How Chinese is The Hague’s Chinatown?

Abstract

Tiny though it is, The Hague’s Chinatown is clearly presented as such, with Chinese lanterns, municipal street signage in Chinese characters, and sayings in Classical Chinese lining the streets. Doing fieldwork in the area, however, has shown that it proves to be less Chinese than its visual representation suggests. Few Chinese still inhabit the area, which used to flourish after it had ceased to be a Jewish neighbourhood. Now, only about forty per cent of the establishments – primarily restaurants, nail parlours and food shops – are of Chinese origin. Despite municipal attempts to present Chinatown as a tourist attraction, the area has become more generally Asian in character than Chinese, while it also includes establishments that represent The Hague’s other major ethnic communities (Moroccan, Turkish and Surinamese). Though the Chinese language is clearly visible throughout the area, the script predominantly used proves to be informational rather than having a symbolic function, in contrast to what is found in Chinatowns elsewhere. The answer to the question in the title of this paper therefore proved to be negative, while the ongoing changes are typically characteristic of superdiverse cities elsewhere in the world.

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