Chinese people in Tanzania
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There were Chinese people in Tanzania as early as 1891. However, most of the Chinese in the country trace their roots to three distinct waves of migration: 1930s settlement on
Zanzibar Zanzibar (; ; ) is an insular semi-autonomous province which united with Tanganyika in 1964 to form the United Republic of Tanzania. It is an archipelago in the Indian Ocean, off the coast of the mainland, and consists of many small islands ...
, workers sent by the Chinese government in the 1960s and 1970s as part of development assistance to
Tanzania Tanzania (; ), officially the United Republic of Tanzania ( sw, Jamhuri ya Muungano wa Tanzania), is a country in East Africa within the African Great Lakes region. It borders Uganda to the north; Kenya to the northeast; Comoro Islands and ...
, and private entrepreneurs and traders who began doing business there during the 1990s.


History

Most foreign labour in Tanganyika's history as a German colony came from other parts of Africa; however, there were a few Chinese as well. In 1891, the
German East Africa Company The German East Africa Company (german: Deutsch-Ostafrikanische Gesellschaft, abbreviated DOAG) was a chartered colonial organization which brought about the establishment of German East Africa, a territory which eventually comprised the areas ...
hired 491 Chinese and Javanese labourers from
Singapore Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, borde ...
to work on plantations in
Usambara The Usambara Mountains of northeastern Tanzania in tropical East Africa, comprise the easternmost ranges of the Eastern Arc Mountains. The ranges of approximately long and about half that wide, are situated in the Lushoto District of the Tang ...
. Separately, a community of
overseas Chinese Overseas Chinese () refers to people of Chinese birth or ethnicity who reside outside Mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan. As of 2011, there were over 40.3 million overseas Chinese. Terminology () or ''Hoan-kheh'' () in Hokkien, refe ...
began to form on the island of
Zanzibar Zanzibar (; ; ) is an insular semi-autonomous province which united with Tanganyika in 1964 to form the United Republic of Tanzania. It is an archipelago in the Indian Ocean, off the coast of the mainland, and consists of many small islands ...
, by then a British possession, in the 1930s. The
Chinese noodles Chinese noodles vary widely according to the region of production, ingredients, shape or width, and manner of preparation. Noodles were invented in China, and are an essential ingredient and staple in Chinese cuisine. They are an important part ...
they produced there became a popular staple food for the local population, especially for the evening ''
iftar Iftar ( ar, translit=Iftar Ramadan, إفطار رمضان), also known as (from , , 'breakfast'), (), is the evening meal with which Muslims end their daily Ramadan fast at sunset. They break their fast at the time of the call to prayer (a ...
'' meal which marks the end of the day's fasting during
Ramadan , type = islam , longtype = Religious , image = Ramadan montage.jpg , caption=From top, left to right: A crescent moon over Sarıçam, Turkey, marking the beginning of the Islamic month of Ramadan. Ramadan Quran reading in Bandar Torkaman, Iran. ...
. In 1969, a few years after Tanganyika and Zanzibar achieved independence from the British Empire and merged to become Tanzania, the
People's Republic of China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...
agreed to provide financing and technical assistance for the construction of the
TAZARA Railway The Tazara Railway, also called the Uhuru Railway or the Tanzam Railway, is a railway in East Africa linking the port of Dar es Salaam in east Tanzania with the town of Kapiri Mposhi in Zambia's Central Province. The single-track railway is ...
, intended to give
Zambia Zambia (), officially the Republic of Zambia, is a landlocked country at the crossroads of Central Africa, Central, Southern Africa, Southern and East Africa, although it is typically referred to as being in Southern Africa at its most cent ...
an alternative to an existing railway route passing through
Rhodesia Rhodesia (, ), officially from 1970 the Republic of Rhodesia, was an unrecognised state in Southern Africa from 1965 to 1979, equivalent in territory to modern Zimbabwe. Rhodesia was the ''de facto'' successor state to the British colony of S ...
, and allow them to export copper through ports in Tanzania instead. The first thousand Chinese railway workers came to
Dar Es Salaam Dar es Salaam (; from ar, دَار السَّلَام, Dâr es-Selâm, lit=Abode of Peace) or commonly known as Dar, is the largest city and financial hub of Tanzania. It is also the capital of Dar es Salaam Region. With a population of over s ...
on board the ocean liner ''Yao Hao'' in August 1969.; they would be followed by twenty to thirty thousand more in the next five years. At any given time, Chinese composed between twenty-five and thirty percent, or 13,000, of the thirty to forty thousand workers on the railway. Most of them returned home after their stint in the country, but due to the emphasis placed on speedy construction, they had little time to train their Tanzanian counterparts to replace them; as a result, teams of Chinese experts continued to work for the railway authority as late as 2004. During these years, China also sent some advisors to Zanzibar for work on other development projects. Finally, roughly 200 doctors from
Jiangsu Jiangsu (; ; pinyin: Jiāngsū, Postal romanization, alternatively romanized as Kiangsu or Chiangsu) is an Eastern China, eastern coastal Provinces of the People's Republic of China, province of the China, People's Republic of China. It is o ...
were dispatched all over Tanzania on two-year stints; people's positive experience with these doctors laid the foundations for the later popularity of
traditional Chinese medicine Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) is an alternative medical practice drawn from traditional medicine in China. It has been described as "fraught with pseudoscience", with the majority of its treatments having no logical mechanism of action ...
, though they themselves were not TCM practitioners. The population of old overseas Chinese continued to decrease; by 2008, just twenty remained in Dar es Salaam, including a Meixian
Hakka The Hakka (), sometimes also referred to as Hakka Han, or Hakka Chinese, or Hakkas are a Han Chinese subgroup whose ancestral homes are chiefly in the Hakka-speaking provincial areas of Guangdong, Fujian, Jiangxi, Guangxi, Sichuan, Hunan, Zhej ...
couple from South Africa who ran a
Chinese restaurant A Chinese restaurant is an establishment that serves a Chinese cuisine. Most of them are in the Cantonese cuisine, Cantonese style, due to the history of the Overseas Chinese, Chinese diaspora and adapted to local taste preferences, as in t ...
, and a number of
Burmese Chinese Chinese Burmese, also Sino-Burmese or Tayoke, are a Burmese citizens of full or partial Chinese ancestry. They are group of overseas Chinese born or raised in Myanmar (Burma). As of 2012, the Burmese Chinese population is estimated to be as h ...
who traced their roots to the
Taishan __NOTOC__ Taishan may refer to: *Mount Tai or Taishan (), Shandong, China *Taishan District, Tai'an (), named after the Mount Tai, a district in Tai'an, Shandong, China *Taishan, Guangdong (), a county-level city of Jiangmen, Guangdong, China **Gre ...
and
Kaiping Kaiping (), postal map romanization, alternately romanization of Chinese, romanized in Cantonese as Hoiping, is a county-level city in Guangdong provinces of China, Province, China. It is located ín the western section of the Pearl River Delt ...
counties of
Guangdong Guangdong (, ), alternatively romanized as Canton or Kwangtung, is a coastal province in South China on the north shore of the South China Sea. The capital of the province is Guangzhou. With a population of 126.01 million (as of 2020) ...
. However, their numbers were bolstered by the arrival of new expatriate businessmen and entrepreneurs beginning in the 1990s.


