RETURN TO ANCESTRAL HOME
Over the years, Maria's two brothers followed her to their ancestral home.
Juan Francesco Chia, named after his father and grandfather, planned to stay for just three months after graduating from a U.S. university in 2011. Once in China, he found he loved it and was determined to stay on. He also got a scholarship for MBA studies at Tsinghua University.
Upon graduating in 2014, Juan Francesco secured a job at Hainan Airlines, married a Tajik woman and settled down in Beijing. Their son is three years old. "A hundred years have passed since my great grandfather landed in Peru," he said. "It's amazing that my child, five generations later, was born in China."
Maria and Juan Francesco opened a Peruvian bar in eastern Beijing last year, hoping to introduce Peruvian food and culture to China. Their younger brother Juan Carlos, an electrical engineer in Peru, was invited to join them in Beijing to help run the "Pachakutiq," which serves typical Peruvian dishes and pisco, Peru's most famous brandy.
Encouraged by booming business at the bar, the Chia brothers and sister opened a Peruvian restaurant in Beijing on November 19. "We chose that date because it was the day the 24th APEC meeting opened in Lima," Maria said.
Their parents, after many visits to China, have also fallen for the remote yet familiar country. Juan Francesco Junior and his wife are now used to chatting on WeChat, a Chinese social networking app, and have learned a few words in Chinese.
The couple plan to invest their savings to support their children's business in China.
CHINESE-PERUVIAN TIES
Juan Francesco Junior, born in 1952, knew he was Chinese when he was eight or nine. "Kids in the neighborhood called me 'Chinese' because I looked totally different," he said.
As a teenager he became more curious about his ancestry. But his grandfather died when he was seven, and nobody in the family knew anything about the family's distant past. China was half a world away, largely isolated, and out of reach for the young Chia.
Slowly over time, bonds between China and Peru have become stronger. In November 1971, China and Peru established diplomatic relations, with embassies set up the following year.
Fernan Alayza was 17 when he accompanied his father in his diplomatic mission to Beijing in March 1973. Heading downtown from the airport, he saw big red Chinese characters brushed on buildings. "I thought they were advertisements, but I was wrong," he said. "Later I found out there was no such thing as advertisement in China then, those red characters were all slogans."
Guillermo Danino was also among the first Peruvians to arrive in China, teaching Spanish at Nanjing University in eastern Jiangsu Province in 1979.
"I guess I was the only Peruvian in the entire province," Danino said. "In one of my shopping trips in downtown Nanjing, a large group of people followed me from one store to the next, watching me curiously."
Alayza and Danino have witnessed China's profound changes over the past decades, and are now specialists in China studies in Peru. It was from them that Maria acquired her early understanding of Chinese culture, while studying at the Catholic University of Lima.
Maria and her brothers are considering a new incubator project to promote China-Peruvian trade. "Peru is a huge market for Chinese products, and there are many quality Peruvian products that could be sold in China," she said.
"We see immense potential in bilateral trade and relations."
