Translation Tuesday: No Africans allowed? Suspicions about Chinese restaurant discrimination in Kenya provoke widespread anger

By Zander Rounds

Author: Yingying
Translator: Zander Rounds
Published on: 3/25/15
Source: Sohu News
Original text (in Chinese): http://star.news.sohu.com/20150325/n410267717.shtml?qq-pf-to=pcqq.group

A recent scandal involving a Chinese restaurant in Kenya that barred locals after dark made international headlines, revealing tensions surrounding Chinese businesses practices in Africa. Yingying, a Chinese entrepreneur working in the continent, draws on a large survey of ethnic Chinese opinions in Africa to illuminate why the restaurant did what it did, wrong as it was.
---- Zander Rounds

On March 23, the most influential newspaper in Nairobi, Kenya published on its front page a story titled, “Restaurant: Sorry, No Africans, we don’t trust them after dark.” This attracted the attention of ethnic Chinese from all walks of life within Kenyan, and even those in other African countries.

Also on March 23, the author’s Quan Fei Gou [全非购] media platform published an article called, “The lead story in Kenya’s biggest newspaper reports on an incident where some Chinese restaurants bar locals at night; Chinese people, what do you think,” and conducted a survey. Based on the 312 received results, ethnic Chinese in Africa think, first of all, that this practice is painfully embarrassing, and subsequently, that this incident could have been a little more tactfully mediated. They also think that locals should be allowed to dine at night. To resolve public security concerns, restaurants can strengthen security practices. At the same time, the respondents commonly considered Kenyan’s commentary and media coverage of the incident too extreme.

Business and Pleasure: Afro-Chinese Marriages (2/2)

Hosts Winslow Robertson and Dr. Nkemjika Kalu continue their conversation with Jenni Marsh  who just wrote a brilliant article at South China Morning Post's Post Magazine: Afro-Chinese marriages boom in Guangzhou: but will it be 'til death do us part'? We ask about what struck her most about the relationships encountered, what will these relationships mean for China's conception of race, and more.

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• Jenni Marsh
• My Father's House (Jiao Tang) by Zhao Dayong and David Bandurski

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Business and Pleasure: Afro-Chinese Marriages (1/2)

As more Africans set up shop in Guangzhou, there has been a corresponding increase in Afro-Chinese marriages. Hosts Winslow Robertson and Dr. Nkemjika Kalu talked to Jenni Marsh, who just wrote a brilliant article at South China Morning Post's Post Magazine on that very topic: Afro-Chinese marriages boom in Guangzhou: but will it be 'til death do us part'? Marsh is Assistant Editor of Post Magazine at South China Morning Post in Hong Kong. She is currently researching the African diaspora in Guangzhou, with a grant from the University of Witwatersrand's China-Africa Reporting Project.

Recommendations

• Jenni Marsh
• State Regulation of Undocumented African Migrants in China: A Multi-scalar Analysis by Lan Shanshan

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Being Black in China versus being African in China

Hosts Winslow Robertson and Dr. Nkemjika Kalu once again delve into discussions about race in China, and to help guide them through the discussion is Mr. Marketus Presswood, who is pursuing his PhD in Modern Chinese History and has a broad interest in the experience of African-Americans and the African Diaspora as whole in China. Back in July, he wrote a fantastic article for Tea Leaf Nation/The Atlantic called "A Minority in the Middle Kingdom: My Experience Being Black in China," which, well, talked about being black in China. He also has extensive experience in international education, including bringing African-American students to study abroad in China, where he lived for eight years. We asked him to share his thoughts on being Black in China versus being African in China.

PS We actually did line up an African guest but sadly things did not work out! We are not trying to ignore African voices on the subject!

Recommendations

• Winslow
• Hunt is on for China experts by Joseph Catanzaro and Hou Liqiang
• Four Great Reads on Emerging markets by Merlin Linehan
• Political clash in world's youngest country grows into wider South Sudan unrest by PBS NewsHour
•  Dr. Kalu
• The Star Raft: China's Encounter With Africa by Philip Snow
• If Nelson Mandela really had won, he wouldn't be seen as a universal hero by Slavoj Žižek
• Marketus Presswood
• War Without Mercy: Race and Power in the Pacific War by John Dower
• The Discourse of Race in Modern China by Frank Dikotter

Sources

A Minority in the Middle Kingdom: My Experience Being Black in China by Marketus Presswood

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The Africa Daily

Race! Gender! Massages! Being an African woman in China

Join your hosts Winslow Robertson and Dr. Nkemjika Kalu  as they talk about what it is like being an African woman in China. Their guest this week is Ms. Marianne Daka, a Zambian business journalist who recently finished up her M.A. in Business Journalism at Tsinghua University.

PS Rated PG-13 for language!

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• Dr. Kalu
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• Banks Cannot Fund $8bn Nigeria Annual Power Needs – FBN Capital by Ehidiamhen Okpamen

Sources

Ambassador, Observer, Spectacle - Being African in China by Zahra Baitie

A Minority in the Middle Kingdom: My Experience Being Black in China by Marketus Presswood

Petty Annoyances?: Revisiting John Emmanuel Hevi’s An African Student in China after 50 Years by
Philip Hsiaopong Liu

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The Africa Daily

On This Day: The 1988-1989 Nanjing Anti-African Protests

NOTE: This posting would not have been possible without the research of Michael J. Sullivan ("The 1988-89 Nanjing Anti-African Protests: Racial Nationalism or National Racism?" The China Quarterly, No. 138 (Jun., 1994), 438-457), Barry Sautman ("Anti-Black Racism in Post-Mao China," The China Quarterly, No 138 (Jun., 1994) 413-437), Philip Snow (The Start Raft. Weidenfeld & Nicolson, New York 1988) and George T. Crane ("Collective Identity, Symbolic Mobilization, and Student Protest in Nanjing, China, 1988-1989," Comparative Politics, Vol. 26, No. 4 (Jul., 1994) 395-413). I urge anyone interested in the incident to read what they wrote for a much more complete understanding of what happened. There is much more information out there on the matter, such this text which I have not read, so if any study contradicts what I have written here please let me know.

The Nanjing Anti-African Protests are, for me, a defining moment of Sino-African relations because they revealed how people on the ground interacted, rather than what leaders expressed to each other in meetings and documents. Now, as a diplomatic historian, I obviously put a lot of value on the latter. If one wanted to look at Sino-African relations through the prism of Bandung or FOCAC 2000, there is nothing wrong with that. Still, I wanted to write something to commemorate the anniversary of this sad event. Also, I want to emphasize that I do not believe Chinese people to be uniquely or irredeemably racist. Americans have their own history of rioting against black students, for example. I am simply trying to insure that these sorts of stories do not disappear.

Well, at Least They Changed the Name to 'Darlie'

Today I read this piece, courtesy of Wendy, that tied China Daily's African edition with China's sometimes fraught relationship with dark-skinned peoples. This quote, by Isaac Stone Fish, sums things up nicely:

While there's plenty of anecdotal evidence out there, it's hard to generalize about what Chinese think about Africans without being hypocritical, so I'll just quote what a Chinese English teaching recruiter once told me in Beijing: "We try not to hire black people. They tend to scare the children."