Situations vacant

Here's a notice board I spotted today at the Hondo Supermarket in Chinatown. It seems to operate as an informal job centre for local restaurants and other businesses.

Liverpool has had a Chinese presence since 1834 when the first Chinese trading ship arrived in the docks and by the end of the 19th century there was a well established Chinatown with shops, restaurants and boarding houses. The city's links with China have become increasingly strong in recent years particularly in terms of business, the arts and education (the University of Liverpool even has a campus in Suzhou, China) - despite many people's serious concerns about continuing human rights abuses in China.* Cynics may say that the amount of investment capital and money coming into the city in overseas student fees has made it all too easy to overlook the repression of minority groups, censorship, imprisonment without trial and executions still taking place in China. I have a bit of a cynical streak myself...

Liverpool twinned with Shanghai in 1999.

*As far as I'm aware the Green Party is the only local elected political grouping to ask Council leaders questions about the city's official links with China.