The chaotic place is always full of opportunities
混亂的地方總是充滿機遇
DAKAR, Senegal — Fresh out of college and frustrated by the paucity of job prospects at home, Cao Qihan, 23, did what generations of ambitious Chinese had done before him: He rolled the dice and ventured to a far-off, utterly unfamiliar land, where people speak languages he doesn’t understand.
塞內加爾達卡。23歲的曹奇漢大學剛畢業，在老家看不到什麼就業前景。和世世代代志存高遠的中國人一樣，他擲了個骰子，就壯著膽子去了一個遙遠和完全陌生的土地討生活，那裡人的語言他完全聽不懂。
But unlike compatriots chasing dreams of a better life in North America, Europe or Australia, Mr. Cao bought a plane ticket to Senegal, a country of 14 million that has about 2,000 Chinese residents.
但與去北美、歐洲或者澳大利亞逐夢致富的同胞不同，曹先生買了一張飛往塞內加爾的機票，塞內加爾擁有1400萬人口，有大約2000名中國人。
Mr. Cao had relatives in Dakar, the capital, but little idea of what to expect.
曹先生在首都達卡有親戚，可也沒法奢望什麼。
“We Chinese think Africa is uncivilized and dangerous, but it’s turned out to not be so bad,” he said just weeks after his arrival, as he stuffed dumplings at his family’s restaurant in Dakar’s expanding Chinatown. “I think I’ll stay awhile.”
“我們中國人覺得非洲還未開化，危機四伏，其實並沒那麼糟糕。”他剛來沒幾周，在自家開的餐館裡包餃子，餐館位於達卡不斷擴張的中國城。“我想會在這裡呆上一段時間。”
These days, more than 200 Chinese-owned shops line Boulevard du Général de Gaulle, a gritty thoroughfare that slices through the middle-class neighborhood of Centenaire and ends at the city’s imposing Grand Mosque.
這些日子裡，兩百多家中國商鋪林立在戴高樂將軍大街兩側，這是一條沙礫鋪就的大街，穿過中產階級居住的桑特奈爾社區，一直延伸至壯觀的大清真寺。
The cramped shops heave with rhinestone-slathered jewelry, stacks of plastic kitchenware and women’s shoes adorned with bows and bling. Everything is made in China and few items sell for more than $5.
擁擠的商鋪裡塞滿了嵌著假鑽石的首飾，塑料廚具成堆，還有別著蝴蝶結和亮片的女鞋。商品都產自中國，價格基本沒有超過5美金的。
Unlike vibrant Chinatowns the world over, Dakar’s Chinese enclave is a charmless, rough-and-tumble affair that offers little appeal to those not in the market for wholesale goods. There are no Buddhist temples and few restaurants, and most of the day its sidewalks have a decidedly languid feel.
和世界各處生機勃勃的中國城不同，達卡的中國“飛地”毫不起眼，混亂不堪，對那些不做批發的人來說，毫無吸引力。這裡沒有佛寺，沒什麼餐館，一天的大多時間裡，街頭都顯得死氣沉沉。
Most shopkeepers are originally from Henan, a poor, densely settled central province whose population of 94 million rivals that of Egypt.
大多數商家來自河南，這是一個貧窮，人口密集的中部省份。人口九千四百萬，與埃及差不多。
Within China, migrants from Henan are often regarded with distrust, victims of discrimination based on a vague but commonly held notion that they are prone to criminality. Many toil in the most menial of jobs, working as truck drivers, farmers or laborers.
在中國，來自河南的人常被認為不誠實，他們遭人歧視，理由是一個模稜兩可卻又眾人皆知的觀念，他們天生作奸犯科。很多人幹著最低微的工作，例如卡車司機、農民或是苦力。
“This is how life is for us,” said Zhu Haoming, 58, a brash, fast-talking man with an easy smile. “We have to leave home to make a living. If you find a good place, you end up pulling in your friends, even if it’s on the other side of the world.”
“我們的生活就是如此，”58歲的朱海明說。這個男人粗聲大氣，語速很快，滿面笑容。“我們只能背井離鄉討生活。找到個好地方，就把兄弟們拉來，縱使在世界的另一邊。”
A pioneer of sorts, Mr. Zhu arrived here 17 years ago from Henan to set up a trade show for Chinese products. He never left.
