Joburg: China Central

Setting foot in the homey Pension Idube – the guesthouse that I’d been recommended to stay at – I immediately felt that I was among warm and hospitable company. Trish, the owner and operator who’d grown up and lived in the same Melville neighborhood where she’d later opened her hostel, was incredibly kind and welcoming, ensuring that I was comfortable and settled in before introducing me to the other guests and her employees.

The following morning, Trish offered to take me out in Joburg and we ventured around the downtown area before heading, on my request, to “China City”, an enormous wholesale shopping center whose name befits it. Entering the complex, two South African bodyguards armed with rifles inspected us thoroughly. Once in the sprawling mall, I sparked conversation with numerous Chinese storeowners and clerks (all of the storeowners in the complex, asides from a handful of Indians, were indeed Chinese). When I asked general questions about their experiences in South Africa, they gave me similarly general, but not altogether negative, replies. They all agreed that their lives had become much more prosperous since coming to Joburg: despite their putting in shorter working hours, they all said that business was booming and that it was rather easy to save a large portion their earnings.

But the last thing that they unfailingly mentioned, usually in hushed and considerably anxious tones, was how they were never safe in South Africa, how they feared for both their lives and their earnings. One Chinese storeowner cited a remarkable statistic: in 2007 alone, there were over 30 cases of armed robberies in “China City”, with 8 of them causing at least one Chinese casualty. The same man, who grew up in Nantong in Jiangsu province, told me that last year his son had been beaten by a former South African employee of his who he’d fired after he’d been caught stealing. Another Chinese storeowner who I approached framed his insecurity in terms of the inefficacy and prejudices of the police. “While I know that the police in China aren’t perfect, I don’t even feel like I should call them here. For one, they are definitely going to ask me for money, but even worse, because I’m Chinese I don’t think they’ll even help me.” The two aforementioned rifled guards at the entrance, who Trish confirmed were part of a private security force, suddenly made much more sense.

It’s not clear if the Chinese that I talked to were actually reflecting true discrimination, or whether they were simply unaccustomed to the relative lawlessness of South African public security. Living in China, despite the complete disorganization of the traffic laws and overzealousness of the street hawkers, I rarely felt even remotely unsafe – it wasn’t unusual for me to walk, bike, or take a taxi home in the wee hours of the morning, half drunk and half asleep. But in the days since I’ve arrived here, I must confess that I’ve felt unsafe and insecure on several different occasions. In Joburg, where de facto neighborhood segregation runs rampant, anyone and everyone who can afford to live in a gated house and pay for security does. Break-ins and car thefts are common, while I’ve been told that nighttime muggings are almost guaranteed in certain neighborhoods. In fact, Trish strongly discouraged me from walking even the 4 blocks to a strip of restaurants last night, advice that I might actually have heeded in hindsight.

Considering the precarious feelings that I have when walking around the city, I’m tempted to ask whether the Chinese I spoke to at “China City” are, as I said earlier, simply unaccustomed to life in Joburg, which in turn causes them to feel that they are being targeted by criminals simply because of where their being Chinese.

While I think that Chinese unfamiliarity with local conditions plays a part in the sentiments they expressed, I don’t think it quite captures the entire picture. When I’ve asked South Africans about their impressions of the Chinese, a question that I ask almost every person I’ve met thus far, the answers I obtain have contained words ranging from “shrewd” and “cheap”, to “uncivilized” and “dog-eaters.” In fact, one of my car drivers yesterday dwelled to such and extent on the fact that Chinese eat man’s canine friend that I wondered if that’s all he’d ever heard about them. When I journeyed to a more upscale mall later in the day, these sentiments were often even more pronounced, probably relating to the fact that “China City” undercuts the mall’s prices over fivefold (a t-shirt at “Boom, Boom, Boom” cost 190 rand/$24.75, while similar stylish t-shirts at Nantong Clothing could be purchased for as low as 25/$3.25 rand. The owner of “Boom, Boom, Boom” – a young Afrikaner male – said that the Chinese were hurting his business by selling cheap quality clothes that often directly ripped-off fledgling South African-designed brands; a black clerk in his shop put it less lightly, half-jokingly telling me that she feared that “the Chinese will take over South Africa.”

Out of curiosity, I decided to never initially engage in Mandarin with the Chinese storekeepers, instead opting to gauge their grasp of English, one of South Africa’s official languages. Their abilities ranged from utterly none-existent to barely being able to respond to a politely asked, “Where are you from?” It's possible that this should be seen as an indication of the reluctance among the Chinese of Joburg towards adjusting to or even learning about the local lifestyle of South Africa. This speculation, along with a number of very distasteful comments that some storeowners made about their African employees’ lack of work ethic and untrustworthiness, indicate that perhaps the Chinese are putting themselves in a position where they are indeed being targeted more than other populations. For this to change, perhaps the storeowners in “China City” will have to step out of their commercial comfort zones and make more of an attempt to learn English and integrate themselves and their businesses with the rest of Johannesburg.