By WILL WEISSERT (AP)
HAVANA — At Cuba's only privately run newspaper, it doesn't take much to
stop the presses. It's a wonder they even get started.
The language of the four-page broadsheet Kwong Wah Po is Chinese, and
its press is an antique, but some see its relative freedoms, and that of
the island's tiny Chinese community in general, as a pointer to the way
forward if the communist government ever opts for broader reforms.
The paper, whose name means "Shine China," appears a few times a year,
and 77-year-old Guillermo Chiu is the only person in Cuba who knows how
to set the type on the 110-year-old printing press.
A 300-word article can take him five hours to lay out.
"Soon this will be a museum," Chiu said, surveying the 6,000 tiny lead
plates — each with a single Chinese character — which he places by hand.
"The future won't be like this."
Perhaps, but there may be clues to the Cuba of tomorrow in the unique
autonomy given the paper. Its articles, mostly translated from the
state-run media, contain nothing that might upset Fidel Castro. But it
is edited and produced independently, and that leeway reflects the small
yet unprecedented freedoms the government has granted Cuba's Chinese
community to help preserve its dwindling cultural heritage.
Should communist authorities ever embrace reform, the island's Chinese
may hint at what's to come.
On one freewheeling street in Havana's Chinatown, privately run
restaurants offer chow mein and mojitos, and Chinese exchange students
belt out karaoke. Restaurateurs keep all profits and hire and fire at
will. Besides its newspaper and eateries, the community also has its own
exercise schools, social clubs and political associations.
All this is going on under a government that dominates nearly every
facet of life, from what Cubans study at university to the food in their
monthly rations. All other media is state-controlled.
"I think these kinds of initiatives hint at Cuba's near future — a path
of reform within the current state structure," said Kathleen Lopez, a
Rutgers University professor who has written on Cuba's Chinese community.
Havana's Chinatown was once one of Latin America's largest, with a
population topping 50,000 and made up mostly of men from Guangdong
province who began arriving in 1847 to labor on sugar plantations. They
formed a community outside the city walls then ringing the capital —
today's "Barrio Chino."
Their numbers peaked in the 1940s and early 50s. But immigration dried
up when Fidel Castro took power in 1959 and Cuba drew close to China's
rival, the Soviet Union.
Today, Chiu is one of fewer than 150 native Chinese in Havana, mostly
elderly Cantonese-speakers. But intermarriage has produced tens of
thousands of Chinese-Cubans, Cuba and China are now allies, and 3,000
Chinese exchange students arrive annually to spend a year learning Spanish.
After the Soviet economic lifeline died and officials turned to
developing tourism, they sought to make Cuba's Chinese culture an
attraction. The state began allowing Chinese associations and social
clubs to operate freely, and that freedom is felt along Calle Cuchillo —
Knife Street — a pedestrian alley in the heart of Chinatown lined with
Chinese restaurants.
Beijing's famed "Food Street" it is not, but the eateries compete to
snare passers-by, in contrast to state restaurants whose waiters earn so
little they don't care whether customers turn up.
"It happens here and nowhere else in Cuba," said Maria Isabel Martinez,
head of Chinatown investment.
The Knife Street restaurants rent their buildings from the city, but
otherwise can get rich — unlike private restaurants run by Cubans out of
their homes that pay hefty taxes and aren't supposed to hold more than
12 diners at a time.
"We have more freedom. We are privileged," said Roberto Vargas Lee, 44,
manager of the Tien-Tan, a Knife Street favorite.
Founded by Vargas Lee's father-in-law after he moved to Cuba from
Beijing, the Tien-Tan has two chefs from China. Its menu features 130
dishes and, unlike at state restaurants, actually has them all.
A Havana native, Vargas Lee also teaches martial arts, which he studied
in Beijing.
A few blocks from Knife Street, the Long Sai Li Society is one of 13
Chinese associations island-wide. The group has its own apartment
building, restaurant and a room where Chinese sip tea and play mahjong
under a mural of the Great Wall.
Lopez, the Rutgers professor, said the case for Chinese autonomy should
not be overstated. She noted that, as a means of asserting greater state
control over neighborhood efforts to preserve Chinese heritage, city
historian authorities in 2006 shuttered 4-year-old "Fraternidad II," a
magazine that carried Chinatown news and interviews with community figures.
Martinez acknowledged that all Chinese associations and clubs report to
the Ministry of Justice, but said its officials "only provide
orientation," not outright control.
The Havana city historian's office has refurbished many crumbling
buildings in Chinatown and a $324,000 restoration plan for Kwong Wah Po
would preserve the printing press — built in 1900 by the National Paper
and Type Company of New York — as a museum piece and provide modern
equipment and a new office. Construction could begin by year's end.
The newspaper was shut after Fidel Castro's rebels seized power, and
didn't reopen until 1987. Its masthead declares "52 Years of Revolution."
It has a staff of nine and devotes one of its pages to Spanish-language
articles for those who don't read Chinese. Its one reporter does the
translations and writes about community events. Like all newspapers in
Cuba, it carries no advertising.
Chiu picks the articles from approved publications and from newspapers
occasionally donated by the Chinese Embassy. Each of the 600 copies
sells for 60 centavos, about 2 1/2 American cents, and some of them are
sent to the Ministry of Justice to monitor what has gone into print.
The latest issue appeared in June. Publication is supposed to be every
two months, but the previous issue came out on Jan. 19. It included
stories about China unveiling the world's fastest train, and the
discovery there of the remains of a possibly poisonous dinosaur.
The June installment featured a fawning story about Celia Sanchez, a
revolutionary fighter and Castro's closest confidant, who died 30 years
ago of cancer.
Neither of Chiu's adult children is interested in following in his
footsteps and he has had trouble passing on his typesetting skills to a
successor.
"The ink stains your hands," he said. "Young people, they don't like to
get their hands dirty."
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