Numbers

In 2000, statistics of Tanzania's Immigration Department showed that they had issued work or residence permits to just 239 Chinese nationals, making them one of the smaller groups of foreigners in the country. However, China's official
Xinhua News Agency Xinhua News Agency (English pronunciation: )J. C. Wells: Longman Pronunciation Dictionary, 3rd ed., for both British and American English, or New China News Agency, is the official state news agency of the People's Republic of China. Xinhua ...
reported in 2008 that 10,000 Chinese people live in the country. In January 2013, the Chinese Ambassador to Tanzania was quoted saying that there were more than 30,000 Chinese people living in Tanzania.


Business and employment

The new wave of Chinese expatriates in the 1990s initially came to Tanzania with the intention of working in more typical industries, such as construction, textiles, or food products. However, the
World Health Organization The World Health Organization (WHO) is a specialized agency of the United Nations responsible for international public health. The WHO Constitution states its main objective as "the attainment by all peoples of the highest possible level of h ...
's push for privatisation of health care in Tanzania provided unexpected business opportunities to them; despite the fact that most lacked any medical training, they began setting up traditional Chinese medicine clinics, the first of which was established in 1996. Qualified practitioners came later, but in the early 2000s, the majority were still learning on the job.


See also

*
China–Tanzania relations China–Tanzania relations are the foreign relations between China and Tanzania. China established diplomatic relations with Tanganyika and Zanzibar on December 9, 1961, and December 11, 1963, respectively. When Tanganyika and Zanzibar were united ...
*
Indians in Tanzania There are currently over 60,000 people of Indian origin in Tanzania. Many of them are traders and they control a sizeable portion of the Tanzanian economy. Indians have a long history in Tanzania starting with the arrival of Gujarati traders. ...


References


Citations


Sources

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External links


Chinese in Tanzania
, a post from Marc van der Chijs' weblog
''Making Noodles in Zanzibar''
a film by Elisabeth Hsu {{Overseas Chinese Asian diaspora in Tanzania
Tanzania Tanzania (; ), officially the United Republic of Tanzania ( sw, Jamhuri ya Muungano wa Tanzania), is a country in East Africa within the African Great Lakes region. It borders Uganda to the north; Kenya to the northeast; Comoro Islands and ...