A Chinese Look at Havana Chinatown (Video)

By Robin Fall (South China Morning Post)

HAVANA TIMES — Cuba’s Barrio Chino in Havana is one of the oldest Chinatowns in Latin America. Yet this once vibrant neighborhood has been in decline for decades. Many Cubans of Chinese descent fled the island soon after Fidel Castro¹s 1959 revolution.

Louis Chan, 61, is a painter and designer in Havana. His parents emigrated from Guangdong, China, to escape hardship and seek their fortune.

“What would one like?” asks Chan. “The return of those old prosperous times with the aromas of foods, with the natural fragrances of an Asian place, and with the customs, but to get all that back we need a new wave of Chinese coming to Havana.”