₦airaland Forum

Igbos, other Africans making it big in China

HONG KONG (AFP) – From a windowless room in a dilapidated Hong Kong high-rise, Ali Diallo sells Chinese electronics to retailers across Africa. The modest surroundings belie the multi-million dollar business the West African trader has built in the five years since he moved to the city.
The 39-year-old from Guinea is part of a growing number of African entrepreneurs thriving in southern China, as trade between the world’s second-largest economy and fastest-growing continent soars.
Sitting in a small room cluttered with cardboard boxes destined for Nigeria, Diallo welcomes the latest delivery of Chinese-made mobile phones to his office in Chungking Mansions — a bustling labyrinth better known for budget hotels and no-frills restaurants.
The building is also the go-to place in Hong Kong for African buyers in search of cheap electronics, with phones selling from around $8 each.
“In China there are opportunities for people who can start from scratch and build up their own business. Obviously not in one day but through hard work and networking you can do it,” says the trader, whose company sees an annual turnover of $11 million a year through the sale of phones and tablets alone.
Trade between China and Africa hit new highs of nearly $200 billion last year, according to official Chinese data, driven by Chinese industry’s appetite for African raw materials.

Continued: http://www.pmnewsnigeria.com/2013/09/20/igbos-other-africans-making-it-big-in-china/

Ideyontop:
Good

Indeed.

https://jto.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/fl20110719zga.jpg

JJ at Climax, his new club in Shinjuku's Kabuki-cho.

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/community/2011/07/19/community/japans-nigerians-pay-price-for-prosperity/

Japan’s Nigerians see symbol of change in masquerade

As Japanese business looks again at Africa, expatriate troupes share cultural treasures with their adopted land

BY DREUX RICHARD
JUN 11, 2013
Anyone wandering the back streets near Omiya Station at 7:20 a.m. on Sunday, June 2, might have passed a particular office building, unremarkable except for two African men standing on a 2nd floor balcony, rope in hand, lowering a car-sized Ugo (eagle) costume down to the parking lot. One of them was Tony Ikeotuonye, chairman of the Anambra State Union, one of Japan’s two largest Nigerian immigrant civic associations. He had slept lightly and awoken at 6 to begin loading costumes into a Nippon Rent-a-Truck, a process culminating in the curious scene that greeted passersby that morning in Saitama.

This was the unglamorous prelude to an African masquerade performance more than two years in the making. Ikeotuonye and the costumes were expected in Yokohama by 10 at Africa Fair, the public face of the Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD). They were to take the stage at noon, and theirs would be the sole scheduled event representing the diaspora that links Japan to Africa.

For Ikeotuonye, it was gratifying to find himself only 70 km and a few hours away from showtime. The idea of establishing a masquerade troupe in Japan had initially provoked a great deal of skepticism among his constituents. Since then, much time and money had been spent, and odds defied, to make this ambitious aspiration a reality.

The potentially momentous economic developments TICAD invoked also provided the Africa Fair performance — and its participants — with a sharpened sense of occasion. Rapidly rising GDPs meant that many investors again regarded Africa as an emerging market. Breakneck Chinese investment had stirred Japanese insecurities. Yet Japan’s trade aspirations mingled with enduring uneasiness about a continent troubled by weak institutions, its culture and customs utterly remote to most Japanese.

Continued: http://www.japantimes.co.jp/community/2013/06/11/issues/japans-nigerians-see-symbol-of-change-in-masquerade/#.VSlDXRPF9up

Japan’s Nigerians pay price for prosperity

Facing apathy within and racism without, a disunited community struggles to thrive on society's periphery

BY DREUX RICHARD
JUL 19, 2011
The Nigerian Union in Japan is the central civic organization for immigrants from Africa’s most populous nation. It has foundered twice in 21 years and its current incarnation is less than a year old. Its mixed history is a reflection of the social and economic turmoil Japan’s Nigerian community has endured over the past two decades.

