Human hair trade and Chinese-African relations: fieldnotes from Guangzhou
Meibocheng Beauty Exchange Center in Yuexiu district is home to the largest hair trading centers in Guangzhou and perhaps all of China. There are around 100 hair traders in this mall. The vendors are all Chinese and their customers mostly African.
“Black people, their natural hair is bad. They buy hair like we Chinese buy clothes.” — Chinese hair merchant
I enter the market curious about the relationship between Africans and Chinese in Guangzhou. It is no secret that the subject of race brings controversy in China (see the story of Lou Jing or the recent Qiaobi detergent ad). Many Chinese are scared of ‘dark skinned’ people, associating Africans with drugs, disease, and crime. Some say it is racism, others ignorance.
While we were eating at a Subway today, I saw a Chinese child enter and exit with his parents: “I don’t want to eat here. Seeing so many black people makes me lose my appetite.” His parents simply laughed and took him away.
While these observations are both sickening and somehow understandable, I can’t help but wonder, what would be your perspective if all your customers were African? This brings us to the hair market in Guangzhou.
The 100 or so vendors at the hair market are all Chinese. From the sellers, we are told the majority of vendors are from Xuchang county of Henan province, the home of hair factories in China. There are other clusters of sellers from Anhui, Shandong, Qingdao, and Guangdong. Many of the vendors are relatives of factory owners in their hometown. Other salesmen, saleswomen, and workers in the shops are from Guangzhou. The hired sales agents studied English or international trade. Other workers have more varied backgrounds, from only graduating from elementary school to studying computer science.
The hair, some tell is, is sourced from around the world: “there’s someone from our factory in India purchasing hair right now!” Another store-owner whose hair was all labeled “Brazilian” tells us not to be fooled: “This hair is all Chinese. We just label it whatever you want us to label it.” Another corroborates: “There’s no such thing as Brazilian hair. It’s just what people call it in this trade.” And another warns us that some factories use horse hair in place of human hair. In any case, we are told that the best hair is Chinese hair; the worst is Indian. Brazilian, Peruvian, and “the European ones” are in between. Meanwhile, Africans haven’t heard of Chinese hair, and are interested mainly in Brazilian and Peruvian.
I spent the most time chatting with a saleswoman who calls herself Jenny. She is 20 years old, from a village near Xuchang. She’s been working at the hair market for 6 years, since graduating from middle school. When she first arrived, she spoke no English. There is a bench outside her store and Thuthu and I were resting, casually observing. Jenny was leading an African customer around the store. We couldn’t hear the conversation, but from the outgoing hand gestures and body motions, it seemed they were joking with each other. The African customer slapped Jenny’s behind, and Jenny responded in good humor, slapping her customer on the back, all while they continued talking. Later, it came down to price negotiations. Jenny and the customer sat down with a calculator. Jenny punched in a price, and the customer shook her head and punched in a different price and handed it back. Jenny looked appalled, and reacted lifting her hands over her head. At one point, Jenny squeals “I’m going to kill you!!” Then laughs a bit, to show that she was just kidding.
When I talk with Jenny later, I compliment her on her English. She’s learned it all on the job, and speaks a little French now also. I ask how she’s learned to interact with African customers or if it’s natural. In response, she exclaims passionately, “OF COURSE IT’S ALL LEARNED!” She says she has different strategies for talking with Africans from different countries. “Nigerians and Cameroons, they’re more temperate (wenhe). But Angolans, for example, they’re more… savage (yeman), you know? If you’re gentle with them, they might not be comfortable. So when they’re harsh with you, you have to be a little harsh back.” The word “savage” is one that came up multiple times in conversations with Chinese in the hair market.
Other than Jenny, the other Chinese salespeople I talked to claimed no particular tricks (jiqiao) to doing business with Africans. “What tricks can there be? It’s just pure sales.” Some salespeople don’t even speak a word of English. “Why would I need to? I just punch a number into the calculator and show them.” “As long as I understand what they mean, it’s enough. It doesn’t get at anything cultural.” When asked, no one said they had African friends. No one said they would want to visit Africa. One store owner tells me, “why would I want to go there? It’s so messy (luan).” I ask him what’s messy about it. “Haven’t you heard? Every day, there’s wars going on! And they’re xenophobic. They don’t like Chinese. If you make money, they’ll grab it right back from you!” I asked him if the Africans in China are any different: “They’re all the same.”
Talking with Africans in the market lends a different perspective. I go with Thuthu to a African woman resting by a shop. “I wouldn’t talk with you if you were alone,” she says to me. “Only cops here have good English like you.” “Friendships in China are different,” she tells us. “Chinese friends, they’ll be your friends if you bring them customers. It’s not like at home where friends do anything for each other. But you can’t trust anyone in China. You know why you’re here, but you don’t know why they’re here. I have African friends in university, but I don’t call them my friends. If they deal drugs and I call them my friend, then they’ll come check me next.”
“I sit down on the bus, and the Chinese person next to me stands up and leaves. It hurts. They treat us like we’re dirty.”
On our way out, two African men drinking beers outside a jeans shop waves us over and pulls chairs. They offers us beers, Thuthu accepts. They’re from Nigeria. The man I talk to came to Guangzhou in 2008. “When I first came in 2008, there were tons of Africans on the streets. Now, I don’t know if there’s more or less Africans, but you don’t see as many on the streets. The police come and ask you for your passport. The people without papers have left. I have papers so I don’t worry. I stay because there is light here. I come here to make money. But it’s constrained; I can’t express myself like I can in my home country. I don’t have community here. I sit down on the bus, and the Chinese person next to me stands up and leaves. It hurts. They treat us like we’re dirty.”
Leaving and walking to Xiaobei subway station, we see crowds of Chinese men seated around a shaded pathway, many with thick wads of US 100 dollar bills. They are currency exchangers. I approach one and many encircle me, offering lower rates. A Chinese hair vendor told us earlier that customers pay in dollars, and the economic situation has made the conversion unfavorable as of late, reducing their sales.
Outside the Yuexiu District, Chinese live far apart from Africans.
This is an ice-skating rink in the Tianhe district. I am told it is the first and only rink with real ice in Guangzhou. There are so many people skating here that the ice is almost like snow.
Singers line the walkway of the Pearl River at night. This guitarist has a sign on his music stand that says “you sing, I accompany.” It is river-side Karaoke. A girl around 6 years old sings three blind mice, a middle-aged man sings passionately of an old love, two old ladies sing a traditional Chinese song, a “beautiful young lady” summoned from the crowd sings a Cantonese song.
