Guangzhou Is Looking A Lot Like Lagos

Here’s one demographic that’s been lurking under the surface of the new China: Nigerians living in Guangzhou. Apparently with nothing more than a few yuan in their pockets, Nigerians with a head for business have been buying one-way tickets from Lagos and turning up in Chinese cities to enter the textile trade.

As The New Yorker reports, the profit margins are limited and the living conditions are grim, but Nigerian merchants are finding more success than they would back home and are increasingly adding to China’s cultural soup by intermarriage and permanent residency. Will Guangzhou become that shining city on a hill for 21st century migrants?