First week.

It's been a week in Buenos Aires already. Been mostly exploring the surroundings and taking intensive Spanish classes. Though its glorious days have passed, a faded but intact sense of grandeur still remains in this city that, on surface, belongs in the colonial motherland across the sea.

One of my favorite areas is the plaza around the Centro Cultural Recoleta.



It's a perpetual street fair, with the clowns, performers, musicians, and, well, tourists showing up almost daily.



The Centro Cultural itself is a labyrinth of a modern art gallery. This past weekend it hosted the Puma Street Art Festival which featured great bands, great art and concluded with a screening of Banksy's Exit Through the Gift Shop. It brought me back to the days in New York.

The Chinese presence is not as immediately noticeable as that in Panama, but they're here, mostly in the form of supermarkets. The Chinatown is just a symbolic area of four blocks or so, with the generic gated arch and stores that sell kitschy trinkets to locals and tourists, who constitute the majority of the clientèle in this barrio. Like the Panama Chinatown, it appears that most Chinese don't hang out here anymore. Though outnumbered by now, Taiwanese spirit lingers on in those delectable fried skewers I've searched half the world for. I did not expect to find them here.



Workwise, I've made a few contacts. One of them is Anna Liu, who manages a wholesale store and teaches Chinese to the locals on weekends. She was a Spanish professor in Beijing and was sent to Buenos Aires for translation work. Somehow, she ended up staying. She said that learning Chinese is in high demand here, and I will be visiting her school next Saturday. She also told me that Chinese parents often send their children to Chinese schools on Saturdays. There are four schools, founded by different associations and religious groups. That would be a good place to start exploring the topic of cultural assimilation.

In an hour, I will head to my first assignment – taking photos of a women's rights event at the University of Buenos Aires's Law School. Will update when I get back!