As early as 1000 years ago, people from all around the world started to come to Guangzhou for trading and communication. It`s Guangzhou`s economic, climate, living habbits that did contribute a lot to attract the foreigners to stay here.
Uptill now, from many persons` opinion, most of the foreigners in Guangzhou are with black skin. And there is also a rumour that , Guangzhou has 3 to 5 million African people.
As a matter of fact, according to the statistic of Guangzhou Entry&Exit Department, uptill Oct.25th 2014, there were only 1.18 million foreigners living in Guangzhou. Among them, Janpanese, Korean, American were ranking the top 3, there were only two Afrian countries that got into the Top 20: Negeria ranked the 14th, Egypt ranked the 17th, the Africans were about only 10.6 thousand. Certainly, the overstay population is not calculated.
The “5 Million Africans” mentioned by the folks, were exactly the accumulated number of the Afrian visitors at Guangzhou Entry&Exit Port, during the 9 months from 2014.01- 2014.09 . And number was exactly about “person times”, come-in for once, get-out for once, so that caculated twice.
When the africans come to an exotic country, they prefer to live tightly in groups.
Xiaobei Road, Huanshi Road and Sanyuanli Road, where the Africans love gathering in, are the areas which Guangzhou citizens call ”the Chocolate City”. The Africans love appearing in groups , generally speaking, two or three friends may go selecting goods together.
Africans trust and rely on their compatriots very much , and call each other "brothers and sisiters”.If one african open a shop, generally, that may become a base of african compatriots.
According to a survey, 50% of the Africans took Guangzhou as the first choice of going abroad, and over 60% of the africans have been to the other international cities,the top 3 are Dubai, Lundon and Paris.
The main reason of why they choose Guangzhou is that, the goods here are rather cheap and nice, and the business environment is also well . Clothes are the favour of Africans, in the clothes wholesales market like “Baima’and “Shisanhang”, we can see africans here and there.
The first time when an Afrian comes to Guangzhou, the visa he/she can get is not longer than 3 months. In order to seize the business opportunity, they will abosrb themselves in the wholesales markets and trade fairs everyday.
Some Africans spent thousands of dollars to buy a flight to China, but finnally they didn`t earn it back when the visa expired. So some of them decided to illegal stay, and turned into the so callled “Three-Non-Foreigner”(illegal immigration, residence and employment foreigners), they sleep at daytime, and get up when the moon comes out, thinking of evey ways to get away from police.
At the same time, there are also smart and hardworking Africans, who successfully stay in China by their own efforts and honesty. They achieve Chinese people`s respect , and even marry Chinese women,raising their half-blood children.
Religion and trading, are the closest connection between Guangzhou and Africans. Islam has most african followers, and then comes Catholicism and Christianity.
Each Friday, the African muslims would clean themselves carefully, and then gather in the mosque to pray. When the Ramadan (a festival of Islam) comes, a lot of Africans would come back to their hometown, which makes the halal restaurants empty.
When the Ramadan passes, the mosques , the halal restaurants and even the Chocolate City will live up again.
It`s an open secret that African passengers are not welcome by the taxi drivers. Believe or not, most Africans have the experiences of being refused by taxi, if they stand in crowd to wait for a taxi, the driver may ignore them intentionally or unintentionally, and stop in front of the Chinese.
Some taxi drivers explain that they are just not used to the perfumes of African Passengers, and afraid of affecting next passengers; some taxi drivers declare that , the African passengers dislike metering, but that`s not allowed to break the rules.
Consequently, in comparison, the more inclusive metro become the main transport method for Africans in Guangzhou.
When an african comes to Guangzhou, the problems which he/she is going to face would be harder than being refused by taxi, for example, the complicated visa, the expensive rent, the tough employment, the gap of langague,loneliness... The differences of culture, living habit and the color of skin, give out a lot of spark , during the process of which Africans and Chinese building up friendship.
But we believe that, one day, the yellow race, the black race, and the white race as well, may sit by one dinning table together,friendly and equally, talking about family, business, and hope.
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