朱先生是這樣的先遣者。17年前，他從河南來到這裡，展銷中國商品。此後再也沒離開過。
“I realized that China had lots of stuff and the people here needed stuff, so it was a good match,” he said.
“我意識到中國有很多商品，這裡的人有需要，你情我願的。”他說。
Mr. Zhu opened a shop selling artificial flowers and unintentionally became the nucleus of a growing Chinese presence in Dakar that has come to dominate the wholesale trade in low-cost consumer goods.
朱先生開了一個賣人造花的鋪子，不成想竟成了達卡中國人的核心，這裡的中國人不斷增長。中國人壟斷了大宗廉價生活品市場。
For strivers seeking opportunity abroad, Senegal seldom makes the list of choice destinations, but the ease of obtaining a visa often trumps the misgivings that many Chinese have about Africa.
對在海外淘金者而言，塞內加爾並非優先之選，可簽證便利總能戰勝許多中國人對非洲的憂心。
New arrivals usually start off working for a wholesaler they know from home and then set off on their own as soon as they have saved enough for their first batch of goods.
新來的一開始給在老家就認識的批發商打工，攢夠了錢買得起第一批貨，他們就單幹。
Life is seldom easy. The hours are long, the profits thin and the loneliness unrelenting. Men often come on their own, but even married couples tend to leave children back home to be raised by grandparents.
生活不易。工作時間長，利潤又薄，孤獨感揮之不去。男人們常常自己來闖蕩，就算夫妻倆一起來了，也會把孩子留在老家，讓祖輩照顧。
On a recent afternoon, as the midday heat thinned the sidewalk crowds to a trickle, bored shopkeepers watched Chinese films on their phones while their Senegalese workers dusted the shelves and chatted with one another in Wolof, the lingua franca, which few Chinese understand.
最近一天下午，天氣炎熱，人行道上熙熙攘攘的人群縮成了一股細流。無聊的店主在手機上看中國電影，塞內加爾員工清掃櫃子上的塵土，彼此用中國人不大聽得懂的沃洛夫語聊天，這是一種當地的通用語。
My query about life in Senegal uncorked a torrent of complaints from the bosses: too many competitors, too few customers and rising prices for the merchandise bought during annual buying trips to China.
我問了問在塞內加爾的生活，老闆們打開了話匣子，真是一肚子抱怨：競爭者太多了，顧客卻太少，每年回中國採購的貨品還不斷漲價。
Wang Xu, 34, who sells brightly colored bangles with his younger brother, attributed slow sales to the growing glut of entrepreneurs from China. “To make matters worse, Senegalese have less and less money to spend,” he said.
34歲的王旭和弟弟一起賣色彩豔麗的手鐲。他把銷量放緩歸結為中國商人趨於飽和。“更糟糕的是，塞內加爾人的錢越來越少。”
There was also grumbling about pilfered merchandise — and the indifference of the local police — but mostly a longing for home and those left behind. Again and again, the phrase “chi ku” was offered up, a well-worn expression of Chinese forbearance that means to eat bitterness.
還有對商品失竊的抱怨，而當地警察無所作為，但更多是對家鄉和留守家人的思念。“吃苦”這個詞被一次又一次提起，這是中國人表達忍耐的老套說法。
“My son is growing up without a father,” Mr. Wang said flatly, lighting another cigarette, part of his two-pack-a-day habit.
“兒子長大了，父親卻不在身邊。”王先生直截了當地說，一邊又點了根菸，每天他抽兩包煙。
For Senegalese, the arrival of Chinese wholesalers has been a mixed blessing. The low-end merchandise they import sustains countless peddlers, many of whom fan out into the countryside and even to other countries in West Africa.
對塞內加爾人而言，中國批發商的到來令人喜憂參半。他們進口的低端商品，養活了大量小販，他們很多人散佈到農村去，甚至去其他西非國家。
Less pleased are the Senegalese traders who used to travel to China to buy the same goods but have been squeezed out.
過去到中國購買同樣商品的塞內加爾商人可不怎麼高興，他們被擠出了市場。
Jean Noel Faye, 38, who hawks women’s shoes at a ramshackle outdoor market in Dakar, said he had little sympathy for the well-to-do Senegalese merchants who complain about the Chinese and their rock-bottom prices.
38歲的讓·諾埃爾·法耶在達卡一個破爛不堪的露天市場兜售女鞋。他說自己一點也不同情那些有錢的塞內加爾商人，後者抱怨中國人賣出抄底價。
“Without the Chinese, we would have nothing to sell,” said Mr. Faye, who earns about 80 cents on every pair. “Those who have negative impressions of the Chinese are already rich.”
