周黎明 (Raymond Zhou's bilingual blog) 用中文写娱评，用英文写时评

广州的黑人之多，不是亲眼看到恐怕不敢相信。你若站在环市中路和小北路、童心路的人行天桥上，会发现路过的黑人有时比中国人还多。他们跟别的老外不一样，他们做的多半是小买卖，平时跟我们一样挤公车，砍价的劲头一点不亚于当地的家庭妇女。

上周我加入了黑人兄弟的行列，不敢说把他们的老底翻得底朝天，但基本情况算是有所了解。以下是这次采访的成果。

Out of Guangzhou, Africa trade booms

At the intersection where Huanshi Road Central runs parallel with the elevated Inner Ring Road and splits the jagged north-south corridor into Tongxin Road and Xiaobei Road, there is a conspicuous building on the southwest corner. Walking across the footbridge that encircles three sides of the intersection and leading right into the second floor of the building are a constant parade of people that nobody will associate with the southern metropolis of Guangzhou.

Most of the passersby on this bridge are very tall, very dark, and often toting cellphones; a few women wear such colorful and exotic dresses that almost scream “Africa!”

The African enclave in Guangzhou, centered around the Tianxiu Building, is a testament of the vibrancy of international trade that is happening at the grassroots level in some parts of the country. These are not businessmen who check into swanky hotels and negotiate in oversized conference rooms or over banquet tables. They literally sample the merchandise and bargain with the vendors while counting the bills.

Tianxiu is not a regular office building. It is crammed with row upon row of small stores that are actually showrooms because they do not engage in retail but only take orders and make shipments.

It is very easy to tell the sellers from the buyers. The seller is typically a Chinese who speaks Mandarin and a few words of English, both with a strong Cantonese accent, and the buyer is an African who speaks some English with palpable French intonations. (But there has been an increase in African-own businesses.) Bargaining is conducted through an ingenious use of the few English words such as “nice” and “cheap,” coupled with furious punching on the calculator and a lot of hand gestures. Rarely is a translator employed.

“Most of the clients here are from West Africa,” said Tokoma Konate, “and the majority of us are from either Mali or Guenea.”

Konate, a Malian, was spotted talking into his cellphone in Chinese with a surprising degree of fluency. “They call me Ah Long, the Dragon,” he laughed.

He has been doing business in Guangzhou for four years. Prior to that, he was in Hangzhou for two years. “I’ve never taken a single lesson in Chinese. Doing business in China is the best way to pick up the language,” he said, rattling off a string of useful phrases he had recently learned.

*Haven for trading

What has made Guangzhou such a magnate for these African importers, according to several of them, is “quantity, quality and price.” But not everyone agrees on every aspect.

“In terms of pricing, shoes sold in Guangzhou are less competitive now than when I first got here,” said Koumaglo Magloire, of Togo in western Africa, who has been in the trade port for six years.

Magloire ships about eight 40-feet containers of shoes to Togo every year. The merchandise is customized for African consumers and there is a rich variety of styles for him to choose from. “The service is also quite good and I’ve never encountered major problems,” he added.

As a one-man operation, Magloire stays in Guangzhou for a month at a time and the rest of the time traveling back and forth. He rents a 40-square-meter apartment in the nearby area, at 2,500 yuan a month.

But a one-way plane ticket from his home country to China costs US,275. “My family does not travel with me. So, I’ll have to do all the running around,” he explained.

Like Magloire, most people in the African community are single men or men who leave their wives and children behind to be closer to their businesses. Increasingly, family members are joining them, though.

But unlike Magloire, most do not specialize in a single kind of merchandise. Garment and apparel seem to be the most popular category, and everything else available in a Walmart store is bought and sold in bulk and finds its way to the African market.

One must add that not every African is black. There are quite a few merchants from North Africa and identify themselves Arabs rather than Africans.

Alla Eldeen Esmael, an Egyptian, has nothing but praise for his experience in China. “I used to import from America and Europe, but now I buy only from China. China has everything I need, even American products,” he claimed, referring to those made by US-branded corporations in China.

