Oh, My! I was surprised when I read this. It seemed that in the northern Italian town of Treviso, Chinese-run businesses were ordered to take down their lanterns because they looked too oriental. I supposed that must be an incident of a long past era. Chinese had actually settled in Italy for a long time, though their number may not be that big. The 0fficial statistics indicate there are at least 144,885 Chinese in Italy and it had been growing rapidly in the past ten years. History indicates that there were three main waves of Chinese immigration in the 20th century, from the 1920s and 1930s to 1972, from 1972 to 1985 and from 1986 to the present. The first Chinese in Italy were said to have come from France to Milan. Numbering around 40 and 50 and being mainly males, many of them intermarried with Italian women. I bet some of the children may look like the lanterns too, too oriental, that is...
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