Eman Okonkwo’s foot-tapping at
the altar is not a sign of nerves.
The groom’s palms aren’t sweaty,
there are no pre-wedding jitters
and certainly no second thoughts.
Today he is realising a dream
imagined by countless African
merchants in Guangzhou: he is
marrying a Chinese bride.
Seven days earlier, Jennifer
Tsang’s family was oblivious to
their daughter’s romance. Like
many local women dating African
men, the curvaceous trader from
Foshan, who is in her late 20s–that
dreaded “leftover woman” age–
had feared her parents would be
racially prejudiced.
Today, though–having tentatively
given their blessing–they snuck
into the underground Royal
Victory Church, in Guangzhou,
looking over their shoulders for
police as they entered the
downtown tower block. Non-state-
sanctioned religious events like
this are illegal on the mainland.
Okonkwo, 42, doesn’t have a
single relative at the rambunctious
Pentecostal ceremony, but is
nevertheless delighted.
“Today is so special,” beams the
Nigerian, “because I have married
a Chinese girl. And that makes me
half-African, half-Chinese.”
In Guangzhou, weddings like this
take place every day. There are no
official figures on Afro-Chinese
marriages but visit any trading
warehouse in the city and you will
see scores of mixed-race couples
running wholesale shops, their
coffee-coloured, hair-braided
children racing through the
corridors.
While Okonkwo’s dream of
becoming Chinese through
matrimony is futile–the
Guangzhou Public Security Bureau
(PSB) denies African husbands any
more rights than a tourist–his
children, should he have any and
they be registered under Tsang’s
name, will possess a hukou
residency permit and full Chinese
citizenship.
The relationship with Africa that
China has so aggressively courted
for economic gain–2012 saw a
record US$198 billion of trade
between the pair–is producing an
unexpected return: the
mainland’s first mixed-race
generation with blood from a
distant continent and the right to
be Chinese.
“CHOCOLATE CITY” OR “Little
Africa”, as it has been dubbed by
the Chinese press, is a district of
Guangzhou that is home to
between 20,000 and 200,000,
mostly male, African migrants
(calculations vary wildly due to
the itinerant nature of many
traders and the thousands who
overstay their visas).
Africans began pouring into China
after the collapse of the Asian
Tigers in 1997 prompted them to
abandon outposts in Thailand and
Indonesia. By exporting cheap
Chinese goods back home, traders
made a killing, and word spread
fast. Guangzhou became a
promised land.
It is easy to believe that every
African nation is represented
here, with the Nigerian, Malian
and Guinean communities the
most populous. But Little Africa is
a misnomer; in the bustling 7km
stretch from Sanyuanli to Baiyun,
in northern Guangzhou, myriad
ethnicities co-exist.
Uygurs serve freshly baked
Xinjiang bread to Angolan women
balancing shopping on their heads
while Somalis in flowing Muslim
robes haggle over mobile phones
before exchanging currency with
Malians in leather jackets, who
buy lunch from Turks sizzling
tilapia on street grills, and then
order beer from the Korean
waitress in the Africa Bar. Tucked
away above a shop-lined trading
corridor, the bar serves food that
reminds Africans of home–egusi
soup, jollof rice, fried chicken.
Whereas Chungking Mansions
conceals Hong Kong’s low-end
trading community, in dilapidated
Dengfeng village–Little Africa’s
central thoroughfare–the
merchants, supplied by Chinese
wholesalers, are highly visible.
And it’s in this melee of trade
where most Afro-Chinese
romances blossom.
Amadou Issa came to China in
2004. We meet in Lounge Coffee,
a hangout popular with African
men who like a cigarette with
their croissant, while a Celine
Dion CD plays in the background.
Through the nicotine haze, the 34-
year-old from Niger–rated by the
United Nations as one of the
world’s least developed nations–
tells me he arrived at Baiyun
International Airport with US
$300, simply wanting “to
survive”.
