The Canaan Export Clothes Wholesale Market in Guangzhou market is an Yiwu for African buyers. While occasional conflicts between traders and Chinese police have made headlines, Time Out look at the daily reality
In many ways Canaan Export Clothes Wholesale Market is like any Chinese market. Shopkeepers’ kids race past your knees on snake motion skateboards and scissor action push scooters. There are large displays of plastic sunglasses. A woman boils cobs of corn to death outside. And yet some differences are immediately apparent. Canaan is, for instance, the only place a Chinese saleswoman has ever greeted me with the phrase ‘How are you, brother?’
The Canaan market may take its name from the Middle East, but traders from that part of the world are mostly found in Yiwu, two hours by train from Shanghai. The Canaan market, on the other hand, caters almost exclusively to buyers from Africa – mostly West African countries such as Ghana and Nigeria. This is the place, along with neighbouring warehouse markets Tangqi and Yingfu, that Guangzhou taxi drivers call ‘Chocolate City’, at least according to Evan Osnos’s New Yorker article ‘The Promised Land’ (02/09/09). I asked a dozen people – salespeople and buyers at the Canaan market, and residents of Guangzhou – and none of them had heard the term.
Estimates of the number of Africans in Guangzhou range widely, depending on how you count and whom you believe. In 2013, researcher Roberto Castillo posited that there were 10,000 Africans residing in Guangzhou with another 20-30,000 travelling through at any one time – making it more of a Chocolate Town. Others, counting overstayers, place the total as high as 200,000.
Walking from nearby Guangzhou Train Station towards the market, you pass buyers leaving with their purchases, huge plastic bags of clothing being carried away on shoulders and heads. You will also see print shops with T-shirts in the window imploring you to vote for candidates such as HON.NANA AMOAKO as your MP for UPPER DANKYIRA EAST CONSTITUENCY, a former district in Ghana.
Inside the market, the items for sale are tailored for African buyers. Fake Versace is popular, as are leopard prints, denim shirts with brown shoulder patches and red-gold costume jewellery. Air Jordan necklaces go for 8RMB each, with a minimum order of 10 pieces. I ask the price of a white, faux crocodile skin cap with the word ‘SWAGG’ written in bolted-on silver plastic. It’s 23RMB per unit if I order 50 or more. ‘Where are your customers from?’ the shop owner asks me. ‘Are they in Africa?’
Especially à la mode at the Canaan market are black T-shirts and hoodies printed with the text ‘ALOBAM’ and ‘#NGNG’ in gold. ‘Alobam’ is a track by Nigerian rapper Phyno, who has an impressive flow and one of the best flattops since Fresh Prince-era Will Smith. It’s a great song – look it up.
#NGNG is the title of Phyno’s 2014 album, an acronym for ‘no guts, no glory’, a motto that befits the traders too. The pressure to turn a profit leads some traders to spend all of their capital on goods they send back to Africa. If their requests for visa extensions are denied, they can be left with insufficient liquidity to travel home, and thus fall on the wrong side of the law.
Protests erupted in Guangzhou in July 2009 after an African man jumped to his death while trying to escape a passport check. Anger about the Chinese government’s treatment of traders in Guangzhou flared up again in 2012 when another African died in police custody following a dispute over a motorcycle taxi fare.
People I spoke to had no complaints about the visa system. At one store, where Cameroon 2014 World Cup shirts were on sale for 20RMB, two men were finalising a deal with the shopkeeper. One of them, named Sam, told me he received a year-long H visa thanks to a friend in the Nigerian embassy.
A 20-year-old from Madagascar named Aina, who said she worked for herself, told me ‘business is good’. She’s been in Guangzhou for two years and returns home every six months. She plans to stay in China for four years. Gloria, a Ghanaian who visits for a month or so at a time, likewise said that she’d had no problems with the visa system.
But there are others who clearly do. In front of the Canaan market, a large billboard titled ‘Important Notice for Foreigners in Guangzhou’ lists the penalties for: illegal employment (5,000-20,000RMB and five to 15 days’ detainment); not registering at the police station (up to 2,000 RMB); illegally employing foreigners (10,000RMB per employee up to 100,000RMB, with illegal gains confiscated); and harbouring or hiding illegal foreign nationals (2,000-10,000RMB and possible detainment).
Copyright violations are another concern, at least to those who pay lip service to it. Beneath the main sign for the Canaan market is a banner, written in English and Chinese, that says, ‘Let’s say no to counterfeit and shoddy goods and build up a store of civilisation and honesty together.’ With fakes for sale inside, shopkeepers aren’t all that happy for you to go around taking pictures.
Located across the road from the market are several small African restaurants where beat-looking businessmen and women sit down to eat, often still on their phones with suppliers. When I ask for a table at one, Jessica, the owner, apologises and says that they only have African food to offer, even though the restaurant’s name, African Pot, gives customers a good idea what they’re in for.
The food is mostly Ghanaian and Nigerian, and the restaurant employs chefs from both countries. Jessica’s husband is also Ghanaian and when they visit Ghana, they bring back spices in their luggage.
‘Most of my customers only know this area,’ Jessica says. ‘They aren’t much interested in exploring Guangzhou.’ She further explains that recently ‘the dollar wage went up in Ghana so fewer people are coming to China.’
There is no doubt that more would visit if business visas were more forthcoming and renewing them was made more straightforward. But China still seems to at best tolerate, rather than treasure, foreigners conducting business here in the country.
Essential info
Getting there
Return flights from Shanghai to Guangzhou start from 1,400RMB on Shanghai Airlines (www.ceair.com)
Eat
Mains at African Pot include waakye (rice and kidney beans), kenkey (cooked fermented corn dough), fufu (pounded yam) and omo tuo (mashed rice balls with peanut soup), each served with beef tilapia or goat. The pineapple beer is a local addition, and only 0.6 percent alcohol, but it’s good all the same. Mains cost around 35-45RMB.
African Pot, 109 Guangyuan Xi Lu, near Yaotai Xi Jie, Baiyun district (020 8652 7067). Open 11am- 10pm, daily.
Stay
Built in 1961, the grand Dongfang Hotel (120 Lihua Lu, near Renmin Lu, Yuexiu district. 020 8666 9900) is a little run down but it’s both near the Canaan market and has one of the city’s best outdoor swimming pools. Room rates start from 1,062RMB, including a buffet breakfast spread.
The Canaan Export Clothes Wholesale Market is at 94 Guangyuan Xi Lu, near Yaotai Xi Jie, Baiyun district. Open 10am-5.30pm daily (lights go off in the main market at 5.30pm, but many stores stay open until 6pm).
This story was first published in Timeout Shanghai