Al Jazeera wrote: Paris, France - In the centre of Paris, on Rue de Provence, sits the bar and restaurant Stan & Co. It's a dimly lit, homely French bistro with wooden ceilings and stained glass panelling. Waiters are busy serving croques monsieurs and cups of café au lait to tables tucked in cosy bay windows.
Stephanie Verret has run the place for 25 years. But it's only in the past few that Rue de Provence has started to change. "All the people in the street sold their businesses to Chinese," she says. "Before it was like a little village with people taking coffee and croissants in the morning."
Now, lucrative Chinese restaurants and duty-free shops line the street. Crowds of Chinese tourists push down the narrow footpaths, following flag-wielding guides who hustle past each other in a race to get to the front.
Stephanie finds herself daily in a scene that looks more like downtown Beijing than Paris. "They don't say hello, they don't speak French, they don't speak English," she says, incredulous.
Anyone who's spent time in France will attest that perhaps the most important word is "Bonjour". It implies more than a greeting - it's also a marker of a civilised encounter.
"One woman came in here and spat on the floor," recounts Stephanie. "I just took a napkin, put it in her hand and said in French: "Take it!"
[...]
Stephanie is trying to do her bit to make things easier for herself and the Chinese tourists who wander out of the shops and into her restaurant. She presents them with small signs written in Mandarin, warning them about pickpockets and telling them, "If they sit, they have to drink!"
She is open about the fact that Chinese clients account for a growing percentage of her profits and is certain, amid the European financial slump, that Chinese are the future of the tourist industry.
[...]
The Chinese are the future...
