{"id":841,"date":"2015-02-18T13:00:18","date_gmt":"2015-02-18T12:00:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/?p=841"},"modified":"2016-10-28T13:14:52","modified_gmt":"2016-10-28T12:14:52","slug":"how-do-the-chinese-and-africans-mingle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/2015\/02\/18\/how-do-the-chinese-and-africans-mingle\/","title":{"rendered":"How do the Chinese and Africans mingle?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Chinese investments in Africa have been gaining pace since the turn of the century<\/strong>. \u00a0And Chinese people have immigrated onto the continent<\/strong> along with their investments. That much we knew.<\/p>\n

What I didn’t know is that Africans are also migrating to China<\/strong>, according to articles in The Africa Report<\/em><\/a>. One of them, called “People are at the heart of China-Africa engagement”, \u00a0led me to ask: how do the Chinese and Africans mix?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Chinese<\/a>
Chinese restaurant in Nairobi: a sign of the Chinese presence on the continent<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Mingling of Chinese and African people in a business context is anything but easy (see related post on the Chinese presence in Africa<\/a>). According to my (Chinese and African) interviewees in Ghana and Kenya, cultural differences are huge<\/strong>. To name a few \u2013 at the risk of over\u00a0generalization:<\/p>\n