Africans in China: A Sociocultural Study and Its Implications on ...

earth that he was from Australia, but he finally admitted to being from Africa after I remarked on his distinct South African English accent.

Such scenarios illustrate that the concept of “African” in the context of China is not a simple one to define. In writing this book, I chose to include anyone who was from any of the 55 nations of Africa (including the yet-to-be-independent Western Sahara and the split Sudans—North Sudan and South Sudan) and/or who identified as African. This means that when I approached potential interviewees, I sought first and foremost to establish if they were citizens of any of these African countries or if they considered themselves to be from the African continent. The term to be from itself is a complex matter. In the sense in which I use it, if someone was a citizen of, for example, the United States but considered herself to be from Africa, I counted her in. If someone was a citizen of Morocco but did not consider himself to be from Africa, I counted him out. And, if someone was a citizen of any of the African countries as well as a foreign country (that is, if she had dual nationality), I still counted her as African if she considered herself to be from Africa.

In conclusion, then, the term African as it is used here is first and foremost meant to refer to someone who is a citizen of any of the countries in Africa. It also includes people who are not citizens of any of the countries in Africa but who consider themselves to be from Africa or to be of African origin.

Is the Term China, as in Africans in China, Limited to Mainland China?

Like the terms Africa and African, the terms China and Chinese are not that easy to define. When I use the phrase Africans in China, I obviously refer to Africans in mainland China or the People’s Republic of China. However, Sinologists have often used the term Greater China, which includes Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan. More controversially, some Sinologists have included Singapore as a part of Greater China because it is a predominantly Chinese-speaking state. John Cooper (2003) noted that Greater China is usually defined as the Chinese mainland,