The painful cooperation

The huge wholesale market, located in Makola Mall in the urban area of Accra, contains both Chinese and Ghanaian wholesale shops. Because foreigners are not allowed to do retails in this country, usually Ghanaian retailers came to many wholesale stores and made deals with the Chinese. This provides opportunities for close interaction between Chinese and Ghanaian merchants. But it seemed to me that such interaction did not facilitate the understanding between the two. Ghanaian and Chinese merchants have a little knowledge about each others, even if they met frequently. A lady, whose shop is next to a shop owned by a Chinese couple, told me she rarely talked to the Chinese wholesalers. She said she did not even care about knowing them. “I don’t like Chinese people. They are bad.” She complained

My sample is not big enough to represent the overall attitude from the Ghanaian merchants to the Chinese ones in the Makola Mall. But my observation at least reveals the advent of Chinese did not make some Ghanaians happy. Their unhappiness may be associated with the recent influx of Chinese commodity into the Ghanaian market. These “made in China” tags usually make people think about the mass production of cheap products. Also, the fact that many Chinese merchants could find ways to avoid paying tax for their commodities lowered the prices even more. Seeing the arrival of Chinese merchants, not only some Ghanaian wholesalers, but also some retailers, felt hurt. The wholesalers, for sure, could not compete with Chinese on prices. To the retailers, purchasing products from Chinese wholesalers also generated tensions. A Ghanaian retailer told me that there are standards for Ghanaian cloths. Once they saw the cloths, they know how durable they are. However, many Chinese brought their cloths with the same patterns or designs but lower quality. The retailers saved money on purchasing these cloths, and then found the print of many cloths was easy to fade. When they attempted to return these defective cloths, the Chinese wholesalers refused to do so.

Many Chinese merchants also retain negative feelings towards the Ghanaians. Some of these feelings are merely bias over the people with black skin in general. To Chinese, African people are associated with disease, violence, illiteracy and bad life habits, and so on. Many who came to Ghana did not change such perception mainly because they refused to understand Ghanaians. One reason they refused to do so is language barrier. Many Chinese in Ghana are not fluent in English or do not even speak English. Another reason is that they disagree with Ghanaians’ life styles. For example, many do not understand why Ghanaians are so religious, or they dislike the fact that Ghanaians eat by hand, and they do not want to know why. Unwillingness to assimilate resulted in distrust towards Ghanaians among many Chinese merchants.

The Ghanaian media have also affected the current relation between Ghanaians and Chinese. Some Ghanaians can recall the news, like Chinese being caught due to sex traffic in Ghana months ago, and Chinese doing retail business where they are not allowed to do so. Chinese also complained that the media cared little about the good things they have done to this country, while newspapers had negative depiction on them if they caused minor problems such as labor related issues.

So far as I noticed, the receptivity of Chinese in Makola Mall is low. It seemed to me that the unwelcome feelings towards the Chinese merchants are destructive to the Chinese wholesale business here. Surprisingly, I still saw many Ghanaians bargaining in several Chinese stores. The reason for the continuing interaction is unknown to me, but at least I feel the painful relationship between these two groups may persist. Increasing Chinese people would aware of various opportunities in Africa and arrived at Africa. Distrust could be a serious obstacle for the future business cooperation between two. To improve this, both sides should make effort to know about the other, though this will be a long process.