Of course, there are no guarantees for these sojourners. They come, mostly alone, on a leap of faith. "Faith is the substance of things hoped for," the pastor said, "the evidence of things not seen."
One May afternoon at Lounge Café -- a coffee shop run by enterprising Chinese locals but catering to an almost exclusively African clientele -- the TV was tuned to Al Jazeera, and a woman in a lavender headscarf and matching suit jacket was presenting the forecast for North Africa. Douda Barry, a trader in his 40s from Liberia, was counting receipts at one table. He helped me identify his fellow restaurant patrons: "Those people are from Tanzania; they speak Swahili. Those are from Guinea." He pointed to one table with a woman and small child. "They are from Malawi."
Barry's first trip to China was in 2003, back when most African traders were still working out of Hong Kong, but the main action, he said, had since moved to the mainland. "Demand in Africa is growing, and the prices are better in Guangzhou." His specialty was exporting shoes and athletic apparel; he had never been to Beijing or Shanghai, but in a few days, he was going to visit a factory in north China, near the border with North Korea, which was advertising very low rates. He wasn't sure whether to be hopeful or skeptical. "The problem is maybe 80 percent are not honest, so you have to visit the factories and meet the owners."
The coffee shop's eclectic but accommodating menu runs the gamut from café latte to "Arabian rice." As decoration, a lifesaver is affixed to one wall, besides the words: "Welcome Aboard." Less welcoming, however, are the English-language fliers affixed to each table by the local police, a curious mix of intimidation and paternalism (typos preserved):
CAUTION FROM THE POLICE
Ø Every foreigner who lives here should register your accommodation at the local police station . If you didn't do it, you would be fined 5000 RMB and have a bad record.
Ø DO NOT CHANGE MONEY OUTSIDE THE BANK! Change money privately is illegal in China. The guy who asking you to change money is trying to cheat you and using fake money.
Ø DO NOT BUY TELEPHONE CRAD FROM THE GUY PASSING BY. In China, we have store to sell telephone cards. Buying cards outside may cause some criminal problems. For example, robbery and fake money.
Ø DO REMEMBER TO FOLLOW THESE ADVICES FROM THE POLICE!
The Guangzhou government wants to balance keeping tabs on the traders with keeping business flowing. In some regards, its policies are fairly liberal for China -- toleration of large public church services, for example -- but in other instances, ham-fisted. In 2009, a Nigerian man jumped out of second-floor shopping-mall window during a police check of immigration papers. A protest against police harassment erupted, as other African men held aloft his bleeding body and marched to a police station. This June, another protest erupted after a Nigerian man died in police custody.
Most of Lounge Café's traffic comes from being adjacent to Tianxiu Trade Market. It's a four-story complex of showrooms, mostly for Chinese factory owners to showcase goods to African buyers. Most traders are men, but when I visited there were also a few African women, hair wrapped in colorful scarves, browsing inside. In one corner on the second floor, a man had unfurled a small prayer rug and was praying toward Mecca.
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