This is a diversion, but hopefully a useful one. Why is "China" so hard to get to? Everyone, left to right, seems to agree, while knowing not very much, that China=danger. Going by popular press accounts of China alone (in the run-up to May 2008) it seemed like the Chinese in South Africa were sitting targets for extreme-nationalistic gun practice. And yet...
Which is why I thought this column by Sipho Hlongwane in the Daily Maverick was rather good. It reminded me - sideways - of a bizarre column by the late John Matshikiza which was immediately panned (but brought into focus that in SA at least, there's an 'our China' and 'their China'). Howard French writes thoughtfully on the expanding role of China in Africa; he may be someone to come at this from a perspective not often seen?
Some more interesting stuff: Chocolate City; the New Yorker on on Nigeriatown; NYT's Howard French archive.
africa in china/ chocolate citying etc here: http://chimurenganewsroom.blogspot.com/2010/10/africa-in-china.html
ReplyDeleteArtists Bill Kouélany & Goddy Leye recently visited "Chocolate City" as part of their Sparck residency and produced "Chocolate Banana"
http://www.sparck.org/pj-guangzhou
Also see Farhad A.K. Sulliman KHOYRATTY (fiction writer, editor, translator; Mauritius) Journey to the West published at 2010 IWP
http://iwp.uiowa.edu/writers/archive/2010works/Khoyratty_sample.pdf
and we even have Mokena Makeka in China
http://chimurenganewsroom.blogspot.com/2010/09/ordos100-china-mokena-makeka.html
Ah! I didn't read through the blog enough. Great...
ReplyDeleteWouldn't know what to do with this exactly, but this caught my eye when it came out:
ReplyDelete"Lou Jing, half black Chinese girl, sparks race debate in China"
http://boingboing.net/2009/11/16/lou-jing-half-black.html