#afro-asians

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[soulakuarian]

Protect Her

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World Travels. The Sidi Project. Documenting the Lives of South Asia’s African Diaspora in India and Pakistan.

[curating-africa]

[curating-africa]

Three million people of Indian origin live on the African continent

India has adopted a multi-pronged strategy to reconnect with Africa.

It has graduated from extending aid and trade concessions to encouraging Indian companies to invest in Africa in a big way, creating jobs for the locals and helping local enterprise grow in the process. While China has sent in its public sector companies with thousands of workers and hundreds of managers, causing some local resentment, India has encouraged its private sector to take the lead. Several major Indian business groups now have important Africa operations, and the businesses range from resource extraction to information technology and modern industry. Indian companies have sent in only minimal expatriate staff, preferring to work with local businesses and workers.

Going beyond trade and investment, India must encourage increased people-to-people contact and help improve air and maritime connectivity.

There are far too few African students studying in India. Racism in India is often a major hurdle that Africans must cross. The media must play an active role in curbing colour and racial prejudice in India.

Connectivity, too, must improve, making it easier for students, business persons and tourists to travel back and forth.

  http://www.agricultureinformation.com/mag/2011/06/three-million-people-of-indian-origin-live-on-the-african-continent/

[curating-africa]

NTV’s Real Time News aired the following feature report last week about Fidea Kobayashi, a Tanzanian woman living in Nagano Prefecture:

Here is a quick summary of some of the information covered in the report:

Fidea came to Japan 12 years ago after marrying a Japanese citizen in Tanzania.

She works at the Chateu De St. Cousair, a restaurant/wedding chapel in Karuizawa. She has worked there for 11 years and now holds a managerial position, although she still insists on helping out in nearly every duty at the restaurant.

Fidea’s ability to balance and carry large objects on her head, something most Tanzanian villagers can do, is a rarity in Japan. At some point during her employment at the chapel/restaurant, she ended up carrying something on her head, and the positive reaction of amazement she received from customers has led her to make it a special feature. As the video shows, she sometimes balances large wedding cakes on her head, and guests and ceremonies love it. She is often asked to pose for photographs.

Guests interviewed say that they like the celebratory style in which she leads wedding ceremonies, and they are impressed with her Japanese ability. Restaurant customers also like the fun atmosphere she creates.

She lives with her 47-year-old husband Kazunari, their 2-year-old daughter Sara, and Kazunari’s 83-year-old mother. During a family apple-picking scene, we are shown that little Sara speaks Swahili and English with her mother, and speaks Japanese to her grandmother.

She met her husband when he was working in Tanzania. She was 25 at the time, and he was 35. She initially thought he was Chinese, and he initially found her to be cute but a little fat. When he contracted malaria, she helped nurse him back to health and a romance developed between them.

Kazunari’s family was initially opposed to their marriage. His father had never seen a foreigner before, let alone an African, and had major doubts about such a marriage. They eventually consented, however. Fidea’s family did not oppose the marriage, although Kazunari did have to present them with a dowry of 1 cow and 3 goats.

As is common with such news features about foreigners living in Japan, we get a look at the kind of food Fidea cooks at home. The dinner shown in the video consists of Tanzanian-style ugali and some Japanese-style grilled saury.

When Fidea first came to Japan, she was quite surprised by the crowds in Tokyo. She was also a bit perplexed by Shibuya’s ganguro girls, who tan their skin to the point of looking almost African. When Fidea asked them why they tanned their skin, they told her, “black is best.”

Fidea had her picture taken the ganguro group, and her family in Tanzania was quite surprised when they saw the photograph.

Her life in Japan has not been without difficulties. Not long after moving to Nagano, she was told to get the hell out of a shop, apparently because the shopkeeper was racist. At the time she was quite shocked that the other customers in the shop ignored what was happening, and left with the impression that Japanese people are cold. She believes that such a thing would not happen at a store in Africa.

She has since met many kind Japanese people, and she feels that only some of the population are bad.

Fidea and Kazunari worry about the discrimination their daughter will face when she becomes older and starts attending school. They are trying to raise her to be a strong person who will overcome such difficulties

The report ends with a message from Fidea in Swahili: “Sisi Sote Sawasawa” [All human life is equal].

#Unfortunately , I can't embed the video on tumblr but it's a worthwhile watch . As for the summary , very necessary since its all in Japanese and no subtitles either.えいご で ください!