Today, he owns a five million
yuan (HK$6.3 million) flat in
Zhujiang New Town, Guangzhou’s
smartest district, drives a car
worth US$64,000 and speaks
Putonghua. Issa ships 50 to 200
containers home per year–full of
construction materials, because
“they’re the most lucrative”–and
makes an average US$2,000 on
each container.
A friend, Yusuf Sampto–a trader
with three shops in West Africa’s
Burkina Faso–pulls up a chair.
They excitably describe stuffing
suitcases with “literally millions”
of US dollars to move their profits
back to China once the goods have
sold (they declare the cash at
customs, they say). African banks
can’t be trusted, they explain, and
it’s impossible for a migrant to
open a current account in the
mainland.
Like most of Guangzhou’s
successful traders, Issa has a
Chinese wife.
“She used to work for a company I
ordered from, and we became
friends,” he says. “We had a
Chinese wedding and a Muslim
wedding. Her name was Xie
Miemie but I renamed her Zena.”
Zena is from Hainan Island and
Issa was the first African man her
family had ever seen.
“Initially, they were unsure about
me, but now, when I’m not there,
they ask my wife, ‘Where is your
import husband?’” Issa chuckles.
Youssou Ousagna also gets along
well with his in-laws. The retired
footballer moved from Senegal to
Sichuan province in 2005, having
been scouted by Chengdu
Tiancheng FC. In 2007, after an
injury had ended his playing
career, Ousagna moved to
Guangzhou, where he met his
Hangzhou-born wife–she worked
at the pharmacy from which he
picked up medicine for ongoing
football injuries.
Her parents are both doctors, her
sister is a surgeon and her brother
a policeman in Guangzhou. This
middle-class family have
welcomed their Muslim son-in-
law.
“With most Chinese,
communication is the problem,”
Ousagna says. “I speak Mandarin,
so we understood each other. No
problem.”
Outside Little Africa, however,
racism remains deep-seated, says
Gordon Mathews, a professor of
anthropology at the Chinese
University of Hong Kong who is
researching low-end globalisation
in Guangzhou.
“I know three or four
relationships where the couple
had expected it to lead to
marriage, but as soon as the
Chinese family met the African
boyfriend, they had to end it,” he
says. “Marrying a black person is
still marrying down in China.”
Racial prejudice on the mainland
hit the headlines in 2009, when
Lou Jing, an Afro-Chinese singer,
then 20, appeared on an American
Idol imitation television show,
sparking controversy and drawing
racial slurs online. “How can a
mixed-race contestant become a
Chinese idol?” bloggers
demanded.
Chinese prejudice against Africans
is normally based on three
aspects: traditional aesthetic
values, an ignorance of African
culture and society, and the
language barrier.
Furthermore, until the 1970s,
foreigners were not permitted to
live in the mainland, let alone
marry a Chinese. When a child is
born, the parents must register its
ethnicity with the authorities: of
the 56 boxes they can tick,
“mixed-race” is not an option.
But there are factors other than
racism that might lead a family to
reject a mixed marriage.
Linessa Lin Dan, a PhD student at
the Chinese University of Hong
Kong researching Afro-Chinese
relations in Guangzhou, says
many African men who propose
already have wives in their home
countries–Muslims are permitted
by their religion to take multiple
spouses. Furthermore, Lin has
heard tales of husbands returning
to Nigeria on a business trip,
leaving a mobile-phone number
that doesn’t connect and
disappearing.
“The Chinese wife is left with their
children, and shamed for
marrying a hei gui[black ghost],”
says Lin.
Generally, though, the African
bachelors in Guangzhou are not
desperate asylum seekers: they are
highly eligible businessmen. Like
Ousagna and Issa, they often own
a car, have a stable income and
speak Putonghua. Forty per cent
of African migrants surveyed in
Guangzhou for the book Africans
in China (2012), by former
University of Hong Kong professor
Adams Bodomo, had received
tertiary education–some even held
a PhD.
As one Congolese merchant
tells Post Magazine, “To start a
business in China you have to be
quite well-to-do. In the early days,
the air ticket alone cost US
$2,000.”
