Letter from Uganda: 5,000 miles from China 鈥� and yet not far at all
| Kampala, Uganda
Five minutes out of Entebbe Airport, the gateway to Uganda鈥檚 capital, Kampala, you hit the new expressway. And all of a sudden you are in China.
I lived in China for a number of years. It didn鈥檛 take me a second to recognize the tollbooth architectural style as Chinese mock-monumental. Farther toward town, the concrete structures reinforcing the earthworks were familiar too.
The China Communications Construction Company, which built the road, had used the same tried and true cookie-cutter designs that you find all across the People鈥檚 Republic.
Why We Wrote This
The story of China鈥檚 impact in Africa isn鈥檛 told just in billions of dollars and thousands of acres. It鈥檚 in the day-to-day details 鈥� and the people living at the crossroads of two different worlds.
As I checked into my hotel, I noticed another familiar sight from my time in Beijing: Sitting on the reception counter were complimentary copies of China Daily, the English-language newspaper published by the Chinese Communist Party.
I decided to walk up the hill to a nearby currency exchange office. Blow me down if I didn鈥檛 almost immediately come across another distinctively Chinese piece of urban furniture 鈥� a sliding security gate that opens and closes like an accordion.
I had seen countless versions of this gate blocking the way to countless government offices and other places that I wanted to go all over China. This example of the genre was only half closed, so visitors could get into the car park in front of the China National Offshore Oil Corp. without too much difficulty.
Newly acquired Ugandan shillings in hand, I went to buy a local SIM card. And who should I find just ahead of me in the line? Two young Chinese guys, one helping the other, clearly a newcomer, to get his account set up. Both worked for Huawei聽鈥� the Chinese telecom giant that was in the Ugandan news a few days later because of that its engineers had helped the government hack into opposition politicians鈥� conversations.
I had read quite a lot about China鈥檚 spreading presence and influence in Africa. I was in Uganda, in fact, to report on Beijing鈥檚 hotly contested role in the region. Still, I had not expected to find China and its works so ubiquitous. The Chinese are indeed everywhere, as many Ugandans told me with varying degrees of approval: building roads, prospecting for oil, erecting hydroelectric dams, extending airports, setting up telecommunications networks, opening farms, and manufacturing floor tiles, foam mattresses, plastic sandals, and goodness knows what else.
Everywhere聽鈥� yet apart. Chinese communities here have a reputation for keeping to themselves, but that is not Han Shiqin鈥檚 style.
She is an adventurous young woman who came to Africa two years ago to study Arabic in Sudan, then went to work as a translator in Nigeria, and now manages a wholesale shoe shop in downtown Kampala, flogging low-end footwear to traders from across East Africa.
En route she picked up an Arabic name (Afiya) and a Chinese husband, whom she met on the Chinese messaging app WeChat, wooed virtually for a month, and married during a 10-day trip home.
鈥淗e was very nervous,鈥� Ms. Han recalls. 鈥淏ut I encouraged him to come to Africa; everybody ought to travel.鈥�
鈥淚 go to visit villages and I go to people鈥檚 homes to chat,鈥� she adds, and 鈥淚 eat Ugandan food鈥� (though she says she is the only Chinese expatriate she knows who does so). 鈥淚 don鈥檛 want to stay at home. I went to the source of the Nile, too.鈥�
Wilson Street, where Ms. Han works, is lined by Chinese shoe shops selling imported or locally made sandals and sneakers by the truck load, literally. Just up the street, Wang Yuxin, spectacles perched on his nose, is busy writing out invoices, receipts, and orders while a colleague behind the counter counts thick wads of 50,000 shilling notes.
Mr. Wang, who is 26, came here five years ago. In those days, he recalls, most of his compatriots聽鈥渇eared Africa as a place that could terrify people, with sickness and heat.鈥� But for him, it was 鈥渁n escape.鈥�
鈥淚n China 6 million people graduate from university every year,鈥� he points out. 鈥淚 couldn鈥檛 find a good job that fit my aspirations. So I made a different choice.
鈥淧eople were suspicious at first because we were new and different. But as time has passed and more and more Chinese have opened shops in this street, it鈥檚 better.鈥�
Mr. Wang can count and say 鈥渉ello鈥� in Swahili, but that鈥檚 about as far as his integration goes; he lives in a house with 11 other Chinese businessmen and a Ugandan woman who can cook Chinese, and he has a clear goal once he has saved enough money.
鈥淲hen I get married, I鈥檒l return home.鈥�
