Chinese migrants have changed the face of South Africa. Now they’re leaving.

Lily Kuo

QUARTZ - SEPTEMBER 11, 2017

Zhu Jianying, the owner of a home goods shop in southwest Johannesburg, plans to leave South Africa as soon as she can. Her store is making less than half of what it was two years ago when it first opened. She worries about security—Chinese traders like herself are often targeted. She and her family hardly ever leave the mall that houses her store and their apartment on an upper floor.  “It’s like we’re prisoners in our home,” Zhu says, standing by the cash register in her shop, “Forever Helen,” after the English name she adopted when she moved to South Africa in 2000. Stuffed animals hang from the wall. A digital sign by the entrance says: “We stock furniture, toys, beds.” On a Sunday afternoon Forever Helen is empty, as are many of the neighboring shops selling electronics, fake flowers, curtains, and furniture brought over from China.

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