Today, he owns a five million yuan (HK$6.3 million) flat in Zhujiang New Town, Guangzhou's smartest district, drives a car worth US$64,000 and speaks Putonghua. Issa ships 50 to 200 containers home per year - full of construction materials, because "they're the most lucrative" - and makes an average US$2,000 on each container.
A friend, Yusuf Sampto - a trader with three shops in West Africa's Burkina Faso - pulls up a chair. They excitably describe stuffing suitcases with "literally millions" of US dollars to move their profits back to China once the goods have sold (they declare the cash at customs, they say). African banks can't be trusted, they explain, and it's impossible for a migrant to open a current account in the mainland.
Like most of Guangzhou's successful traders, Issa has a Chinese wife.
"She used to work for a company I ordered from, and we became friends," he says. "We had a Chinese wedding and a Muslim wedding. Her name was Xie Miemie but I renamed her Zena."
Zena is from Hainan Island and Issa was the first African man her family had ever seen.
Bookmarks