Crisis Bites in Europe

London: Miss Wong, employee at a Chinese community center

We have made a lot of cuts. Last year was the worst. We had funding cuts of about 60 percent. Luckily we were able to apply for funds from other organizations. We are doing our best not to cut services, because they are very important. We have cut our payroll a great deal, so that one person now plays many different roles. We are having to work a bit harder. We have lost two staff members, and now only have two full-time, two part-time and a large number of volunteers. Of course we are worried [about next year], because funding only runs for one year at a time. [In Chinatown], business has been very poor, and so we have also seen a big drop in donations. It's a chain reaction.

South of France: Li Yongwen, student

France was founded on the principle of equality, so the access to benefits here is the same for all nationalities. You can receive them as long as you have residency status here. Overseas students can apply for help with their housing costs as long as they have paid tuition fees in France. Their philosophy here in Europe is very different from the way it is in Hong Kong, in Asia, or in the United States. Even a vacation is seen as a basic human right. They have subsidies for poor people, which the government hands out to people who have no money, nowhere to live and kids to raise. Vacations are really big here in Europe ... everything shuts down in France in August. If you have no money to go on vacation, there's a subsidy for that, too. It's easier said than done to shut down a socialist system that has been in place for decades. Now the government is talking about taking away the 35-hour working week and postponing the age for retirement, and a lot of people are against it.

Italy: Miss Wen, apparel company employee

The economy in Italy is doing very badly, so we are experiencing much lower demand than before. [We have sales volumes down by] at least half and a weak Euro. They have raised taxes as well, so all of these things are a problem for us.

Italy: Miss Wong, real estate negotiator

Things have been particularly bad this year. It started going downhill in about September last year. Before September, business wasn't too bad. There is a huge drop in turnover. In the two years before that, we saw a small drop in transactions, so it wasn't too bad. But after September, the banks raised the interest rates and there was a massive fall in sales. My personal situation is that before I was selling about five properties a month, whereas now I only sell one or two. Sometimes I don't sell any. There are still some [Chinese] people buying, but they sometimes don't complete the purchase because they can't get a loan.

Barcelona: Miss Zheng, guesthouse owner

Right now there is very high unemployment in Spain. One in three people here don't have a job. The economy is getting worse and worse, and there is very little consumption. Business is very tough across pretty much every industry. Our guesthouse mostly has overseas students, or Chinese people who are here on a visit, or on business. We have seen some effects on our business, but overall it hasn't been too bad. I don't have any plans to go back to China, though. I have got used to living here. I will stick with my business and wait for the turnaround. I hope I can ride out the economic crisis.

Reported by Pan Jiaqing for RFA's Cantonese service. Translated by Luisetta Mudie.