The Italian city of Prato, second largest city in Tuscany, 17km northwest of Florence, has seen the greatest number of Chinese immigrants to Italy since the mid-1990s. In 1989, there were 38 Chinese people in Prato. Today, they represent more than a quarter of the total population of roughly 192,500, with about 3 per cent having chosen to become naturalised Italians.
Prato’s ethnically Chinese citizens hail mostly from Zhejiang province, particularly the city of Wenzhou and its surroundings. They migrated to this attractive medieval postcode mainly because of its ancient textiles industry, which in more recent times has offered many entry-level jobs incorporating training on sewing machines or in textile recycling: Prato’s historical connections have seen it dubbed la città degli stracci (“the city of rags”). The presence of an employed Chinese diaspora meant that more people from Zhejiang then decided to join those they knew, or knew of, who had established themselves.
Throughout the 1990s and 2000s, the immigrants started to thrive in their jobs. They then saved enough to buy textiles factories struggling, ironically, in the face of competition from products made in China – especially after 2001, when China joined the World Trade Organization. Many of the usual stereotypes that come with large waves of immigration began to gain ground – “Chinese menace”, “yellow peril” – not least because of the speed of change.
In 2010, Prato novelist Edoardo Nesi published memoir Story of My People , which won the prestigious Strega Prize. The “Chinese takeover” described is such that he imagines himself kneeling before a Chinese incomer asking for a job, any job, as Chinese immigrants become the new “masters”. These days, things are more settled.
The Chinese population boom has slowed significantly and allegations that they don’t integrate, that they steal and don’t pay tax, and more, have abated, but a sizeable population of Chinese descent is still an anomaly for an Italian city. Milan, with a population 1.4 million, is home to about 35,000 inhabitants of Chinese extraction.
Rome’s citizens number 2.8 million, about 18,000 of whom are ethnically Chinese. Enter Marco Wong, 61, a second-generation Chinese-Italian, born in Bologna and schooled in Florence and at the Polytechnic University of Milan.
After a few years spent travelling the world, Wong decided to come back to Italy and address the Chinese immigrant clichés, which have never really gone away, by entering local Prato politics. For a public figure, Wong is unwilling to reveal much about himself when interviewed: one must pepper him with questions, then put together the pieces of answers. He speaks slowly, precisely, giving the impression of saying quite a lot yet giving away as few personal details as possible, preferring to talk in general terms about his experiences and choices.
His Instagram account, @marcowongita, is much more forthcoming than he is. Wong sports a well-kempt beard, short hair and black-framed spectacles and usually wears neatly tailored clothes. When campaigning, he occasionally dons Chinese-style silk jackets to underline the need for inclusivity, as well as the possibility of multiple ethnicities.
And while he is soft-spoken, his message is delivered with clarity. “I started to see a change in Italian views on immigration,” he says. “When I was a child there was a lot of curiosity towards China and people mostly had positive ideas about the country.
Then things started to change, and the positive view of China changed, too.” In 2009, as animosity towards China and the Chinese presence in Italy intensified, Wong decided to run for election for the first time. He didn’t win, but that wasn’t enough to dissuade him.
He persisted, until, in 2019, running with the Democratic Party, he became Italy’s joint-first city councillor of Chinese descent. On the same ticket and simultaneously elected to Prato City Council was Teresa Lin, then in her early 20s. (Lin has since left politics.
) Given the percentage of ethnically Chinese locals who don’t vote in Italian elections – because they have not registered or because they are not active in politics – it is significant that Wong and Lin were not elected on the back of the “ethnic” vote. Instead, they were chosen because enough Prato citizens felt it was time to have two representatives of the second-largest demographic in town on the council: good news for two communities that have often ignored each other. For Wong, being elected in 2019 meant being in office as the pandemic ravaged the world, hitting Italy particularly hard, especially at the beginning.
