Category: portraits

south african rands cash bribery

HURDLES TO A NEW HOME: A CHINESE ADOLESCENT ARRIVES IN SOUTH AFRICA – Part II

Posted on by Claire van den Heever

Wang’s mother was able to marry her way to permanent residence, but she and her son had to jump through a few hoops to gain him the right to live in South Africa.

It all started with an adjustment to Wang’s high school grades to meet the requirements for admission into a foreign university, but that part was easy. “You just tell your Chinese high school you are going to a foreign university and they will let you adjust your marks. There’s no cost, they’re advertising you,” explains Wang. Every Chinese high school has an “honorary list” of alumni who get into foreign universities. It’s symbolic capital for the school.

Continue reading “HURDLES TO A NEW HOME: A CHINESE ADOLESCENT ARRIVES IN SOUTH AFRICA – Part II” →

Window onto a Chinese adolescent's life in South Africa

Hurdles to a new home: a Chinese adolescent arrives in South Africa

Posted on by Claire van den Heever

“I didn’t get admission into a very good university in China, so my mom suggested I study here in South Africa instead,” Wang tells me over a cup of green tea. “In China, even if you go to a good university, after graduating you still just get a job where you only earn 3000 yuan [approximately US$ 470] a month.”

Whether you’re moving to another country for work, studies, or to be closer to family, bureaucratic hurdles are inevitable. Wang wasn’t even sure he wanted the new life in South Africa that his parents had planned for him, but that didn’t make the accompanying bureaucratic hurdles any easier to avoid.

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Eating Chinese hotpot

Wandering in Shenzhen: Danlei’s Post-Cape Town Chapter

Posted on by Tian

“You guys must come from Taiwan…” said the foot masseuse as she submerged my feet in a bucket of hot water. She gave me a suspicious look. “You guys are very polite compared to locals. Too polite.”

My friend Danlei and I were in a typical Shenzhen foot massage parlour, with diagrams of the foot’s reflexology points on the walls and full-to-the-brim ashtrays on all of the reclining sofa’s armrests. The massage parlour was packed with people. At 9pm, most Chinese cities were going to bed, but Shenzhen’s night was just starting.

Danlei explained that we had recently returned from South Africa, not Taiwan. While we aren’t originally from South Africa, we had both just spent over a year in Cape Town, we explained. We had developed a strong emotional tie to the city, and considered it our African home. Continue reading “Wandering in Shenzhen: Danlei’s Post-Cape Town Chapter” →

African students lining up to learn Chinese at Mlimani Primary School in Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania

Meet the African students lining up to learn Chinese

Posted on by Claire van den Heever

Zimbabwean Daniel Mugandiri had no Chinese contacts nor any knowledge of China when one day he sat down to write a letter to the outgoing Chinese ambassador in Harare. He had recently been named Entrepreneur of the Year in Zimbabwe’s equivalent of “Dragon’s Den”, and was faced with the challenge of turning his business idea into reality. The 26-year-old wanted to manufacture solar panels to help address the nation’s electricity shortage. He wasn’t certain how to go about it, but he knew where to start.

“China is the hub of manufacturing, so I knew I had to learn from them,” he says. “If you buy something in the US or in the UK, it’s made in China. Every country in the world looks East.”

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George Shum, owner of the Chinese Pagoda Restaurant in Stone Town, Zanzibar, Tanzania

Portrait of George Shum: A Chinese-Zanzibari Entrepreneur

Posted on by Claire van den Heever

I first met George Shum, owner of Pagoda Restaurant, surrounded by ubiquitous Chinese restaurant paraphernalia: red-tasseled symbols of good fortune, golden good luck cats and a fish tank, in which lobsters and other sea creatures awaited their fate. It is the only Chinese restaurant in Stone Town, the old quarter of Zanzibar City.

At first glance, I assumed that the 44-year-old entrepreneur belonged to the substantial community of Chinese citizens that had begun to forge a life for themselves in recent years in East Africa. But when I asked where he was from, he replied in a thick Cantonese accent: “Wo shi sang ji ba er ren” — “I’m Zanzibari.”

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Ms Fang in her Chinese curio shop in Cape Town

Ms. Fang’s Chinese New Year: Story of a middle-aged woman in Cape Town

Posted on by Claire van den Heever

Isabella Fang is showing off a range of festive red and gold envelopes adorned with the character fu – or “wealth” – in her Chinese curio shop on Cape Town’s Atlantic coast. It is the day before Chinese New Year’s eve, or Spring Festival, when red envelopes (hong bao) filled with money are traditionally given as gifts to children and older relatives.

An estimated 385 million people are returning to their hometowns in China this year from wherever in the world they are working or studying, making it the largest human migration in the world.

Continue reading “Ms. Fang’s Chinese New Year: Story of a middle-aged woman in Cape Town” →

Master Liu, the Kung Fu teacher at Zambia's Confucius Institute

Portrait of Teacher Liu: A Chinese Kung Fu teacher in Lusaka – Part I

Posted on by Claire van den Heever

Teacher Liu’s Intermediate Chinese class was due to start five minutes ago, but there’s no sign of him or any of his students. The University of Zambia’s Confucius Institute is growing quiet as the afternoon descends on Lusaka.

Just then, a short, stocky man with Emporio Armani emblazoned across a maroon sweater strolls into the lobby with a sling bag on his shoulder. “Are you Teacher Liu?” I ask. “Yes…” he replies, with something between a guilty and a naughty expression on his face.

Continue reading “Portrait of Teacher Liu: A Chinese Kung Fu teacher in Lusaka – Part I” →

Zizhu Zhang, a Chinese journalist in Nairobi, Kenya

Portrait of Zizhu Zhang: A Chinese Journalist in Nairobi

Posted on by Claire van den Heever

Zizhu Zhang’s parents sent her to the United Kingdom for her final year of high school to improve her chances of getting into a British university. Six years later, with a master’s degree in comparative politics from the London School of Economics, she returned to her home in the southeastern city of Shenzhen, in China. She had her sights set on working in Beijing, but found that she had no competitive edge — was “unwanted,” even — in a job market that she described as overly pragmatic.

China’s pervasive political system was a factor, too.

“It wasn’t likely that I’d get into government-affiliated Chinese institutions because of [China’s] unwritten rules,” Zizhu, now 26, said. “I wanted to work in an area that was dynamic, where I could have a social impact.”

Continue reading “Portrait of Zizhu Zhang: A Chinese Journalist in Nairobi” →