Despite their eligibility, most
African grooms in Guangzhou
marry Chinese economic migrants
whose disapproving families
reside far from the city. In
business terms, it is the ideal
merger, says Lin, who believes
most Afro-Chinese marriages are
a cynical play for better business.
“Opening a shop is very difficult
for foreigners,” she says. “You
need a Chinese passport or the
landlord will ask for a bribe. A
Chinese wife can speak to
suppliers. It’s useful to have a
Chinese partner.
“Many Chinese women want to
marry Africans because they are
from poor rural areas, often
Hunan or Hubei provinces.
Marrying a foreigner is a way to
upgrade their social status,
because the Africans have
money.”
Instead of taking a factory job, a
Chinese woman who marries an
African man often becomes head
of his wholesale shop, should he
open one, and a key player in his
export business.
Pat Chukwuonye Chike–a garment
trader by day and Nigerian hip-
hop artist known as Dibaocha Sky
by night–has a Chinese wife who
doubles as a business partner.
But, he says, if African men could
legally work in China, many might
not take a local wife.
“That is my sacrifice,” says the
married father-of-two. “My wife
cannot cook. My mother-in-law
helps look after the children, and
she is poisoning them against
Africa. She’s an old woman, she
knows the game she’s playing.
There is crisis everywhere–
terrorists were in Guangzhou last
week–it is a sin to make my
children scared of Nigeria.”
Africans in Guangzhou fall into
two groups: those with valid
documentation and those whose
visas have expired. For those who
have overstayed, a Chinese wife is
more than a business partner; she
is key to survival.
Last August, a major police bust
on an African-led drug ring
turned life into a daily fight
against deportation for
overstayers. From dusk till dawn,
police checked passports in
Guangyuan Xi Lu, the Nigerian
annex of Little Africa, where most
of the city’s overstayers can be
found.
“When Nigerians land at Baiyun
Airport many throw away their
passports,” Lin says. “They only
get seven- to 30-day visas [less
than most other Africans]–it’s not
enough time to make their
fortunes.”
Overstayers face a 12,000 yuan
fine and must pay for their 6,000-
yuan air ticket out of the country.
Those with Chinese wives went
underground while their spouses
manned their businesses.
“During this period, Nigerians
with Chinese wives survived
better,” says Lin.
While the crackdown proved a
Chinese wife’s worth, the loyalty
displayed points to genuine
devotion in Afro-Chinese
romances.
Pastor I.G., of the Royal Victory
Church, has a Chinese wife, and
children. One Sunday I ask him,
“Is it love or business?”
The Nigerian sighs. He feels
“slighted” by repeated
assumptions his eight-year
marriage is economically
motivated. He met Winnie, a
native of Guangdong province, at
church and the pair are united in
their evangelic mission (“God
knows it’s China’s time,” he says).
Winnie, 34, is a pastor at the
church’s 100-worshipper-strong
Chinese arm while he leads the
larger African congregation. Their
tactile body language speaks
volumes about their union.
Michelle Zhang Nan, 35, doesn’t fit
the profile of a trader’s wife,
either. When we meet at
McDonald’s, she is dressed in an
expensive A-line dress and kitten
heels. Her three-year-old son,
Calvin, trails behind as she carries
a tray of Big Macs and
milkshakes.
A university graduate whose
parents are government officials,
Zhang lives in Guangzhou but has
a prized Beijing hukou and owns
a phone-battery retail business.
“I liked the way he did business,”
she says, of falling in love with
her South African husband. “If I
was married to a Chinese man, I
could not be a strong woman like I
am today. My husband is 11 years
older and he teaches me.”
She notes that a Chinese man
would benefit equally from taking
an African wife, but that is
unheard of in Guangzhou. As one
bootylicious Liberian hairdresser,
who works on the third floor of a
tower block, says, “Chinese men
aren’t manly, they aren’t sexual to
us.” (East African prostitutes
working in Little Africa, however,
report that 50 per cent of their
clients are Chinese men who
“want to try it”, according to
Matthews.)

continue reading. ..
http://scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/article/1521076/afro-chinese-marriages-boom-guangzhou-will-it-be-til-death

black people in china, wow.

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