Wel­come to Chi­na­town. Port-of-Spain has been abuzz with im­ages of the arch which went up at the cor­ner of Char­lotte and Park Streets on Thurs­day night as Char­lotte Street was re­named Chi­na­town.

While many claimed they were tak­en by sur­prise, the an­nounce­ment came months ago as part of a Gov­ern­ment ini­tia­tive to “twin” Port-of-Spain with Shang­hai in Chi­na and is aimed at pro­vid­ing po­ten­tial eco­nom­ic and tourism ben­e­fits for the coun­try.

In Sep­tem­ber, a stake­hold­ers’ meet­ing was held on the move but it was poor­ly at­tend­ed and Port of Spain North/St Ann’s MP Stu­art Young ex­pressed dis­ap­point­ment that peo­ple had not come out to ex­press their views.

In Port-of-Spain yes­ter­day, there was con­ster­na­tion from some about the arch, with one cit­i­zen call­ing it an “in­ter­na­tion­al scan­dal.” One won­ders why this would be viewed as such since there are many Chi­nese busi­ness places run by Chi­na na­tion­als which con­tribute to the city's over­all de­vel­op­ment.

The arch prob­a­bly al­so adds to the am­bi­ence of the busy city street. One won­ders, how­ev­er, if as part of their claim on Char­lotte Street, mem­bers of the Chi­nese com­mu­ni­ty will see this as an op­por­tu­ni­ty to do their part to keep that part of the city clean and cre­ate a cli­mate more con­ducive to shop­pers.

One al­so can’t help but won­der whether the new ‘Chi­na­town’ will have con­tin­ued space for ven­dors who have long trad­ed on the busy street, which has grown in pop­u­lar­i­ty for shop­pers look­ing for any­thing from fresh pro­duce to cheap goods which, iron­i­cal­ly, of­ten car­ry the “Made in Chi­na” la­bel.

Truth be told, a Chi­na­town is noth­ing new. Many of us would have paid a vis­it to Chi­na­town in cities in the Unit­ed States as well as Lon­don. The Chi­nese pres­ence across the globe is grow­ing and that’s no dif­fer­ent here in Trinidad and To­ba­go, where the Chi­nese pres­ence is ev­i­dent in every nook and cran­ny.

The re­al­i­ty is that this is the price of progress. We have for decades ac­cept­ed mem­bers of the Chi­nese mi­grant com­mu­ni­ty in­to this coun­try.

Port-of-Spain May­or Joel Mar­tinez hit the nail on the head when he said the Chi­nese have a rich cul­ture sup­port­ed by many in this coun­try. The Chi­nese her­itage spans not just Char­lotte but George and Nel­son streets with es­tab­lish­ments in the 1960s like Yet Ming, Ng Chow, Chooquan Su­per­mar­ket, Chee­wah, Tam Pack, Ale­ong’s and Chin’s Gro­cery. May­or Mar­tinez al­so re­mind­ed us that there are five Chi­nese As­so­ci­a­tions on Char­lotte Street, with four with­in the bound­aries of the des­ig­nat­ed Chi­na­town area.

Let us thus open our minds to the big­ger pic­ture in front of us as a na­tion. This week­end’s cel­e­bra­tion of Di­vali gives each of us the op­por­tu­ni­ty to open our hearts and to let the light take the place of dark­ness.