Members have been factory laborers, globe-trotting entrepreneurs and nightlife industry pioneers. They’ve also been blamed for some of Tokyo’s most publicized crime problems, notably a series of drink-spiking and bill-padding incidents that led the U.S. Embassy to issue a warning in 2009 against visiting Roppongi. With the exception of those incidents, their history has hardly been written about.

Union president Honorable Okeke Christian Kevin knows he has inherited an image problem that verges on unfixable, but which must be addressed if he wants to increase his constituents’ social mobility. To that end, the Nigerian Union has held two fundraisers to benefit tsunami victims, hoping to portray Tokyo’s Nigerians as socially conscious immigrants invested in the welfare of their adopted home. The second occurred during several months of reporting I dedicated to the Nigerian community.

There are reasons to hope. Okeke’s speech at the second fundraiser revealed a gifted leader who possesses a critical awareness of the issues his community is struggling with and speaks candidly about them. This includes condemning Nigerians engaged in illegal activity, but also criticizing outdated “adult entertainment” laws that effectively criminalize all nightlife establishments in Japan and make Nigerian business owners vulnerable to profiling at the whim of police.

Continued: http://www.japantimes.co.jp/community/2011/07/19/community/japans-nigerians-pay-price-for-prosperity/#.VSlDXhPF9uo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bLP4srATZyk?t=12m28s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0Ff4X7naL0

ckenneths:
Chinese workers also doing manual labour in Nigeria http://amazingviewpoints..com/2015/02/chinese-labourers-in-nigeria.html?m=1

Where's that?

MugabeRobert:
US is not Nigeria.

I know thousands of ibos, born and raised in the north but can they contest for any election? The simplicity of tiger is not stupidity.

You know there's something wrong when people use Northern Nigeria as a benchmark for civility.

BiafranPrince:
Bombs, drones, missiles and esp the nuke is almost done.

The war will be fought and won only in matter of days, we take it to them if they resist it, nuke this zoo and sensible people will come in and restart another country.



Nonsense.

Heh?

EzeUche2:
No more Igbo Kwenu from me. . .

?

bellabae:
Na so so pizza and live crab dis guy go dey chop

You wicked small.

Benfaco:
papa peter patara paw-paw panye papa paul

Alliteration.

DesChyko:
OP, those are not HOMOPHONES (different spelling same pronunciation e.g reason, risen).
They are HOMOGRAPHS [same spelling, different pronunciation e.g. Bow (type of neck tie) and bow (to bend over)].
The examples you gave (stalk, stalk: same spelling and pronunciation) are HOMONYMS.

Same thing. http://www.vocabulary.com/articles/chooseyourwords/homonym-homophone-homograph/

Plus I'm not looking for the same spelling per se.

AsanwaKC:
so interesting.... ukochukwu okechukwu kwuru okwu chukwu..na uno..chukwu di.na aro chukwu. abeg na this one ,I know.and my phone no sabi write igbo

Óké Òké òké ò ké óké ókè, ọọ kẹ̀?

Trans: The guy Oke creates lots of shares, is it this one?

chinnelle:
bravo!!!!
This is intelligent
sadly, I can't even tell one

Can you speak Igbo? Try a dictionary: http://www.rogerblench.info/Language/Niger-Congo/VN/Igboid/Igbo%20Dictionary.pdf

Ányị à nyị ànyị ányí à nyí

Trans: We climbed onto our heavy horse.

conyema12:
Pápá pítà pàtàrà pàw páw pányé pápá pàúl...

Translation: Peter's dad handed over the paw paw to Paul's dad.

See Radoillo below.

conyema12:
Pápá pítà pàtàrà pàw páw pányé pápá pàúl...

Translation: Peter's dad handed over the paw paw to Paul's dad.

That's alliteration.

Radoillo:
Of course it qualifies as same-sex marriage. But it cannot be said to be a homosexual relationship since the two women involved do not necessarily have to be sexually intimate.

True, but the two are often attacked as one in the same.