[curating-africa]

Indochina, Traces of a Mother

Between 1946 and 1954, over 60,000 African soldiers were enlisted by the French (often involuntarily) to fight the Viet Minh. Little known is also that children born of marriages between these soldiers and Vietnamese women were shipped back to Africa by the colonial army after the war, never again to see their mothers. Mora Kpai poetically relays the stories of some of these African veterans and children, including that of Christophe, who now – in his adulthood – grapples to come to terms with his past and identity.

Dir. Idrissou Mora Kpai

Benin/Vietnam/France, 2010, 71 mins

[curating-africa]

Signs of sub-Saharan culture abound in Bangkok's relatively unknown "Little Africa", which nestles into the narrow, pedestrian-only lanes shooting northward not far from Phetchaburi Road in Bangkok's Pratunam district, an area renowned for cheap clothes.

WEAR IT’S AT: A Ghanian couple started the Agape shop in ‘Little Africa’ two years ago. Co-owner Felicia Samuel designs some of the clothes sold there.A sign advertises aid services for local, war-weary Congolese, while another on the window of a restaurant offering sub-Saharan savouries encourages local Liberians to gather for a meet and greet. A hotel offers Somali food, though, alas, the sign is outdated as they no longer serve camel meat, the country's staple dish, if they ever did.Amid this small slice of the sub-Sahara is a cluster of stores - owned both by Africans and Thais - that export fabrics and ready-made African-style clothing around the world.One of these shops, Agape, specialises in creating big, boxy and bulky kente (hand-woven on a horizontal treadle loom), simpler traditional ankara and printed wax designs of West African dresses and matching, dramatically styled turban-like head wraps. All are made from cotton.Felicia Samuel and her husband, both from Ghana, opened Agape two years ago. Mrs Samuel also designs many of the outfits on sale there and can also be found decked out in the styles.Although most of the mannequins in the shop are female, Mrs Samuel says that West-African clothes are unisex. Indeed, richer, traditional kente was once exclusively worn by West-African kings and other royals. Kente dates to the Akan empire of Bonoman, which held sway in what now is Ghana and Ivory Coast from the 12th to 19th centuries. More basic ankara traditions developed in Nigeria and spread to other West-African countries.A 2009 article in Vogue summed up the trend, saying "once considered the cloth of the poor, Nigerian ankara has become a high-fashion fabric".

OUT OF AFRICA, ONTO THE PLATE: Restaurants specialising in sub-Saharan cuisine abound in a part of Bangkok’s Pratunam district dubbed ‘Little Africa’.The Samuels take pride in being an outpost for African culture in Thailand, and sell outfits typically featuring the pan-African colours of red, yellow and green in bold, bright, vivid and even loud but always tasteful patterns.Mrs Samuel says the shop is a way she can counter some of the negative stereotypes that plague Africans in Thailand."Thais often see Africans as people who are in bad business. But these Africans are a very small minority in Thailand. Most Africans here [do] good work. Only those few who are uneducated go into shady business."Mrs Samuel also teaches Thai workers how to make African clothes."Now they can cut and sew in the African style. They work above the shop. Labour is cheaper here than in the West.The shop takes in about 200,000 baht a month, she says, from which 80,000 baht goes to rent and about 60,000 to her workers, leaving a net profit of about 60,000 baht. "But business is not as good this year," she says.Mrs Samuel's customers are mainly blacks from the US and Canada. They go gaga over the chic fabrics made into West-African style kente dresses with colourful and attractive patterns."We have US customers who buy dresses for choirs in African-American churches," she said.There are no East-African clothes available in Bangkok, says Felicia, so East-Africans sometimes buy West-African outfits from her.

Felicia was happy to take part in the first African Week in Thailand held late last year at Siam Paragon.Photos of the successful event are displayed beneath a glass countertop in the modest shop. They show beautiful, leggy Nigerian women, who are students at Bangkok's Kawalin International School, modelling West-African clothes.Felicia sends her designs and those in the many catalogues stacked high in the shop to potential customers by email.She has no qualms with sharing her designs, saying, "I put my customers' labels on my clothes." Her customers then resell them in their own countries.Mrs Samuel says she generally has good relations with her Thai competitors, though in one case a Thai woman said, "Why don't you go back to your home country and work?" Mrs Samuel replied "Why don't you stop selling African products?"The pride Mrs Samuel takes in her heritage is evident throughout the shop."I opened the shop because I'm African," says Mrs Samuel. "I want to specialise in what I know. I'm proud to be African."