从儿童洗碗工向大企业家的转变

孩”1974年出生在费古雷斯（赫罗纳）的Didac

Lee这样回忆道。他的父母祖籍台湾，1973年来

人愿意自己的邻居或者同桌是一个亚洲人。“在

们讲两种语言，但是我哪一种都听不懂，但现在

我很多时间来适应。”最后他终于找到了和其他

“When I was little, I used to think that I was the only Chinese child on the planet,” recalls Dídac Lee. Lee was born in the Catalan town of Figueres in 1974, a year after his Taiwanese parents opened the first Chinese restaurant in Girona province. Back then, being an immigrant in Catalonia meant “being from Andalusia or Madrid.” Certainly, nobody expected to find an Asian person in the neighborhood, or sitting next to them in class. “Everybody used to stare at me at school. They spoke two languages and I didn’t understand either of them. It took me quite a while to adapt,” recalls Lee, who now spends most of his time speaking in Catalan. He struggled to fit in until he found a shared passion: Barcelona soccer club.

，我和他们是如此的不同，但这一切在踢

很想成为一名球员，“但我踢球很差，于

他一直努力直到终于实现了这个愿望，他

直到六月十日，并将参加七月十八日将要

“Soccer was my foothold into Catalan society. I was different in every way, except when I was playing or we were watching a Barça game,” he says. Lee tried to join the team. “But I was very bad, so I decided that if I could not be a player, I would be a Barça executive.” And he didn’t stop until he achieved his goal. Lee was in charge of new technologies at the club until June 10, and is now running to be re-elected in the role on July 18.

像Lee这样，越来越多的中国移民的孩子

聚——开始开展他们自己的事业，并且逐

，零售店等）“他们在各个行业进行学习

融家等。” 巴塞罗那自治大学的社会人

类学家和东亚研究的协调员Joaquín

Beltrán这样解释说。

Just like Lee, many other children of Chinese immigrants who were either born in Spain or brought over to reunite with other family members are moving away from their parents’ traditional businesses, such as restaurants and variety stores. “They are studying for all kinds of degrees and we are starting to see teachers, doctors, lawyers, physicists, economists..,” explains Joaquín Beltrán, a social anthropologist and coordinator of Eastern Asia Studies at Barcelona’s Autónoma University.

2003年，202名中国学生在西班牙的大学

进行注册。到今天，这一数字增长到6381

名。这一数字包括2435名进行研究生和博

中国专门进行学习的。“越来越多的中国

之二十三的在西华人都在十五岁以下。”

Beltrán这样说道，“他们的父辈在这里生

，也就为他们的子女提供了更多的教育投

。”

In 2003, there were 202 Chinese students attending Spanish universities. That figure has since risen to 6,381, including 2,435 taking master’s degrees and doctorates. Many of the latter come expressly from China to take these courses. “This is a growing trend,” says Beltrán. “Around 23 percent of Chinese living in Spain right now are under 15. The longer the parents have been here, the more money they will have saved, increasing their chances of investing in their children’s education. Chinese culture attaches great importance to education.”

Lee确认了这一点。他在大二的时候放起

来计算机专业，21岁的时候在赫罗纳创办

了自己的公司，从事互联网接入服务。32

奖项，现在成为了一家拥有400多名员工

然在劝我完成学业。”他笑着说道，“对

。”

Lee is living proof. He dropped his computer science studies in the second year, because at age 21 he had already set up his own business, an internet service provider in Girona. At 32 he received the young Catalan entrepreneur of the year award, and is now CEO of a corporate holding that employs over 400 people. “But my parents are still on my case to get me to complete my degree,” he laughs. “To the Chinese, studies are a matter of honor.”

