The communion of Chinese and geeks made Passeig de Sant Joan the most unique commercial axis in Barcelona. Life-size Harry Potter figures, Korean clothes for teenagers, exotic supermarkets, board games, traditional bars, Asian tapas, handicrafts, manga… And a Masonic library that hosts character creation workshops taught by employees of comic book stores Sometimes the city takes on a life of its own.
Do you know that there are tourists with no interest in the Sagrada Família? Not in the Camp Nou, not in any conventional attraction. What interests these visitors from all over Spain and from various corners of the planet is to get a local board game, review editions of their favorite graphic novel, participate in laser sword fights…, and then eat a Japanese crest, make tea with tapioca, dine on sushi among drawings of bears and kittens. Some buy an alien head, despite the problems posed by the airlines. These days the promenade premiered Christmas lights inspired by the manga. Between the Arc de Triomf and the Plaça de Tetuan we find only one place available. Barcelona’s geek triangle is today an alternative international reference from a world that was once the object of gossip and is increasingly mainstream. It’s a multi-dimensional story, with lots of timelines that evolved on their own until…
Zongping Li, 40, from China’s Fujian province, tells the Okinawa manga-style restaurant that until recently she worked as a clerk at one of the many Asian-run wholesale clothing stores that both they roamed around here. “But they moved them to the Badalona estates – he continues – because working there was more comfortable and cheaper. And I didn’t want to leave my neighborhood, Fort Pienc. So, when we had the opportunity, we set up this restaurant. My husband loves sushi, and he learned it from a great master, and so do the people who come to the shopping promenade. That’s why we decorate the restaurant in manga tones.”
In this way, the Chinese of Fort Pienc began to transform the businesses designed to meet the needs of so many compatriots into others aimed at a wider audience. The mediation initiative promoted by Xeix City Council made the leap easier, and little by little Asians will stop behaving like an ethnic group and act like any other citizen.
José Manuel Martínez opened the Japanese anime and manga store Dashu in 2022. “We had a stand at the manga salon, but we wanted something fixed – Martínez explains -. When we found this place, despite the fact that it needed renovation, we didn’t hesitate. If you are dedicated to this, you must be in Sant Joan! You can find all this on the internet, Fnac, El Corte Inglés… The pandemic multiplied the interest in board games, comics, series… Today the audience is wider than ever, from Mazinger Z to One Piece! But the atmosphere of this walk is unique. The problem is the thefts. Thieves sell our products very well on the internet. The other problem is real estate pressure. It’s the negative part of being fashionable in Barcelona. You never know how long they’ll let you stay there.”
Niping Qiuzheng, 53, was also engaged in wholesale clothing. “Those stores didn’t make sense in the center. They were a nuisance that contributed little to the neighborhood, and when they left for Badalona I set up a chain of bakeries. But my dream was always to have a Mediterranean restaurant, so I passed them on to my brother, minus the one here, which I transformed into La Triunfal, my dream. The expansion of the sidewalks was final. Suddenly, everyone wanted to walk around Sant Joan”.
“Platforms, superhero movies, series…, these years popularized the geek culture – says Juan José Peña, at the Kaburi board games store, on the promenade since 2000, one of the seeds of the triangle -. The geek always liked Big Bang Theory , Marvel, Stranger Things …, and this culture became widespread, and people decorate the living room with figures of their favorite characters instead of vases. The term geek is no longer pejorative.”
“We were in Carrer Girona since 2014, next door – they explain to Goblintrader, a store specializing in board games and miniatures – but in the summer we moved to this place because there is nothing like standing in the heart of the walk With the pandemic, all this stopped being a minority. In Sant Joan, people of all kinds come, friends, couples, families, during the week from the neighborhood, the city, the metropolitan area and beyond. And here we nourish each other. If you don’t have something, you send the customer to another store that does, and we feed the triangle.”
And at Norma Comics, another of the seeds of the triangle, José Garrido, one of the clerks, and also a cartoonist and student of the Joso art school, explains that for Sant Jordi they came from the Arús public library and proposed to teach a character creation workshop for high school students, and that he would love to be offered it again… “The Passeig de Sant Joan is much more than a lot of shops, really,” says Garrido. The fact that they feed off each other is true.
The Arús library opened its doors to the promenade 128 years ago. “Rossend Arús gave his fortune to the city on the condition that it finance a library for the people -says the director, Maribel Giner-. That’s why we always try to get involved in the neighborhood. For Sant Jordi, we organize activities for the rogue with Norma Comics. And on March 8, we dedicate it to the Chinese woman, with women of different generations and occupations”. Businesswomen, translators, writers pass by here… Not long ago, Miquel Gallardo, one of the fathers of the historic fanzine Makoki, who died too soon due to an illness, also a distinguished neighbor of Fort Pienc, brought the cartoonist When Zhou… Zhou, daughter of Chinese immigrants, was born in Algeciras, then moved to Malaga, then to Madrid… And told her story in a webcomic. “We also do ikebana and Bollywood workshops…”, adds the director. In addition, Arús has a fund about Sherlock Holmes of the most geeky kind, with books, pipes, caps, ties, tobacco, false mustaches, autographs of authors who played him, and even the poster of a brothel called Sherlock Homes… “Once, the Holmes Circle met here and the president liked the library so much that he offered us his collection.”
And, in this way, the art school Moz-art, right next door, where a few years ago you could only find Chinese students, today it has students from all over…
