New Chinese Migrants in Europe by Pál Nyíri

Author:Pál Nyíri [Nyíri, Pál]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Social Science, Ethnic Studies, General
ISBN: 9780429837135
Google: 3KubDwAAQBAJ
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2018-08-09T03:39:35+00:00

“Europe’s Hong Kong”: The Chinese and Hungarian Society

Chinese trading companies and restaurants provide job opportunities for an increasing number of Hungarians. Most of them employ at least one Hungarian, and some employ up to 20, bringing the total to a few thousand. The large stores that serially opened in 1993 created more jobs. Many Hungarian employees of Chinese firms are all skilled (with at least secondary education), some of them having science or engineering degrees, some being former officials or even mid-level executives, for example, at state enterprises that were subsequently closed down. Another part of Hungarian employees come from the margins of society, Chinese employers sometimes having more tolerance for gypsies or semi-vagabonds than Hungarians do. In the words of a Gypsy waiter, “They get along with us better than with the gajos” (non-Gypsies).

In general, Hungarian employees at Chinese companies are better paid than at Hungarian companies, with a bilingual secretary earning upwards of $500 a month and some management staff given shares of the profits. Requirements are also higher than at Hungarian companies. Practically everybody must be willing to work overtime, and many work Saturdays. The basic idea is that one needs to do as much work as there is. Chinese companies employ not only Hungarians but also other immigrants, particularly those from the former Soviet Union who have college degrees: these employees have lower salary expectations. There seem to be no serious tensions in labour relations.

In addition to those employed by Chinese-owned enterprises, Hungarians ranging from nannies and drivers to students, lawyers, and accountants depend on the Chinese community and in some cases borrow their business practices. Chinese migrants in Hungary have been able to form a highly successful ethnic economy which, precisely because of its openness to the economic environment, did not need to adapt its ways of trading to the latter; instead, it has prompted some of the actors in the host economy to adapt. The rapid generation of high incomes relative to the environment has meant that instead of learning the local language, the Chinese could afford to hire local interpreters and assistants. The assimilation of Hungarian individuals and businesses into the Chinese business network, the reverse of the formation of the “comprador bourgeoisie” in the concession ports of China after the Opium Wars, is an interesting example of the expansion of the Chinese world system. It reminds us, as Hamashita (1997), Cohen (1997), and Pieke (1998b) have already argued in the Chinese context, that globalisation is not a single process of which the West is the agent, but a multiplicity of parallel globalisations, of which non-Western transnational communities can be both aspects and agents.

Outside this halo of Hungarians surrounding the community, the Chinese noticed a deterioration in the initially friendly attitude of the locals in 1992-93. This corresponded to a rise in xenophobia reflected in public opinion polls, which revealed, however, that its intensity is lowest toward Chinese (Oltalomkeresők, 1996a). (In a representative poll of youth between the ages of 15 and 20

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