He was a city councillor as Italians looked at Prato with increasing anxiety, as if the Chinese community were somehow responsible. “People felt that as travel between Prato and China was quite intense, the possibility that the virus was going to be brought in here was much higher than elsewhere,” says Wong. That was not the case: the first outbreak to hit Italy and cause widespread contagion and death was in the northern region of Lombardy.
And the strain was later identified as having most likely come from Germany, not directly from China. But as in other parts of the world, this didn’t stop people blaming Asians and being particularly fearful about being close to those of Asian descent. “Chinese people in Prato decided to behave in an extremely responsible way as Covid started to spread,” says Wong.
“They were closely following what was happening in China, so they were more aware of the precautions that had to be taken: there was a chat [group] that had been established privately where people could register themselves if they had just come back from China, and they would isolate voluntarily. Masks were widely used. And Lunar New Year festivities were cancelled.
Many people noticed and afterwards praised that level of responsibility.” Being seen as a bridge between the two communities is not always easy, but Wong “decided to run in Prato because the so-called Chinese question is certainly more important here than, say, in Rome, where I also live”, he says. “Prato is a city where immigration is paramount.
In the early 70s, for example, it was Italian immigration from southern Italy; people would come here to work in the textiles factories. They used to be called Moroccans. Then, from Northern Africa, and then again, as we see now, from China, once more for the textiles industry.
” Wong is an electronics engineer by training. After graduation, he went to Beijing to learn Mandarin. “At the time,” he explains, “schools [in Italy] advised parents to speak Italian even at home, so my mother tongue is Italian and I have had to learn Chinese.
” He began to work for Italian firms in China and Peru, encouraging Italian investment in both countries. Mobility, it seems, is in his genes: his maternal great-grandfather went to the Netherlands, working in shipbuilding in The Hague, until the family moved to Italy. Wong’s father, meanwhile, left China in the early 1960s for Hong Kong.
Then came a name change from Wang, and then, following a few years in Paris, France, he moved to Florence. “In 1982, my family opened the first Chinese restaurant in Prato,” Wong says with a giggle, noting that today, the city might have too many to count. The Chinese area of the city lies mostly around Via Pistoiese, not far from the city centre.
On the approach to this main road appear shop names and signs in Italian and simplified Chinese; the local demographic is almost completely Chinese. Stickers on walls bear advertisements referring to the likes of “Foreign student”, “Young miss from Wenzhou”, “Just arrived beautiful woman”, with telephone numbers and, in some cases, QR codes. During his campaign for re-election in June, which he lost, Wong declared that his interests lay not only in matters concerning immigration and integration, but also in making Prato more welcoming and liveable for all.
Open spaces are one of his obsessions: he has proposed putting table tennis tables in public squares and parks to make it easy for citizens to interact playfully. He says he will remain involved in politics, but after his defeat how he will do so is still to be seen. Whatever happens, he will now have more time to indulge his literary side.
In 2010, Wong published erotic novel Red Nectar , a steamy effort with an underlying Orientalist theme and a few surprises. The two main characters, Luca and Stefania, are old friends who slide into a romantic entanglement after a trip to Thailand. From an account of an evening at a Bangkok bar, Wong spins numerous fantasies concerning an apparently submissive and seductive Thai waitress.
Post-Stefania, a pining Luca has a few unfulfilling erotic adventures and eventually becomes friends with a young Chinese-Italian girl, who schools him on how Chinese women are seen by Italian men. Through the book, we hear Wong denounce the fetishisation of Chinese women and the fear of discrimination and ulterior motives they endure. Wong doesn’t mention his adventures in erotica during the interview, conducted in the centre of Prato at a cafe next to the ancient palace hosting the local council.
He keeps conversation to his role as a city official and to concerns relating to immigration. Asked through social media later about his literary pursuits, however, he confirms that he has also written and illustrated several graphic novels. The latest, Mei Lin – No to Violence , about physical abuse of women, appeared in March last year.
His artistic endeavours, he says, spring from what he calls his “more creative side”. And he leaves it at that..