Jiajia Wang，27岁，他曾多次在青年企业

，以便能够在小小的房间里给他和他的弟

她母亲第二次怀孕之后被迫离开所生活的

非常高昂的，他的父亲拿着一本假护照带

着妻子和儿子于1997年来到加泰罗尼亚，

后他在布兰内斯（赫罗纳）开办了自己的

一家中餐馆，Wang和他的弟弟一直在这

其他员工的工资。

Jiajia Wang, 27, is often a guest speaker at events for young entrepreneurs, and she likes to tell the story of how her parents used to sleep in the bathtub to make room for a study table for her brother and herself inside the tiny room where they lived. The family had been forced out of their village after Wang’s mother got pregnant a second time. The fine for violating the one-child policy in China was so high that they decided to leave the country. Her father made it into Spain on a fake passport, and once he had settled down in Catalonia in 1997, he brought over his wife and children. They worked exhaustingly long days, first to pay off their debt for the trip, and later to set up their business, a Chinese restaurant in Blanes (Girona) where Wang and her brother worked as children until their parents were able to afford paid employees.

在Wang18岁的时候，父母问他愿意去上

愿意学习，自己打开更多的大门拓展更广

文学或哲学，但他的父母没有给他选择的

When Wang turned 18, they asked her whether she wanted to go to university or open a variety store or a restaurant. “I wanted to study, to open new doors and horizons for myself,” she explains. She wanted to study literature or philosophy, but her parents would not hear of it. So she opted for economics.

2009年，他获得了哈佛大学的奖学金，随

天他放弃了这份工作。“我只有22岁，不

着开创自己的事业。”他的父母对于他获

他买好了工作时要穿着的西装。Wang不

装每天去办公室上班，直到有一天终于向

十分失望。对于他们来讲很难理解你想要

路。”

In 2009 she obtained a scholarship to study at Harvard, and later she was offered a position at Deloitte. But two days before taking up the post, she turned down the offer. “I was 22 and I didn’t want to shut myself up in a multinational and just be one more number. I was dreaming of my own projects,” she recalls. But her parents were so excited about her job offer that they had bought her a new outfit for every day of the week. Wang didn’t dare tell them that she had turned it down, and pretended to go to work every day until one day she finally confessed. “They took it very badly; they felt disappointed. It is not easy for them to understand that you may want to seek out your own path. They wanted to save me from taking unnecessary detours.”

2010年，Wang获得了UPF提供的20000欧

父母收养的中国孩子出版中文教学教材。

房地产领域，并一直保持着“启动一些新

In 2010, Wang won the UPF Emprèn Prize, which earned her €20,000 to fund her project: a publishing house specializing in educational material to teach Chinese to children adopted by Spanish couples. After trying her hand at that venture for four years, she worked in real estate investment and still feels “the urge to start a new project.”

和Wang一样，60年代初抵达西班牙后，

盘子。“在小时候我们就坚持认为应该学

更好的工作计划。我成为了新闻记者，我

的姐姐Wan Yee是学经济的，我的弟弟是

电信工程师。”49岁的Miguel Lam这样讲

农民的儿子，当他来到这里的时候甚至不

。”

Like Wang, the Lam siblings washed a lot of dishes at their parents’ Chinese restaurant before setting up their own ventures.“When we were little they kept insisting on the need to study,” recalls Miguel Lam, 49. “They wanted their children to do better for themselves than they had done. I studied journalism, my sister Man Yee studied economics and my brother is a telecommunications engineer.” “My father was very proud,” he adds. “He was the son of peasants and when he got here he didn’t know how to read. It was my mother who wrote the letters that he sent to his family back home.”

Lam记得在弗朗哥去世那天他们获得了一

胞。“我们发现我们都已经完全被这个社

结婚，并且我们大部分的朋友也都是西班

被叫做中国人。”他笑道。

Lam remembers that the day former Spanish dictator Francisco Franco died, they got the day off and decided to go visit a fellow Chinese migrant who lived in Torremolinos. “We couldn’t really be active in the Chinese community back then, because there wasn’t one. It was a case of complete immersion. My siblings and I are all married to Spaniards, and most of my friends are Spanish as well, although at age 49 they still call me El chino,” he laughs.

Lam工作期间的大部分领导都是西班牙人

领导，她的妹妹在中国出生，8岁的时候

班牙经济办事处工作。“我目前是失业状

公司，并且辞退了几乎整个工作团队。”

All of Lam’s bosses have always been Spanish, except for the time when he worked for his sister at the Spanish Trade Office in Hong Kong. “Now I’m out of a job precisely because a Chinese fund bought the company I was working for and fired nearly the entire team,” he sighs.