The highest point on Peru's Central Railway, 15,806 feet above sea level
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by Eva Neisser Echenberg

Actions have consequences. The first black slaves arrived in Peru with the conquistadores. Then when the black slaves were emancipated in 1854, an enormous number of Cantonese came to Peru to work in their place. Between the years 1849 and 1874, one hundred thousand Chinese, almost all from the province of Canton, arrived in Peru. They came with employment contracts of five to eight years. They were called culi, from the English coolie, which in turn comes from the Hindu word kuli.

Chinese immigration to Peru can be divided into three stages:

During the first stage, the vast majority worked in three industries, all in rural areas: the sugar cane and cotton farms, the construction of the railroad, and the guano industry. Guano is bird droppings, used as fertilizer and was an important 19th century export product.

Chinese labor picking cotton at the foot of the Andes
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These men signed work contracts in a faraway country because there was great poverty, and consequently, hunger in southern China. The owners of the haciendas, accustomed to having black slaves and not free men, treated the coolies badly and there were high rates of suicide. Add another important fact: women were not allowed; employment contracts were only for men.

During the second stage, once their harsh contracts were over, the Chinese men moved to urban areas. Some stayed in small provincial towns, others headed to the capital, Lima. Many opened small businesses: restaurants, shoe stores, stores of all kinds. Then Peru changed its immigration policy and banned the Chinese. With no Chinese women in the country Chinese men took Peruvian wives. Women from poor, agricultural regions opted for Chinese husbands because they had a reputation for being very hard-working and honest. Unfortunately, the native Peruvians with a racist point of view, were critical of these marriages, especially of their offspring. Another consequence of these unions was that the Church helped the Chinese and they converted to Catholicism.

A chifa, Chinese restaurant
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During the third stage, at the beginning of the 20th century, immigration from China was reopened and both sexes were allowed. These immigrants did not come with contracts that forced them to work in the fields, but settled directly in urban centers. Most became hard working merchants that owned small shops and restaurants. They became so important that the small neighborhood stores were not called by the Spanish "tiendas" or "bodegas," but rather "chinos," and often, because they seemed to be on every corner, "el chino de la esquina," the Chinese on the corner.

When I was a little girl growing up in Lima, there were two "chinos" near my house. And here I am referring not to the person, but to the store. Both were on Gálvez Street in the neighborhood of Miraflores. Both were corner stores, one directly across the street from the other. The stores and their owners were very different.

The owner of the store on the left was a thin, unsociable man. He didn't greet his customers. He never smiled. He spoke as little as possible. His Spanish was limited and he spoke with a strong accent. He only told us the prices of the particular sweets or chocolates we wanted. His store had two sections. On one side were the groceries. On the other side was the bar with bottles of beer and liquor. Sometimes when my friends and I walked in, he would be lying on the floor. Was he sleeping or just resting on the cardboard spread out behind the counter? Did he live there? I never knew.

A chino, Chinese-run store
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The store on the other side of the street was much smaller, just a hole in the wall. The Chinese couple who owned it spoke Chinese to each other and this we liked because it sounded so different. They sold vegetables and fruits, placing them outside in wooden boxes leaning up against the wall. They didn't speak much Spanish either, but they smiled at us.

But the unfriendly Chinese man had sweets and we preferred him to the nice ones who sold fruit. I admit that we almost always went to the bad-tempered Chinese. I also admit that we laughed at his pronunciation.

Yet, from one of these small shops, similar to the two on the corners of Gálvez Street, a supermarket chain was born, the Wong Supermarkets, which for many years were the best in Lima. The chain was sold and today few remain but I checked and you can still order food online from Wong's.

Wong Supermarket
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What has grown and endured are the Chinese restaurants. At first these restaurants were of no interest to the rest of the population. But very quickly Peruvians became great fans of Chinese food. Chinese restaurants were - and still are - so important in Peru that they have a name of their own. They are not called the Spanish word "restaurante" but "chifa". The word chifa comes from Chinese and means "eat rice." Chinese-Peruvian cuisine, with products from both countries, has become a delicious fusion cuisine. Today in Lima there are more than 6,000 Chinese restaurants.

More than 170 years have passed since the arrival of the first Chinese. The first years were very hard but today their descendants are an outstanding, integral part of the country.

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Eva Neisser Echenberg is a Canadian teacher, writer, and presenter who spends winters in SMA. Born in Lima, she has spent her adult life in Montreal. She has written a memoir, Walter's Welcome, the Intimate Story of a German-Jewish Family' s Flight from the Nazis to Peru. In SMA, she volunteers at the folk-art museum, La Esquina, where she also gives weekly guided tours of this outstanding gallery.

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