.zine. TITLE: Don’t pay the Chinamen, don’t even fix a price Written by: Bettie Lee Date: August 17, 2031
Most of our favourite family-owned businesses in Chinatown are not making any profit. Their take-home pay is zilch, they’re just breaking even, barely surviving, because of pizzo. Pizzo is Italian for ‘protection money’ – commonly associated with the Sicilian mafia, and it’s happening right here in our Chinatown. No one wants to speak of the issue because the Triads are scary mofos and we value our lives. But maybe it’s time we, dear readers, take our streets back.
The way pizzo works: low-level members in the Triads approach a business. The scum will try persuading mom and pop that it’s simply a business tax, an expense customary in mainland China and Hong Kong, or a tribute. If at first mom and pop decline, it’s not a problem. No biggie. But within a few days, the business will face a threat – a fire, break-in, major theft, something guaranteed to instill fear. The scum return and reinstate their offer. This time, mom and pop can’t refuse. It’s even worse if a business can't make their monthly payment.
Protection money is extortion; it’s the practice of forcibly acquiring money through threats. And it’s a crime punishable by law if victims speak out against the culprits.
Chinatown is its own unique entity. There’s nowhere else like it. For some reason, the Mei-Sing Corporation was able to create this wonderful, special, world-in-a-bubble. No one can deny the organization is responsible for all the advancements (funding, perhaps, courtesy of >90% of Chinatown’s businesses who are paying pizzo). Mei-Sing Corp. was able to fuse technology and this otherworldly magic in ways not even our government can replicate. Is that something locals can be proud of, while families struggle to make ends meet? While the money earned by mom and pop goes to the criminal organization headed by Mei-Sing? Hell-to-the-no!
Some of you may ask: why are you writing this article, Bettie? The Zine’s HQ is based out of Chinatown, and some of us are tired of the threats, tired of seeing our friends in the community suffer because of Mei-Sing, the big-bully in the playground.