus far has exceeded records in terms of rain. Yesterday was yet another utterly miserable contribution to what has been a diabolical month overall. To give a measure of how much rain there has been, in Palma there has been 138 litres per square metre till now; the norm is 31. In all this I guess people will be searching for evidence of this that and the other, but I suggest it is no more than a righting of nature as the winter had been generally very dry. However, that is a rather facile explanation, so I myself went searching for explanations and was amazed at the sheer deluge of websites and blogs and so on devoted to weather. I had thought that perhaps the explanation would lie in the influence of La Niña, but I'm none the wiser despite having trawled through all this meteorological worthiness. Let's just say it's been very wet.


QUIZ
Chain - So how do you get from Led Zeppelin to the British Electric Foundation? Today's title - couldn't think of anything "bazar", so thought Arabic and here's the youtube of the nutty boys - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSTHMxBttlU

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

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.)