Marriages bridge Chinese-Kenyan cultural differences
Three years ago, Ya Xing married Ruth Njeri before his friends and family in China. His peers considered him brave for starting a new life in Kenya but the ebullient entrepreneur, once a TV host, did not think so.
“I am in love,” he said. “It might be complicated to marry into a new culture, but I think people think too much about it.”
Ya, 40, was born in Luoyang, an industrial city in central China’s Henan province. He met Njeri, 34, from Nairobi, Kenya, in a restaurant in Shanghai while she was studying under a Chinese government scholarship. At that time, they were both participating in the World Expo before meeting again in Beijing during the 60th anniversary of foreign students in China. “It was fate,” said Ya.
They are among the new faces defining Sino-African relations. People-to-people exchanges, riding on the back of education, commerce and diplomacy, have buoyed interracial marriages. such marriages has elicit widespread curiosity about these couples, who admit to responding to numerous requests from strangers to take picture with them.
Moreover, in China, these couples have large numbers of followers on social media platforms. Last year, Beijing Youth Daily reported that a Chinese-Cameroonian couple in Liaoning province earned $1,000 a month in advertising revenue from streaming their lives online.
Although earning no income from them, Ya and Njeri often welcome media crews from China into their home in Nairobi to document their lives. Moreover, they often travel to China to sing in cultural events while responding to a growing fan base on WeChat. They field questions on how they deal with cultural differences.
South African scholar David Monyae believes that such experiences may well pave the way for bettering Sino-African trade ties where culture and language continue to be the biggest impediments.
He has noted growing interest among African youths in understanding cultures. The African philosophy of “Ubuntu” is not far from Confucianism as both emphasize sharing and caring, according to Monyae.
“In Ubuntu, we believe that ‘I am because of you’, which means I cannot exist in your absence. Your well-being is good for me as well. For me to get peace in my life, I have to make sure that my neighbor is not hungry and there’s peace in my neighbor’s house,” Monyae was quoted as saying.
Yet Ya faced challenges when he settled with Njeri in Nairobi. To earn a living, they opened a business that soon collapsed because the location and concept were not good. He had difficulties communicating with his in-laws despite successfully performing the traditional bride price ceremony known as ruracio.
“It was hard to fit in at first. But I wanted to understand her background, history and culture,” he said.
Studies of interracial marriages have shown that education plays an important role in breaching cultural divides.
Interestingly, there has been a notable surge in the number of Africans pursuing higher studies in China. In 2017, at least 62,000 African students were enrolled in China, a 24 percent jump from 2016. There are more than 2,000 Kenyans alone studying in China, according to the Chinese Embassy in Nairobi.
The number of Chinese-Kenyan marriages has also started to creep up. The Kenyan government received 13 requests for the certificate of “no impediment” to marriage in 2018 compared to eight in 2017. This document is required for a Kenyan to marry anyone outside the country.
For those in China, the time to obtain the certificate has been drastically reduced due to improved logistics between the two countries.
Njeri finds Ya’s diligence and persistence endearing. “Despite the difficulties in language and culture, Ya never gave up. He still looked for the positive aspects of my culture,” she said.
And he found it. The talented musician said that in Kikuyu, Njeri’s home district, people have traditional songs similar to those sung by the Dong people of southern China. “The tune and even the ululation are similar.”
US citizens use at least one every day — about 380 billion each year. And those plastic shopping bags, made from depletable resources that hardly ever break down, have been finding their way into oceans and marine animals.
Supermarkets and other stores in the United States giving customers plastic bags at checkouts are responding to growing pressure to eliminate the bags. But scientists and environmentalists say they aren’t moving fast enough.
Around 12.7 million tons of plastic from landfills and littering are clogging oceans every year, leading to plastic being ingested by hundreds of marine species, according to scientists. The World Economic Forum reports that if plastics continue inundating oceans at the current rate, the water bodies will hold more plastic by weight than fish by 2050.
More than 30 countries have completely or partially banned single-use plastic bags or put a charge on them at the checkout, including the United Kingdom, Morocco, Germany, Canada and Mexico.
Now more US supermarkets are acting to get rid of plastic bags.
On Jan 1, Trader Joe’s 474 stores in 43 states and Washington removed them, according to the low-priced and popular chain based in Monrovia, California.
“We are a neighborhood grocery store. And we think it’s our duty to take care of where we live. Everything we do to fight pollution plays into that,” a spokesman told China Daily.
Trader Joe’s said selling reusable bags to customers saved 30 million paper bags in 2017.
Kroger, the largest US grocery store chain, announced in August that it would phase out plastic bags by 2025 at its 2,800 stores in 35 states.
At least 80 US municipalities have banned plastic bags, but only California and Hawaii have statewide bans. New York and neighboring New Jersey state are seeking to ban the bags.
In December, Boston banned grocery stores from giving out plastic bags. The ban is being introduced in stages over eight months.
“Stores can only give reusable bags, recyclable paper bags, or compostable ones with handles to customers. Boston retailers can no longer stock single-use plastic bags with handles,” said Stephanie Acquario, a spokeswoman for the city.
Various voices also has been raised against the green movement. Plastic bag manufacturers said that banning their products would put thousands of people out of work. Some have termed attempts to place fees for plastic shopping bags just another tax. Others say that bans or fees would hit poor people the hardest.
One of the biggest problems is changing human behavior to get recycling right. Putting a few nonrecyclable items in a recycle bin can jam recycling machinery and render the entire bag unrecyclable to the hauler.
Some supermarkets are going beyond just getting rid of plastic bags. One British grocer, Iceland, said it is committed to becoming plastic-free by changing food packaging to paper.
“It’s an issue that we care deeply about,” said Richard Walker, the managing director of Iceland. “The results of our consumer research are clear. UK consumers believe supermarkets need to make changes in the way they package food and the materials used.”
Some supermarkets in Canada, Mexico, Germany, South Africa and now the US have gone even further — establishing zero-waste supermarkets. Consumers bring their own reusable containers to measure out just the right amount of food items and other household products.
The move to ban plastic bags and find other ways to cut waste took on new pressure globally when China announced in 2018 that it would stop taking the world’s trash.
For the past 25 years countries like the US, Canada, and the UK, have been exporting massive amounts of plastic to China instead of recycling it.
China has taken 106 million tons of the world’s plastic — 45 percent of the entire globe’s total — since 1992, according to the United Nations Comtrade Database.
In 2017 China enacted the National Sword policy, which banned the import of plastic waste to protect the public’s health and the environment.
“China’s policy has had a huge impact across the globe. It’s starting a conversation about why we don’t recycle more. The US should not rely on China to deal with our waste, we need to find a viable alternative method of dealing with it,” said Kate Melges, who leads the development of Greenpeace USA’s Ocean Plastics campaign aimed at ending the flow of plastic pollution into the ocean.