The unique adventure of Europe's first Chinatown, which calls itself China's "Overseas Province".
In Europe, there is a small city that claims to be China's "overseas province", with Chinese signs on the streets, but no one speaks Chinese;Passionate about Chinese food and invites Chinese chefs to weekly classesCan you imagine that there is an annual festival in China, but not a single Chinese are invited?
In fact, it's not just a real world, it's even a century old.
Dieterfurt, Bavaria, Germany, known as the "Overseas Province of China", is a town with Bavarian characteristics located on the banks of the beautiful Almur River and surrounded by the Jura Mountains on three sides.
Dietfort had already settled in the early 12th century, and there had been a case of "forgery" that surprised the royal family: in 1189, the villagers of Rosenburg avoided taxes with a forged rose coat of arms, the exclusive emblem of the European aristocracy, the equivalent of the city emblem today.
In addition, the connection between the town and China also involves tax issues.
Dieterford was listed as a "nail household" because of a false account, and several nearby cities had the power to collect taxes, and the townspeople were also so upset by this incident that they simply locked themselves in their homes.
The cardinal in charge of taxation heard about this and immediately sent the tax collector ** to collect the tax, and the people in the town immediately closed the gate when they heard the news, and some even cast a disdainful look at the people on the city wall, and the tax ** who could not even enter the city ran back angrily to report, saying that they were in league with the Chinese.
The purpose of collecting taxes, just as the Chinese rely on the Great Wall to ward off their enemies, keep them cowering within their own walls, unwilling to pay taxes. As a result, the Chinese occupied the entire town, and many legendary stories about China were circulated.
Although the Dietfort people never went to China and did not meet the Chinese, after the sixteenth century, the influx of high-end bestsellers such as Chinese porcelain, tea and silk into Europe gave the local villagers an opportunity: because they thought we were "Chinese", they only sold Chinese goods under Chinese names.
Under his deliberate guidance, the town quickly became the most famous distribution center for Chinese products in the vicinity, not only hanging the four big characters of "China Town" at the door, but also an eye-catching "China Street" in the town. In 1869, the Bavarian Pastoral Gazette changed Dieterfort to "Chinatown", which became the officially recognized "Chinatown" in European history.
Dietfort was held for the first time in 1928"Chinese Carnival"At the height of the festival, he suddenly declared: Dietfort is the only country in Europe that speaks Chinese, and it is also an overseas province of China.
In fact, the people of Dietfort took advantage of the Xi of "duty-free overseas provinces" in European countries, implicitly expressing the meaning of "the goods in my store are authentic and cheap", and declared Chinese as the official language, but none of the citizens in the town could speak Chinese, and even the signs of the first Chinese festivals were German.
Despite the suspicions, the local villagers did put a lot of effort into Xi learning Chinese culture, and they also asked people to study classical works such as the "Psalms" and Confucius's "The Mean", but perhaps because of translation errors, or because of misunderstandings, the villagers in the town learned Chinese Xi culture in a way that was like a "blind man touching an elephant", no matter how hard they tried, it was inexplicably funny.
For example, the Chinese fountain in the middle of the "China Square" was first a statue sent to the local chief executive by the Qing Dynasty of China, and was later made into a small beard on the head, a hat on the head, and water droplets from time to time in the round bellyThe most ridiculous thing is that on this road, there are many sculptures of "Chinese dragons", and they all have long mouths, staring eyes, and climb up with a hard face.
Because of World War II, the Chinese cultural festival in the border town was not held again until 1954, but the kind of performances in the past that followed the form and performed in various forms have long been unable to satisfy the "Chinese". A nurse working in a hospital, Goller, advised: "As Chinese, we must have a Chinese emperor, and we must have a Chinese army, bands and retinues. ”
In this way, Gao Ler played a generation of "emperors", and was nicknamed "Emperor Gao" by the local people, and after him, he selected a new "emperor" from the applicants, from the initial assessment results to the current "Golden Egg Award", a total of eleven "emperors" were born.
For example, the "emperor" in 197 came from a painter named Caesar Mayer, who was called "Emperor Caesar" or "Julius Caesar" for short.
Hans Dieterford, the longest-reigning hairstylist, reigned from 1975 until his death in 1999 and suspended voting for the first time in 2000 to honor the "emperor" for his "outstanding contributions".
Although he is called the "emperor", the actor's work is not so easy, from 2 o'clock in the morning to 5 o'clock in the evening, they also have to read the "Letter to the Subjects" in the "Golden Luang Palace", the above words, in addition to praying for good weather in the coming year, the country and the people, but also to ensure that they will work for this "overseas province" free of charge.
Take the former "emperor" who left office in 2017 as an example, his profession is a lawyer, so he contracted all the neighbor disputes and legal affairs in the town, although there is no fee, but the people in the town will basically sell him a face when they see the "emperor", which is also an important factor in the growing harmony of the border town.
After the "enthronement" ceremony, the border town held the largest "severing meal" ever, a bit like the "Holy Sacrament" (the presiding priest divides the bread for the baptists) and gives them food in the name of the "emperor".
In the past, it was impossible to make Chinese food in this town without Chinese chefs, but in 2001, when some Chinese chefs were invited to teach Chinese cuisine, the "giving meal" became more formal and grand, with all the ingredients from China and cooking mostly Chinese cuisine, including appetizers and cold cuts, hot and sour pork skin soup, guppies, etc.
Every year during the Spring Festival, local specialties are also specialties from all over China, for example, a chef in Chongqing Qixian Town taught local villagers how to cook more than 30 kinds of Chongqing dishes, and named this year's Chinese New Year's Eve meal "Qixian Town, China Overseas Province", and on each table, there is a description of the "Zodiac Year".
For example, the Chinese New Year's Eve dinner in 2022, such as fried fritters and steamed lotus leaf chicken with bamboo shoots, which is rare in Europe.
It has become a Xi practice for local citizens to hire Chinese chefs from a Chinese restaurant in Berlin to teach them how to knead dough, chop stuffing and make dumplings, with a Chinese chef coming to teach them every month and gathering on weekends to Xi homework.
He learns at least one basic traditional Chinese art a year, and in 2010 he began practicing tai chi, which is now an outdoor sport for the townspeople (and is said to be square dancing soon).
His favorite is Chinese tea, he began to Xi learn the Chinese tea ceremony in 2019, I heard that he spent a lot of effort to find a top tea ceremony master from Fujian who is proficient in German, it was supposed to be three days, but after three days he felt that it was not enough, so he added an extra week, and since then, every family has taken Chinese kung fu tea as pride.
But this alone is not enough, the town of Dieterford made a special trip to China, invited an art troupe composed of folk theater troupes, to Germany to perform, plus dance festivals, food festivals, beauty pageants, in order to enhance the friendship between China and Germany, enhance mutual understanding and cultural exchanges between the two peoples.
The most interesting thing is that when the Nanjing folk art group was invited to perform in 2016, the mayor at that time did not hesitate to lower his status in order to improve the level of the Chinese art festival, and announced to the public: Every year in the art festival, both the mayor and the congressman are members of the emperor's cabinet and are ordered by the emperor.
Do you like China as an "overseas province"?