Every two months, he would ship 20 containers from China, not only from the Guangzhou area, but all over the country. His routine is to inspect a factory near Shanghai, who has been his supplier for a long time, and then stays a couple of weeks in Guangzhou while making sure his shipments are sent to his warehouses in Egypt and Dubai.

“Do you know how much wood veneer I can ship in one container?” he asked. “US0,000 worth of it.” He took out a few samples from his briefcase. The thin layer of wood patterns is used to plaster over furniture, he explained.

“China has so much to offer for the African market. I feel I want to buy everything. And shifting from more upscale places, I feel the prices here are quite acceptable,” he said.

However, he has one complaint: The Chinese embassy would issue him only a one-entry visa rather than the multiple entries he requests. “They give me 90 days, but I don’t need to stay that long. I need to make side trips to places like Hong Kong, and each time I have to apply for another visa. It is extremely inconvenient for people like us, who are helping the Chinese economy,” said the peripatetic Esmael.

*Life as outsiders

According to Esmael, those from West and Central Africa tend to stay in Guangzhou for long periods of time, while those from North Africa and the Middle East are more nomadic. But they have one thing in common: They like the same kind of food.

Adel, also an Egyptian, works at the Moka Coffee shop on the ground floor of the Tianxiu Building. During lunch time, the food stall outside the shop sells shawerma like hot cakes.
 
Shawerma is like an oversized “spring roll” but not fried. Two cones of pressed chicken and beef roast on two vertical spits where the meat is shaved off from the outside as the spits rotate. It is then wrapped in tortilla-like sheets of bread, together with culets of onions and tomatoes. “It is the most popular Arabic food, but everyone here loves it,” he enthused.

At 15 yuan a pop, the shawerma is slightly more expensive than a decent Chinese box lunch, but business is brisk at Adel’s stall and another one on the east side of the building.
Konate, the Chinese-speaking Malian, says he has not got used to Chinese food yet and only eats chicken and fish on a Chinese menu.

Moka is the first restaurant in Guangzhou that offers authentic Arabic food, said Adel. Many of its staff members are Arabs. There are also several full-scale Arabic eateries in the area.

“We hire Chinese employees, too. But they are also Muslims,” explained Adel. “That way, there will be no cultural miscommunication.”

Most of the African and Middle Eastern merchants in this community are Muslims. Some of them regularly attend a Friday afternoon service at a mosque on Guangda Road. It starts at one pm, with the imam speaking for half an hour and then leading a session of prayers for another half an hour.

“We are not rigorous. You can go or not go. It’s not mandatory at all, just like Christians going to a church service,” both Adel and Esmael concurred.

Despite living among the locals, communication is a hurdle for most people. The extroverted ones would greet Chinese with “Ni hao!” but most would keep outside contact to the absolutely necessary.

Adel is an exception. The always smiling chef of Moka is dating a Chinese girl from Shenzhen. “We use a hybrid of Chinese and English,” he said through a translator.

In Guangzhou, tall black guys are so common that they do not draw any attention. “We get along with everyone, but things were different a few years ago. When I got on a bus, a few passengers would avoid me like a plague,” Konate lamented.

By far the biggest threat in daily life is counterfeit bills. Since cash business is the norm, countless 100-yuan notes change hands every day. Fortunately local authorities are keeping vigilant. On the day Esmael talked to this reporter, there was a scuffle a few meters away. Two Chinese youths had their arms grabbed by some cops, who led them to a patrol car. “They were caught selling fake money,” muttered one of the cops.

The influx of African traders has been a boon to local businesses. Tianxiu and several office buildings on the south side of Huanshi Road have loading docks that resemble a busy bus terminal. Even on the north side, which is more or less the living quarters of the African enclave, stores that cater to their needs bustle with business. In the Mingfa Suitcase Store, Africans drive a hard bargain. “Even if I knock the price down by half, it’s still more expensive than the store two bus stops away,” said a potential customer.

Only when one observes up close the negotiating process does one realize that Cantonese and Africans share a similar streak of business street smart. Even though the number of words they can use to talk to each other is limited, they intuitively understand the thinking process of the other side. And that inner connectedness helps keep trade flowing between the markets in China and Africa.