“沒有中國人，我們就沒有東西可以賣了，”法耶說。每雙鞋他能賺80美分。“那些對中國人持負面看法的人已經很有錢了。”
Ordinary Senegalese do have legitimate complaints: about shoddy electronics, tainted medicines and the Chinese trawlers that compete with local fishermen for plummeting fish stocks.
塞內加爾的普通人的確有抱怨的道理：劣質的電子產品、受汙染的藥品，中國拖撈船還與當地漁民爭搶日漸衰退的魚類資源。
Residents who work in Chinese-owned shops gripe about low pay and what might be charitably described as a yawning culture gap. “We really don’t have anything in common with the Chinese,” one shop assistant said, emphasizing the lack of a shared language. “Their only reason to come to Senegal is to make money.”
給中國店鋪打工的人抱怨收入低微，抱怨那些被婉轉地描述為巨大文化鴻溝的東西。“我們和中國人真心不一樣。”一個店員說，他特別強調缺乏一種共同語言。“他們來塞內加爾唯一的原因就是掙錢。”
But expressions of gratitude are more common, a sentiment bolstered by thecornucopia of Chinese-backed projects that have improved life in this dog-eared, traffic-clogged city.
但更為常見的是表達感謝，這種情感得益於各類受中國支持的項目，項目改變了這個破舊、擁擠的城市。
There are miles of new and refurbished roads, a sumptuous national theater and clusters of gleaming exercise equipment that draw multitudes of fitness-crazed Senegalese to a seaside promenade at dusk.
新建和翻修的公路綿延數英里，還有華麗的國家大劇院。一組組嶄新的運動器材，黃昏時，把大批熱衷健身的塞內加爾人吸引到海邊來散步。
The two communities, though, live in separate worlds. Mr. Zhu, the pioneering wholesaler of synthetic flowers, said he knew of only two mixed marriages during all his years in Senegal. At Jade Sea, Blue Sky, the Chinese restaurant that employs Mr. Cao, the newly arrived migrant, Senegalese patrons are a rarity.
可兩個群體住在不同的世界裡。最早來此地賣人造花的朱先生，說他在塞內加爾呆了這麼多年，只見過兩起跨國婚姻。曹先生初來乍到，他在玉海藍天中餐廳打工，這裡很少見到塞內加爾顧客。
During lunch one recent afternoon, the restaurant’s private dining rooms were packed: one with young engineers helping to build the city’s new airport expressway, another with toughened Fujianese merchants riding out a bout of political instability in nearby Gambia. A third room was occupied by Wu Haohong, a recently arrived businessman with a nervous laugh and an ample belly.
一天下午的午餐時間，飯店的包間坐滿了顧客：一間是來協助修建新機場跑道的年輕工程師們，另一間是霸氣的福建商人，在鄰國岡比亞，他們歷經一場政治動盪。第三個屋子裡是商人吳海紅，他剛來不久，挺著肚子，笑起來神經兮兮的。
Briskly working his way through a box of blue-tipped Chinese cigarettes, Mr. Wu extolled the opportunities of Africa but said migrants from China sometimes chose the wrong place to settle down. He knows from experience: He spent seven years in Angola but left after being robbed at gunpoint one too many times.
吳先生不停嘴地抽了一盒藍蒂中國造香菸，他讚美非洲，說這裡充滿機會，只是中國人有時選錯了落腳之處。這都是他的親身經歷，在安哥拉呆了七年，他多次遭人持槍搶劫，然後就離開了。
“Even the police in Angola are bandits,” he said, explaining why he abandoned his building supply business and moved to Senegal, opening a karaoke parlor catering to single Chinese men — and staffed by young Chinese women in crop tops who provide furtive, short-term companionship.
“連安哥拉的警察也是匪徒。”他如是解釋自己為何放棄建材生意搬來塞內加爾。他在這裡給單身的中國男人開了個歌廳，員工是年輕的中國女性，她們穿著露臍裝，提供鬼鬼祟祟的短時陪伴。
“The truth is that chaotic places can be good for business because it thins out the competition,” he said. “But everyone has their limits.”
“真相是混亂的地方適合做生意，因為沒什麼競爭，”他說。“但每個人都會有極限。”
