• Director(s):

    DE ROUBAIX (François)

  • Producer(s):

    ARTE GEIE

  • Territories:

    Worldwide.

  • Production year:

    2012

  • Language(s):

    German, English, French

  • Rights:

    TV, DVD, NON-THEATRICAL, INTERNET, VOD

In the last 7 years, the Chinese population in East Africa has tripled. In order to better understand and control a region in which 80 million people speak Swahili, a young Chinese student set to work compiling a Swahili-Chinese dictionary in the form of 2,500 words and expressions.

This was a colossal undertaking as in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania, there are many different forms of Swahili depending on the region. The dictionary is proving to be an essential tool for the Chinese companies that have set up in East Africa. Today, there is a Chinese population of over 26,000 in Nairobi, employing 770,000 people.

The dictionary strengthens pre-existing links between the two countries, even if, on a day-to-day basis, co-habitation between the two peoples can sometimes be difficult: the Kenyan population feels enslaved to Chinese power.