ANTHROPOLOGY TODAY VOL 31 NO 1, FEBRUARY 2015 3 Miriam Driessen Miriam Driessen is a doctoral candidate at the Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology at the University of Oxford. Currently she is based in China as a visiting researcher at Peking University. Her email is miriam.driessen@ anthro.ox.ac.uk. Chinese diplomats and politicians have sought to under- line the mutually beneficial and cordial nature of Chinese engagement with Africa through the use of phrases such as ‘co-development’ (gongtong fazhan), ‘win-win coop- eration’ (huying huli hezuo) and ‘friendly collaboration’ (youhao hezuo). Avoiding the use of concepts such as ‘aid’, which suggest a hierarchical relationship between giver and receiver, they have argued that Chinese initia- tives on the African continent are fundamentally different from Western development assistance (Bräutigam 2010). They have stressed that Chinese initiatives are apolitical and based on partnership. An anthropological glance at the situation on the ground however, shows that these state- ments are not only a part of political rhetoric, but that they also mask the similarities between Chinese and Western involvement with development in Africa. False expectations In early 2012 Jing Fang resigned from her job in Beijing to be with her fiancé who was working on a road building project in Tigray, northern Ethiopia. In order to win Jing over, Zhao Yong had promised her a blue sky and a breath- taking natural environment. He told her that his compound was surrounded by beautiful mountaintops and fields full of flowering African chrysanthemums. ‘But when I came here’, Jing muttered, ‘I found that the African chrysan- themums were not blossoming yet – only those next to the toilet’. It was only next to the wash rooms that there was enough water and nutrition for the yellow and orange flowers to flourish. Jing Fang used the African chrysanthemums by the toilet as a metaphor for the discrepancy she experienced between her initial expectations of life in Ethiopia and the realities she encountered on the ground. What had surprised Jing and other Chinese migrants involved in road building who I interviewed in Ethiopia (2011-12) and China (2013), was the attitude of Ethiopians who, in Jing’s words, strug- gled ‘to get a job and make their own living’. A common and much repeated view was that Ethiopians are lazy and lack a strong work ethic. As a result, the character of the Ethiopians, along with their ‘human quality’ (suzhi) and culture (wenhua) were largely blamed for the limited suc- cess of Chinese road building projects in Ethiopia. Jing’s negative stance toward Ethiopians was increased when her iPhone, iPad and MacBook were all stolen from her room one night after she left the window ajar for fresh air. Experiences like Jing’s are common. Life and work in Africa is often nothing like Chinese migrants imagine it to be, prior to migration. Not surprisingly, concepts like ‘co- development’, ‘win-win cooperation’ and ‘friendly collab- oration’ between China and Africa contrast sharply with the daily realities on the ground. Convinced of the benev- olent nature of their activities, my respondents expected to receive an affable welcome from the local community. They found that nothing could have been further from the truth. The Chinese workers were puzzled by the apparent lack of cooperation from the locals and resentful of their repeated attempts to thwart the roadworks. Despite rec- ognizing the commercial aspect of their enterprise, most Chinese migrants saw their projects in Ethiopia as philan- thropic endeavours which inflicted huge financial losses on their companies. Yet the Ethiopians were, from the Chinese perspective, anything but grateful. In spite of Africa’s unpopularity as a Chinese migration destination, domestic construction companies there have managed to attract thousands of workers – from contract managers, civil engineers and draftsmen to accountants and cooks – mainly by offering higher wages than can be earned in similar work at home. Chinese companies have built over 3,000 km of roads over the past 15 years in Ethiopia alone, mostly single carriageway arterial roads with one traffic lane in each direction. Even the Western media, typically rather critical of Chinese involvement in Africa, have portrayed their road building efforts there as The African bill Chinese struggles with development assistance Fig. 1. Chinese engineer on the phone while supervising roadworks, 21 January 2012. MIRIAM DRIESSEN