This morning, Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz welcomed the Beijing Guo Sheng Opera Troupe to Brooklyn, greeting the crowd "ni hao ma?" in his shaky Mandarin*. The opera group, in town for two performances this weekend, is from Brooklyn's sister city, Chaoyang — a district in Beijing.
At the press conference, Markowitz said that Brooklyn was the 4th largest Chinese community in the United States and will be the 3rd largest in ten years. In the future, Markowitz hopes that there can be more cultural exchange between Brooklyn and China, "I hope that within the year we can send some of our Brooklyn cultural groups, performance groups over to China so that the folks living in China can get an idea of the music that we make right here in Brooklyn." Markowitz later mentioned rap and hip hop. The BP also told the mostly Chinese media that he wouldn't be surprised if there would be a mayor, borough president, senator or president of Chinese descent in the future.
In addition to its invitation-only performance on Sunday (don't worry, we didn't get invited either), the Beijing Guo Sheng Opera Troupe will be at Flushing Town Hall Saturday afternoon.
*He called a woman his younger sister and then said that he was her grandfather. She corrected this in her Mandarin translation.
