Next to the office building I work in what's classified as one of Lisbon's central business districts, there is a store called "Only you". It's a clothes store, very much prêt-a-porter, or perhaps "all-you-can-carry" would better describe the retail outlet of about 1500 square metres.
Once a week a couple of professional (Portuguese) window dressers re-do the mannequins with what looks fairly fashionable and decorate the various front windows with the same kind of imitation old fashioned looking suitcases one would find in quite a few more traditional retail chains throughout the city operated by Spanish, Portuguese or English brands.
In popular terms the place is referred to as a Chinese store and indeed the man behind the cash register and the video surveillance system resemble what one can encounter in the streets of Shanghai or Kowloon. The only communication tool missing would be the walkie-talkies used there to communicate the arrival of counter-fit investigation teams, but no need for those here.
This store re-opened past summer after about a month long of plastering and refurbishing activity, mostly carried out by Chinese nationals.
I remember when a couple of years ago a type of low priced interior home chain store closed down there and only about a week later several trucks were unloading what seems to be the entire range of items any person would need for personal, family, home and automobile care and play. Not a single colleague in my office did not recognise the type of shop as the kind to what they will have seen near to where they live.
There is not a neighbourhood or small town across Portugal without the tomato coloured paper lanterns, often in front of what once was a traditional family owned specialist store which just did not make enough money anymore or could not find an interested inheritee. I suspect many chain outlets, addicted to the many mega shopping centres on city's outskirts will be jealous of the apparent very fine tuned geographical spread of these Chinese stores.
Gradually the number of people that admit have made a rational purchase inside such a store, is also growing. Again, I would guess many central purchasing and marketing divisions of branded chain outlets would envy the surprising swift capacity to adjust to customer behavior.
The city of Lisbon debated but eventually opted to avoid creating some sort of Chinatown somewhere, presumably in an attempt to avoid too much of the same.
Now the discussion is heating up again, just downstairs from where I live. What for decades was a hotspot cinema was forced to close down and in a matter of months, the famous comfortable seats and the entire kitchen equipment of the adjacent lounge like restaurant have been removed to make way for an even larger store a young Chinese family operates just around the corner.
The shop owners association in my neighbourhood, has now appealed to the city council that the former cinema space should remain a place of cult for the general community instead. Although no one has come up with a designated project, the destruction/construction work has now stopped and a street shows another symbol of indecision. In the meantime, a young family, far away from its home country is seeing its dreams and hopes for growth evaporate.
I just do not get it, why any community, municipality or an entire country - and especially one where small enterprise is indeed an economy's engine - would want to deliberatley resist at this point in time against any form of legitimate enterprise.
Under the circumstances, for starters, I would be inclined to suggest that any Chinese shopkeeper is invited or even obliged to become a member of the shop owner association and work with everyone to increment the overall quality of a neigbourhood. Strength, cooperative, generous, idealistic .... the qualities of any horse.
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