Cup of Cha
This is China

With that introduction from Josh, the pressure’s on! I’ll do my best to live up to his standards. As Josh said, I live in Angola- specifically in Lobito, a large city in the south of the country. Lobito is home to a thriving port, several oil companies and a few development NGOs like the one I work for. As a result, you see a lot of non-Angolan faces around: French, Norwegian, Brazilian, American, Bangladeshi, Filipino, Cuban and Portuguese, to name a few. And of course, in the past year or two, Lobito’s Chinese population has soared.

The Chinese are a mysterious lot in Angola, relegated to worker camps and discouraged from mingling with Angolans. No Chinese-Angolan children running around! The large-scale projects, such as the Benguela railroad reconstruction project and stadium construction for the FIBA AfroBasket tournament, house their workers- all Chinese- in strange compounds that are completely separated from Angolan society. All this secrecy has made for some interesting rumors. Among my favorites are the following:

§ There are 3 million Chinese workers in Angola! Angola’s population is around 12 million right now. When I hear someone make this claim, I say, “Don’t you think you would notice a 25% increase in Angola’s population, almost overnight?” The person will usually refer to restrictive worker camps as the reason why we don’t notice this population explosion. I’ve read that there are anywhere from 15,000 to 30,000 Chinese workers in Angola.

§ All Chinese workers are prisoners serving jail time in Angola! (AKA: The Chinese are stealing jobs from Angolans!) This mostly stems from the fact that very few Angolan workers are hired by Chinese companies. Even the most menial of jobs are performed by Chinese workers, leaving Angolans perplexed as to why they would import workers to tear up old railroad tracks. The explanation they come up with is that the only way it could be cheaper to import so many workers is if they are forced to work against their will for no pay. And the only people who can be forced to work for 7 days a week without pay are prisoners. Also, the tight reign the companies keep on their workers give the impression that they are under house arrest.

§ The Chinese are stealing Angola’s oil! Actually, there might be some validity to this, although perhaps “stealing” is a bit strong. According to this MSNBC article, 40% of China’s oil comes from Angola, much of it tied to infrastructure loans to the Angolan government. With Angola’s corruption record (with stellar companions like the Democratic Republic of Congo, Sierra Leone and Turkmenistan, it occupies rank 142 of 163 on Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index), I imagine that Angola is letting a lot of oil go for not much in return. This is bad news for Angola, seeing as how Angola’s oil boom is expected to slow down as soon as 2010.

§ The Chinese eat dogs! Nothing unique to Angola, I’m sure this rumor hounds the Chinese in most countries. (Ha! Sorry, couldn’t resist…)

I plan on posting some pictures of these mysterious camps in the next few days. If interested in articles on China and Angola’s relationship, take a look at my blog, Back in One Piece and click on the China in Africa label.

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