The Chinese who call South Africa home, despite the violence and xenophobia
- Chinese have been spared the sort of xenophobic violence that has been directed at poor, black migrants in South Africa
- Migrants are seen as competition for scarce jobs and government services in a country with a 29 per cent unemployment rate
Despite these problems, Chinese working and living in South Africa remain largely optimistic about the country’s future – and none interviewed in recent weeks by the South China Morning Post say they want to leave.
Kim Lee, the 76-year-old proprietor of Lee’s Chinese Restaurant in the upper middle class Cape Town suburb of Plumstead, has lived in South Africa his entire life.
He was born to immigrant Chinese parents in Wynberg, about 12km from his restaurant.
His parents came to South Africa from a small town in Canton province, now Guangdong, in 1928 “to escape communism”.
The Communists assumed power in China in 1949, years after Lee’s parents left. But Lee insisted: “My parents left China to escape communism. My current allegiance, in terms of a ‘Chinese homeland’, is Taiwan.”
