The chaotic place is always full of opportunities
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.
塞内加尔达卡。23岁的曹奇汉大学刚毕业，在老家看不到什么就业前景。和世世代代志存高远的中国人一样，他掷了个骰子，就壮着胆子去了一个遥远和完全陌生的土地讨生活，那里人的语言他完全听不懂。
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.
但与去北美、欧洲或者澳大利亚逐梦致富的同胞不同，曹先生买了一张飞往塞内加尔的机票，塞内加尔拥有1400万人口，有大约2000名中国人。
Mr. Cao had relatives in Dakar, the capital, but little idea of what to expect.
曹先生在首都达卡有亲戚，可也没法奢望什么。
“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.”
“我们中国人觉得非洲还未开化，危机四伏，其实并没那么糟糕。”他刚来没几周，在自家开的餐馆里包饺子，餐馆位于达卡不断扩张的中国城。“我想会在这里呆上一段时间。”
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.
这些日子里，两百多家中国商铺林立在戴高乐将军大街两侧，这是一条沙砾铺就的大街，穿过中产阶级居住的桑特奈尔社区，一直延伸至壮观的大清真寺。
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.
拥挤的商铺里塞满了嵌着假钻石的首饰，塑料厨具成堆，还有别着蝴蝶结和亮片的女鞋。商品都产自中国，价格基本没有超过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.
和世界各处生机勃勃的中国城不同，达卡的中国“飞地”毫不起眼，混乱不堪，对那些不做批发的人来说，毫无吸引力。这里没有佛寺，没什么餐馆，一天的大多时间里，街头都显得死气沉沉。
Most shopkeepers are originally from Henan, a poor, densely settled central province whose population of 94 million rivals that of Egypt.
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.
在中国，来自河南的人常被认为不诚实，他们遭人歧视，理由是一个模棱两可却又众人皆知的观念，他们天生作奸犯科。很多人干着最低微的工作，例如卡车司机、农民或是苦力。
“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.”
“我们的生活就是如此，”58岁的朱海明说。这个男人粗声大气，语速很快，满面笑容。“我们只能背井离乡讨生活。找到个好地方，就把兄弟们拉来，纵使在世界的另一边。”
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.
朱先生是这样的先遣者。17年前，他从河南来到这里，展销中国商品。此后再也没离开过。
“I realized that China had lots of stuff and the people here needed stuff, so it was a good match,” he said.
“我意识到中国有很多商品，这里的人有需要，你情我愿的。”他说。
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.
朱先生开了一个卖人造花的铺子，不成想竟成了达卡中国人的核心，这里的中国人不断增长。中国人垄断了大宗廉价生活品市场。
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.
对在海外淘金者而言，塞内加尔并非优先之选，可签证便利总能战胜许多中国人对非洲的忧心。
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.
新来的一开始给在老家就认识的批发商打工，攒够了钱买得起第一批货，他们就单干。
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。工作时间长，利润又薄，孤独感挥之不去。男人们常常自己来闯荡，就算夫妻俩一起来了，也会把孩子留在老家，让祖辈照顾。
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，天气炎热，人行道上熙熙攘攘的人群缩成了一股细流。无聊的店主在手机上看中国电影，塞内加尔员工清扫柜子上的尘土，彼此用中国人不大听得懂的沃洛夫语聊天，这是一种当地的通用语。
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.
我问了问在塞内加尔的生活，老板们打开了话匣子，真是一肚子抱怨：竞争者太多了，顾客却太少，每年回中国采购的货品还不断涨价。
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岁的王旭和弟弟一起卖色彩艳丽的手镯。他把销量放缓归结为中国商人趋于饱和。“更糟糕的是，塞内加尔人的钱越来越少。”
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.
还有对商品失窃的抱怨，而当地警察无所作为，但更多是对家乡和留守家人的思念。“吃苦”这个词被一次又一次提起，这是中国人表达忍耐的老套说法。
“My son is growing up without a father,” Mr. Wang said flatly, lighting another cigarette, part of his two-pack-a-day habit.
“儿子长大了，父亲却不在身边。”王先生直截了当地说，一边又点了根烟，每天他抽两包烟。
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.
对塞内加尔人而言，中国批发商的到来令人喜忧参半。他们进口的低端商品，养活了大量小贩，他们很多人散布到农村去，甚至去其他西非国家。
Less pleased are the Senegalese traders who used to travel to China to buy the same goods but have been squeezed out.
过去到中国购买同样商品的塞内加尔商人可不怎么高兴，他们被挤出了市场。
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岁的让·诺埃尔·法耶在达卡一个破烂不堪的露天市场兜售女鞋。他说自己一点也不同情那些有钱的塞内加尔商人，后者抱怨中国人卖出抄底价。
“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.”
“没有中国人，我们就没有东西可以卖了，”法耶说。每双鞋他能赚80美分。“那些对中国人持负面看法的人已经很有钱了。”
Ordinary Senegalese do have legitimate complaints: about shoddy electronics, tainted medicines and the Chinese trawlers that compete with local fishermen for plummeting fish stocks.
塞内加尔的普通人的确有抱怨的道理：劣质的电子产品、受污染的药品，中国拖捞船还与当地渔民争抢日渐衰退的鱼类资源。
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.”
给中国店铺打工的人抱怨收入低微，抱怨那些被婉转地描述为巨大文化鸿沟的东西。“我们和中国人真心不一样。”一个店员说，他特别强调缺乏一种共同语言。“他们来塞内加尔唯一的原因就是挣钱。”
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.
但更为常见的是表达感谢，这种情感得益于各类受中国支持的项目，项目改变了这个破旧、拥挤的城市。
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.
新建和翻修的公路绵延数英里，还有华丽的国家大剧院。一组组崭新的运动器材，黄昏时，把大批热衷健身的塞内加尔人吸引到海边来散步。
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.
可两个群体住在不同的世界里。最早来此地卖人造花的朱先生，说他在塞内加尔呆了这么多年，只见过两起跨国婚姻。曹先生初来乍到，他在玉海蓝天中餐厅打工，这里很少见到塞内加尔顾客。
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.
一天下午的午餐时间，饭店的包间坐满了顾客：一间是来协助修建新机场跑道的年轻工程师们，另一间是霸气的福建商人，在邻国冈比亚，他们历经一场政治动荡。第三个屋子里是商人吴海红，他刚来不久，挺着肚子，笑起来神经兮兮的。
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.
吴先生不停嘴地抽了一盒蓝蒂中国造香烟，他赞美非洲，说这里充满机会，只是中国人有时选错了落脚之处。这都是他的亲身经历，在安哥拉呆了七年，他多次遭人持枪抢劫，然后就离开了。
“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.
“连安哥拉的警察也是匪徒。”他如是解释自己为何放弃建材生意搬来塞内加尔。他在这里给单身的中国男人开了个歌厅，员工是年轻的中国女性，她们穿着露脐装，提供鬼鬼祟祟的短时陪伴。
“The truth is that chaotic places can be good for business because it thins out the competition,” he said. “But everyone has their limits.”
“真相是混乱的地方适合做生意，因为没什么竞争，”他说。“但每个人都会有极限。”