The “low-end globalization” of small independent traders, as Hong Kong researcher Gordon Mathews calls them, is however calculated in individual packets, tightly taped-up bundles or cardboard boxes. The “suitcase traders” coming from Africa to Hong Kong or Guangzhou fill their bags with 32 kilograms of smartphones made in China or ship boxes and bundles as general cargo in order to then sell them for a profit at markets in their home countries.

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Around 95 percent of the churchgoers are Nigerians; the priest, however, as well as the acolytes and the church choir are Chinese. There are also a number of people from the “West”, as well as very few local Chinese guests in the pews. After mass, the churchgoers stream out into the courtyard, take pictures of themselves among the cars or go to the hangar next door, where people sing and dance to African gospels. The doorman had a hard time trying to keep the numerous Chinese “tourists”, madly snapping pictures, at bay by saying that this is a church service and they should show respect. In this contact zone, everyday Chinafrican worlds collide; this is where urban and spiritual cultures, as well as bi-national couples and inter-marriage families can be directly experienced.

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Four years before China was liberated, Mao recounted a utopian parable from the 4^th century BC, in which a patient collective body is able to move mountains with merely shovels over a long period of time. It references the legend of the “foolish old man” Yu Güng, who wanted larger fields and access to the ocean. Generation after generation, his children and children’s children would continue his life’s work using hoes and baskets until both mountains have been removed: “When I die, my children remain; when the children die, the grandchildren remain… and so each generation will take over from the past one in an endless procession. These mountains may be high, but they can’t get any higher; they grow smaller with every bit that we take away: why shouldn’t we be able to remove them?” The emperor in the sky was impressed by Yu Güng’s work and endurance, and ordered that the mountains be carried off on the backs of two heralds.

After Mao’s death in 1976, the colossal shifts in the landscape suddenly became reality with a big bang. After his successor Deng Xiaoping came to power, the formerly tranquil fishing village of Shenzhen turned into a 15-million metropolis in less than 30 years. The spectacular blasting of Shekou Mountain sparked the establishment of special economic zones and transformed the Pearl River delta into the “factory of the world”. The permanently repeating explosion is exhibited as a video installation at the center of the Shenzhen city museum.

One could say that all of China is currently a special economic zone. Within a single generation, the explosive shock is pervading all of life. The Special Economic und Free Trade Zones, once established as models, are now being exported to the African continent: to Lagos, to the Copperbelt, Lusaka, Addis Abeba, etc. What will be the economic and social effects?

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Forty years later, China needs Africa’s natural resources to produce cheap goods for the rest of the world. China uses African markets to sell its products and to create new commercial infrastructures. What does this massive exchange of goods, people and cultures along a new “silk road” – by land and sea – mean for the daily lives of the people affected by it? To what extent do transport routes constructed by Chinese companies also open up intra-African markets and connect the continent to itself?

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In a small mine close to Chambishi, we met Zambian workers, who would prefer to swap their Chinese employers for a better-paying Western one sooner rather than later.

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We had first met the pastor at Chungking Mansions, a complex of hostel towers and three-floor shopping center along the city’s most expensive shopping mile. However, Chungking Mansions is also known for being a place where – at least until recently – African traders could find a cheap place to stay overnight and order various goods made in China at good rates. In the meantime, this trade has moved to the neighboring metropolis of Guangzhou, as trading has moved closer to the manufacturing sites.

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In Hong Kong, the Pakistani dealers noticed that more and more African dealers were transporting bundles of mobile telephones purchased in the Pearl River Delta into their respective countries with help of their 32 kg free baggage allowances and selling them for a profit at local African markets. Sociologist Gordon Mathews, who teaches in Hong Kong, calls this “low-end globalization”.

So the three Pakistani brothers decided to follow in the footsteps of this baggage trade and also set up a market stand in Lubumbashi. They stay in contact across continents per video telephony on their smartphones.

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“This stone of the BEZL Society was placed in memoriam to the 46 workers, who died as a result of an explosion. It occurred on 20.04.2005 at the Chambishi Explosives Factory. May they rest in peace.

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The “illuminated fields” evoke memories of the investment ruins in East Germany after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Here, however, the future still seems open and the promise of not just extracting natural resources, but also refining them in the country still has relevancy. Eventually, the costs of labor in China itself could be so high that China’s “global resourcing” may even extend to Africa’s workforce.

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