Buenos Aires Buenos Aires ( or ; ), officially the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires ( es, link=no, Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires), is the Capital city, capital and primate city of Argentina. The city is located on the western shore of the Río de la Plata ...

' Chinatown, locally known as Barrio chino, is a largely commercial section about five blocks long in the

barrio ''Barrio'' () is a Spanish word that means " quarter" or " neighborhood". In the modern Spanish language, it is generally defined as each area of a city, usually delimited by functional (e.g. residential, commercial, industrial, etc.), social, a ...

Belgrano, Buenos Aires Belgrano is a northern and leafy ''barrio'' or neighborhood of Buenos Aires, Argentina. Location The barrio of Palermo is to the southeast; Núñez is to the northwest; Coghlan, Villa Urquiza, Villa Ortúzar and Colegiales are to the sou ...

. The Asian community living in Belgrano is less than 0.5% of the ward's total. Despite the designation of this Belgrano enclave as a

Chinese Chinese can refer to: * Something related to China * Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity **''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation ** List of ethnic groups in China, people of v ...

ethnic enclave In sociology, an ethnic enclave is a geographic area with high ethnic concentration, characteristic cultural identity, and economic activity. The term is usually used to refer to either a residential area or a workspace with a high concentration ...

, the area is populated by different Asian communities, with a predominance of

Taiwanese people Taiwanese people may be generally considered the people of Taiwan who share a common culture, ancestry and speak Taiwanese Mandarin, Hokkien, Hakka or indigenous Taiwanese languages as a mother tongue. Taiwanese people may also refer to the i ...

and, to a lesser extent,

Japanese Japanese may refer to: * Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia * Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan * Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture ** Japanese diaspor ...

and

Thais Thais can be the plural of ''Thai'' and refer to: * The Thai people, the main ethnic group of Thailand * The Thai peoples or Tai peoples, the ethnic groups of southern China and Southeast Asia In the singular, Thais may refer to: People Ancien ...

Overview

This neighbourhood contains several

Chinese restaurant A Chinese restaurant is an establishment that serves a Chinese cuisine. Most of them are in the Cantonese style, due to the history of the Chinese diaspora and adapted to local taste preferences, as in the American Chinese cuisine and Cana ...

s, grocery stores, and a Buddhist temple. It is the core centre of the

Chinese community The Chinese people or simply Chinese, are people or ethnic groups identified with China, usually through ethnicity, nationality, citizenship, or other affiliation. Chinese people are known as Zhongguoren () or as Huaren () by speakers of st ...

in Argentina. The neighbourhood began to develop in the 1980s when newly arrived

Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the northe ...

ese and

mainland Chinese Mainland Chinese or Mainlanders are Chinese people who live in or have recently emigrated from mainland China, defined as the territory governed by the People's Republic of China (PRC) except for Hong Kong ( SAR of the PRC), Macau (SAR of the PRC), ...

immigrants settled in this area. The neighbourhood is also known for its celebration of the

Chinese New Year Chinese New Year is the festival that celebrates the beginning of a new year on the traditional lunisolar and solar Chinese calendar. In Chinese and other East Asian cultures, the festival is commonly referred to as the Spring Festival () a ...

. On January 22 the streets of South Belgrano dress up in bright red and golden yellow, as dragon-like puppets and chariots run through the streets undulating and waving to the rhythm of

traditional Chinese music ''Guoyue'' ( 國樂; literally "national music"; also ''minyue'' (民乐), ''huayue'' (華樂) or ''zhongyue'' (中樂)), nowadays refers to the music composed for Chinese musical instruments, which is an extension of the Chinese traditional ...

. A proposal for the creation of Chinatown as an official barrio of Buenos Aires was promoted by a group of Asian businessmen for commercial purposes in 2006. The requested designation was without success, however, because "Chinatown" didn't reflect the real population structure of Belgrano, which is populated overwhelmingly by people who are not Asian in origin but European. Government inspectors have on several occasions found the sale of expired food at the location, including food in poor condition, which was confiscated.

The Arch

In 2009 an entrance arch was installed on Arribeños Street, a gift for the

Argentina Bicentennial The Argentina Bicentennial ( es, bicentenario argentino) was a series of ceremonies, festivals, and observances celebrated on May 25, 2010, and throughout the year. They commemorated the 200th anniversary of the May Revolution, a sequence of histo ...

. Brought from China, at a cost of approximately $500,000, contributed by the Chinese Government without following municipal laws and requirements, as well as Articles 89 and 90 of the

Constitution of Argentina The Constitution of the Argentine Nation ( es, Constitución de la Nación Argentina) is the basic governing document of Argentina, and the primary source of existing law in Argentina. Its first version was written in 1853 by a constitutional ...

, as it lacked formal authorization from the Foreign Ministry of Argentina. There are several ongoing formal complaints about the numerous irregularities that exist in this donation. The donation of this arch had been rejected by competent bodies on two occasions: by the Department of City Planning in 2006 and by the Evaluation Commission Acceptance of Donations Monuments and the Legislature of the Government of the City in 2007. The installation of this arch, and its having been done without consultation is an issue of contention among neighbourhood residents (among them Taiwanese) who do not adhere to the

Chinese Communist Party The Chinese Communist Party (CCP), officially the Communist Party of China (CPC), is the founding and sole ruling party of the People's Republic of China (PRC). Under the leadership of Mao Zedong, the CCP emerged victorious in the Chinese Ci ...

, and therefore view the arch as an imposition in their Buenos Aires home by the

People's Republic of China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, most populous country, with a Population of China, population exceeding 1.4 billion, sli ...

Dedication plaque

''Chinese Arch'' ''The Chinese community in Argentina'' ''donates with affection this Arch'' ''on the occasion of the Bicentennial of May Revolution'' ''to the beautiful city of Buenos Aires and the great Argentine people'' ''thanking the generosity and love given to Chinese immigrants'' ''with the hope that the Chinese-Argentine friendship'' ''will last from generation to generation.'' ''July 8, 2009''

References

{{Authority control Asian-Argentine culture Ethnic enclaves in South America Unofficial neighborhoods of Buenos Aires Restaurant districts and streets

Chinatowns in Latin America

Overview

The Arch

Dedication plaque

See also

References