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It is almost an offense to talk about retirement with Simão Zhu and Margarida Zhao. They left their country in search of a life that wouldn’t be just about intensive work, but their job is still their main daily priority. “A Chinese comes to Portugal to work, work, work. Boss? Boss works even harder!”. He knows that in China women retire at 55 and men at 62, but he doesn't like to think about it. “If I have the strength to work, I work. Working is like a gym and cheaper”. Margarida also prefers to make an extra effort to work rather than to chat. “Chinese don’t talk little! It’s the Portuguese that talk too much! Everything is reason for Portuguese to talk, talk, talk, talk, talk!”.

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Zhemeng “Simão” Zhu and Zhen “Margarida” Zhao

Born in Zhejiang, China

61 and 60 years old

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When he chose his Portuguese name, as the Chinese usually do when legalizing their residence in Portugal, Zhemeng did not have to think long: “Write anything! It can be Simão, like Sabrosa!”, the soccer player. His wife also dismissed any great reflections and accepted the choice of a co-worker who had named her Margarida. The couple recalls these details in a conversation full of laughter, lots of hand gestures to illustrate their thoughts and an oral Portuguese not always clear, but still committed and in which the letter R is usually exchanged for the L, giving the dialogue a cute and loving tone, reminiscent of characters from comic books and from actor Badaró.

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Simão and Margarida were born in Zhejiang, in the South of the People's Republic of China, in “very sad” times when life was particularly difficult because, even more than today, it was made of “a lot of work, just work, always work”. The couple admits that Portuguese jobs also steal too much time from families, but they guarantee: “What Chinese person works there, in one day, takes three days here”. Wishing for a better quality of life, part of Simão's family had already emigrated to Germany in the 1970s and the young metalworker decided to do the same in 1983, but heading to Portugal instead. “Here, weather is milder and better for business. Easier to start”, he explains, in one of the many phrases in which he omits most prepositions and defined or indefinite articles.

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When he arrived in 1983, alone, he settled in Porto, where his uncle had opened Portugal’s first Chinese restaurant. Margarida came two years later, with, by then, her only daughter, and started a women's underwear manufacturing company that was in business for a few years, until her patience ran out. “Confection for women very boring. Women are very, very annoying!”, she defends. She then proceeded to work as a nurse, benefiting from the experience gained with her father, who was a doctor; next she managed a shoe import company, before too much competition and the low quality of some brands started damaging the reputation of others’; and, at a certain point, the couple even had their own restaurant, until the business began to resent the outbreak of the H5N1 virus that shook Asia in the late 1990s. Speaking of that, Margarida points to the brain, as if to simulate a lack of reasoning: “People here are very suspicious and with bird flu worse. People think we buy chicken in China? Of course we buy here! If we bought in China, how would chicken come to Portugal? ”.

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Covid-19 was easier, mainly because the couple had become known in the community. With no Facebook accounts on which to read hate speech and nonsenses, they have been going through the pandemic virtually unscathed and even made new customers at the expense of the initially reduced offer of protection masks. Still, there are prejudices they cannot escape from. “Chinese don’t pay tax? Who says that? Are you crazy?”, exclaims Simão. “If we don't pay tax, next month store closes! State sucks everything! Portugal has most expensive taxes in Europe!”.

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The definitive change in Simão’s and Margarida’s professional life took place 15 years ago, when the couple – by then with three children – discovered in Famalicão a building with good areas and decided to turn it into their first “Chinese store”. Shortly after, another identical place was established in Rio Meão, in the municipality of Santa Maria da Feira, and that was how they settled on that territory, even before they trespassed the Famalicão business and opted for a second store in the Cavaco area. It’s between the two stores in Feira that the couple now spends their life, being active seven days a week and never thinking about retirement. “Chinese doesn’t think about that. There, retirement is at 55 for women and 62 for men, but we don't care about that. If I have strength to work, I work. We don't think about being on leave, about taking a leave… Working is like a gym and cheaper”, argues Simão, elegant and fit.

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It’s in that precise labor bustle that the two Chinese are most in contact with Portuguese culture. Margarida has already dealt with "very bad people" – she does not even refer to the well-dressed ladies who often shoplift in her store – and she particularly dislikes the bad mood of Portuguese customers – "often with bad face and rude manners". She does, however, appreciate the education system in which she raised her three children, the safety with which she can take her grandchildren for strolls on the street, the loyalty of customers who have become accustomed to trusting their stores to find everything there.

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Simão, on the other hand, praises mostly the Portuguese food: “Very good. And seafood restaurants better! Seafood, fish and suckling pig all very good”. At home he recreates some of these dishes, including in his regular menus also cod, steaks and barbecue meats, but the big dinners are mainly in restaurants, before some karaoke sessions with his friends – who are all Chinese. “Enough Portuguese people on the job”, justifies Margarida, with a laugh.

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If there are exceptions to their simple agendas, those are mostly provided by the two grandchildren who live in Portugal. Vicente is still a toddler and sleeps undisturbed in the lap of Jie, his mother, but Martim already exercises his five-year-old-legs in the soccer training school that FC Porto has in Rio Meão, which means his grandfather acts as his driver and sports agent – and it’s difficult to know which is prouder of the boy's blue and white outfit, the adult or the child.

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Religious habits, Margarida and Simão don’t have any. They celebrate Christmas and New Year like Westerners, without making any Christian readings of it, and, in late January, they also commemorate the Chinese New Year, which doesn’t coincide with the New Year's Eve of Western culture because it is based on the lunar calendar instead. The couple sees this festivity as a symbol of their roots. They ensure there is lots of food and a raffle of gifts to go along with it, and then hang the symbol which is Mandarin for “happiness”, appealing to prosperity during the following year.

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Simão and Margarida do not spend much time analyzing the Portuguese, detecting differences and similarities. He says that, during the first years in Portugal, he didn't think about any of that: “I just wanted to make money and learn the language”. She mentions she learned the idiom by repeating the words others said and reading the packaging of all the products that passed through her hands. One and the other focused this learning on the business vocabulary, in order to carry out transactions with Portuguese and also Spanish, Italian, French and other European suppliers, and the rest they drew from RTP1 and TVI news programs. “But is also necessary to consider something else”, warns Simão: “Chinese does not speak as much as Portuguese”. Margarida nods immediately and makes a wide gesture with her arm, rolling her hand over the head in a sign of tiredness: “This conversation today? I talked a lot! Tomorrow can’t talk all day!”. ■

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