If you have check out my Luanda and Lubango posts, you will know Angola used to be a Portuguese colony and there’r many Portuguese buildings in these 2 towns. But the true is- except for a few old towns, almost EVERYWHERE are Chinese buildings and factories!!!!
After around 50 miles of the DRC/Angola border, I thought I have went to China!!! The roads, the ugly big block buildings and loads and loads of Chinese billboards!!! It’s look exactly like some new town in China! There’s more Chinese wordings at the side of the roads than Portuguese! All the shops are open by Chinese-electronics shops, tiles shops, car workshops and many construction Companies!!I was talking to my friend David about this and he said the Chinese had invested over 2 Billions to Angola. I asked him whether the Angolan are happy with All the Chinese being here and he told me YES…They are so grateful because after the WAR, all the western countries are unwilling to help them to rebuild their country! But CHINA..without asking a word, lend them money and sent out workers to help them rebuild the infrastructure , etc, etc,etc.
Then I asked him whether the poor Angolan people are upset because all the Chinese are taking their job. But he said he is not sure but he did think the local people are lazy and Chinese are super hard- working. He cannot blame anyone for that!! As far as I can see, the ratio of Chinese to Local are almost 50/50! Chinese architectures can also been seen and there’s lots of karaokes too!I had read a recent article about a ” different” way of colonization of Africa by the Chinese! The reason seems to be so simple…resources. I had talked to a local Chinese worker regarding this, and he said the Chinese lended the Angola government lots of money. Usually they can never pay the Chinese Government back and the Chinese will demand them to give them Cheap oil! Now, I can understand why There are MORE Chinese in Angola than anywhere else in Africa. Angola have the second largest oil Reserve in Africa(other than Nigeria)! There’s always a catch for BEING NICE:P
Anyway, Angola is a beautiful country! This country have national park and beautiful beaches! I hope one day this country will be more open for tourist(Pls note it’s really really hard to get a Angola tourist visa right now!)
Very interesting to see! Love the tree pictures <3
Elise recently posted..Bukchon Hanok Village Seoul
That is really eye-opening. I had no idea chinese were in ANGOLA (of all places). If you didn’t tell say you were in Angola, I really would have thought you took those pics from China!
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very interesting and odd at the same time