{"id":398,"date":"2013-05-06T14:00:32","date_gmt":"2013-05-06T14:00:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gregalder.com\/WP\/?p=398"},"modified":"2013-05-06T14:00:32","modified_gmt":"2013-05-06T14:00:32","slug":"new-voice-on-the-chinese-in-lesotho","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gregalder.com\/WP\/new-voice-on-the-chinese-in-lesotho\/","title":{"rendered":"New Voice on the Chinese in Lesotho"},"content":{"rendered":"

During all my years in Lesotho, I spoke to a Chinese only once. I encountered many Chinese at the shops they own in villages and towns throughout the country, yet I really only conversed with one man who drove his pick-up truck to our school in the countryside one afternoon to deliver heads of cabbage. Our principal knew the man from the capital, Maseru, where she lived, and had purchased the cabbage from him for our school lunches.<\/p>\n

“This\u00a0lechaena<\/em> knows Sesotho,” Principal Tsita told me. I couldn’t believe it. I’d yet to meet a Chinese who knew the local language.<\/p>\n

“This\u00a0lekhooa<\/em> knows Sesotho,” Principal Tsita told the Chinese man.<\/p>\n

So the Chinese man said to me, “Ho joang, abuti?”<\/em> — How’s it going, brother? His pronunciation was spot on. We chatted for a minute about my living alone out here on the outskirts of a small village. When he left, I stood impressed with his language skills. I had to admit that his Sesotho was farther along than mine.<\/p>\n

I’d love to have talked with him more and picked his brain about his living in an African capital behind barred windows and armed guards. Chinese are not exactly loved in Lesotho, as in much of the rest of Africa, or so I hear. But I never have heard much of the Chinese side of the story, until stumbling upon Mothusi Turner’s work.<\/p>\n

Turner is a student at Oxford University who knows Mandarin, has roots in Lesotho, and is studying and writing about the Chinese in Africa. An enlightening piece you might want to read is “Setting up Shop in Lesotho: How the Chinese Succeeded.”<\/a>\u00a0 I had always wondered how many Chinese were in Lesotho, where their money came from and where it went, not to mention how in the world they first ended up in this little mountainous enclave that few people in the greater world even know exists. Turner goes toward answering these questions. And there on his blog are a number of other important and unique articles. As far as I know, he is the only one doing this research.<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"reddit\"<\/a>\"pinterest\"<\/a>\"linkedin\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>by <\/span>\"feather\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

During all my years in Lesotho, I spoke to a Chinese only once. I encountered many Chinese at the shops they own in villages and towns throughout the country, yet I really only conversed with one man who drove his pick-up truck to our school in the countryside one afternoon to deliver heads of cabbage. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-398","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8huLi-6q","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":271,"url":"https:\/\/gregalder.com\/WP\/lesotho-and-the-chinese\/","url_meta":{"origin":398,"position":0},"title":"Lesotho and the Chinese","author":"Greg Alder","date":"February 16, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"In\u00a0The Mountain School\u00a0I told the story of visiting a Chinese-owned shop in a neighboring village called Kolo, where a Mosotho woman got into an argument with the Chinese cashier. Chinese are really the only immigrants in Lesotho and, if I could sum up, I'd say the Basotho grudgingly patronize Chinese\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":614,"url":"https:\/\/gregalder.com\/WP\/lesotho-as-an-enclave\/","url_meta":{"origin":398,"position":1},"title":"Lesotho as an enclave","author":"Greg Alder","date":"March 30, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"There aren't many countries which are entirely surrounded by a single\u00a0other country, as Lesotho is entirely surrounded by the Republic of South Africa. There's also San Marino within Italy, and then there's Vatican City within Italy too. That's it. Three in the whole world. Nancy Wright teaches political science at\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 2 comments","block_context":{"text":"With 2 comments","link":"https:\/\/gregalder.com\/WP\/lesotho-as-an-enclave\/#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":467,"url":"https:\/\/gregalder.com\/WP\/facebook-sesotho-style\/","url_meta":{"origin":398,"position":2},"title":"Facebook, Sesotho Style","author":"Greg Alder","date":"October 4, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"\"Mornin guys? Kele hopotse kao fela n cn't wait 2 c some of u s i knw dt we gna mt.\" What? A former student from Lesotho posted this on Facebook the other day, and that\u2019s my usual reaction to any posting from someone in Lesotho: What? Actually, Facebook for\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 3 comments","block_context":{"text":"With 3 comments","link":"https:\/\/gregalder.com\/WP\/facebook-sesotho-style\/#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":323,"url":"https:\/\/gregalder.com\/WP\/radio-lesotho-streaming\/","url_meta":{"origin":398,"position":3},"title":"Radio Lesotho, Streaming","author":"Greg Alder","date":"March 7, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Years I've been waiting for this! The Government of Lesotho is finally streaming their radio station, Radio Lesotho. It gives me the chance to listen to the language I miss so much here in California -- there are no Sesotho speakers in this part of the world. It also gives\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"Click the logo","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/gregalder.com\/WP\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/03\/Radio-Lesotho.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":494,"url":"https:\/\/gregalder.com\/WP\/candles-in-the-morning\/","url_meta":{"origin":398,"position":4},"title":"Candles in the morning","author":"Greg Alder","date":"January 23, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"I get up for work before the sun, and then I turn on the light and I cringe. It blinds me. I look the other way and I blink and I stand and wait until slowly I acclimate. Then I can see the shower to turn it on and get\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"Some of my Sesotho homework, under candle light.","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/gregalder.com\/WP\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/IMG_1507-300x225.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":244,"url":"https:\/\/gregalder.com\/WP\/prince-harry-to-visit-lesotho\/","url_meta":{"origin":398,"position":5},"title":"Prince Harry to Visit Lesotho","author":"Greg Alder","date":"February 7, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Royals and celebrities alike tend to focus on one cause or charity, and Prince Harry of Wales has chosen his cause as helping children in Lesotho. Makes some sense: Lesotho was once the British Protectorate of Basutoland. The charity Prince Harry founded, along with Prince Seeiso of Lesotho, is called\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Lesotho\"","block_context":{"text":"Lesotho","link":"https:\/\/gregalder.com\/WP\/tag\/lesotho\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregalder.com\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/398","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregalder.com\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregalder.com\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregalder.com\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregalder.com\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=398"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/gregalder.com\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/398\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":401,"href":"https:\/\/gregalder.com\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/398\/revisions\/401"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregalder.com\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=398"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregalder.com\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=398"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregalder.com\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=398"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}