10 things worth knowing about China

Forget about putting sugar in that cup of tea, and you had better not keep your hosts waiting

To know and understand another country it is better to travel more than 10,000 kilometers than to read 10,000 books.

That is what I learned by traveling 13,000 km from my home in Tanzania to China - and the experience I gained was more than enough to fill a book.

I left Dar es Salaam and landed in Beijing on a cold afternoon. The temperature change, however, could not erase my anticipatory joy.

The first thing I learned was to drink tea without sugar. I was surprised Chinese people serve tea that way. They could not figure out why anyone would want sugar in their tea.

The second was not to be late - people in China do not like to be kept waiting. This was an adjustment since, in Tanzania, we have a saying: "There is no hurry in Africa." That does not mean just five minutes one way or another. Being half an hour late is usually OK.

Third, almost everything in China has a history, and that history has been meticulously recorded. Also, whether it be a province or a company, there is usually some cherished area in which it is the first, biggest or best. Like having the oldest or largest or tallest Buddha.

Fourth, China has developed its cultural tourism, and Chinese people enjoy visiting such spots. In my country, the most developed tourism revolves around wildlife.

Number five returns us to tea and China's tea drinking culture, in which people meet to talk, share ideas and drink tea. The closest you will get to that in Tanzania is coffee bars or, in hot coastal areas, beer joints.

Sixth, the Chinese like to eat in a way that balances the body's vital forces of yin and yang. The food served depends on the season, to the point where it is a science.

Seventh, China's showcase cities demonstrate architectural and engineering creativity. Take the Bird's Nest stadium built for the 2008 Beijing Olympics, the elegant glass skyscrapers of the Pudong New Area in Shanghai or the fanciful towers of Shenzhen. My favorite of dozens I visited is Shanghai, a magnet of early 20th century elegance, ancient heritage and modern financial strength.

Eighth is traditional Chinese medicine, a centuries-old discipline that many people still trust. Unlike Tanzania's traditional medicine, in which an illness is treated with the same dosage for adults and children, TCM mandates detailed and specific prescribing after a thorough diagnosis.

Ninth, apart from some big cities such as Shanghai, Guangzhou and Beijing, most Chinese cities and towns, as far as I can see, look similar in terms of planning and structures.

Tenth, while I once thought land in China would be as tight as in Tokyo, to my surprise the cities are spacious and there is room for parks and gardens, even though the Chinese mainland alone has close to 1.4 billion inhabitants.

But the most important thing I learned about China is that its people are very humble, mostly love foreigners and will do everything they can to please their guests, and hate to lose face in front of them.

As a representative of my nation's media, I was worried that the connections between my homeland and my host would be too few to make my stay very relevant.

I thought Chinese knew little about Tanzania. But I was surprised that in most places I visited people knew about the Tazara Railway, the railroad linking Tanzania and Zambia built by China in the 1970s and China's largest single foreign-aid project.

More surprises: In some tourism spots such as the Palace Museum in Beijing, also known as the Forbidden City, and David's Deer Park Museum, also in Beijing, Tanzania's main language, Kiswahili, is one of the options for guiding or welcoming visitors.

Also, made-in-China Lenovo and Aoson Android smartphones and tablets have operating systems that can be configured in Kiswahili.

And China's Ministry of Culture has got the ball rolling on a Chinese-Kiswahili dictionary, the first of its kind.

This type of cultural respect showed me that China values the language spoken, as a major or minor tongue, in about 17 countries in Africa, including more than 140 million people.

The number of scholarships offered by China to Tanzania has continued to grow. China's Ministry of Education says that by the end of last year there were 1,167 Tanzanian students studying in China, compared with seven in 1960.

According to the figure, 90 percent were granted scholarships by the Chinese government, with the rest being privately sponsored.

Also, Tanzania and China last year signed the 2013-2016 Implementation Plan for Cultural Agreement, which includes educational cooperation such as trips and scholarship programs granted by China.

Included in the agreement are university-level exchanges in research and scholarship, and Chinese teaching and learning collaboration.

The 2013 trade volume between Tanzania and China was $3.7 billion, but Tanzania's share was only $600 million, leading to an imbalance. Neither side is satisfied with the situation, however, and efforts are being made to reduce the gap. Among measures taken: allowing 90 percent duty-free entry of Tanzania's goods to China.

On the investment front, China has picked Tanzania, along with Ethiopia and Mozambique, to act as a showcase for Chinese investment in Africa.

By the end of 2013, the Tanzania Investment Center had registered more than 522 Chinese projects with a value of about $2.5 billion.

These investments are scheduled to create more than 77,000 jobs once all are fully operational. Large inflows were recorded in the manufacturing sector, which accounted for 354 of the 522 projects registered.

The volume of Chinese outbound direct investment in Tanzania is predicted to continue to grow. It was given a boost by the second Tanzania-China Investment Forum, held in Dar es Salaam in June. Soon after the forum there was an upsurge in value of projects.

Between July and September, the Tanzania Investment Center registered Chinese ODI projects worth $533.9 million, compared with $124.1 million for projects registered in the corresponding period last year, an increase of more than 330 percent.

The third Tanzania-China forum was held in November in Beijing, where 500 investors met. During that forum, presided over by Tanzanian President Jakaya Kikwete during his six-day state visit to China, investment deals worth more than $1.7 billion, including one to build a satellite city to ease congestion in Dar es Salaam, were announced. Tanzania later announced $85 million in grants and zero-interest loans from China.

Tanzania has benefited from Chinese assistance in the form of loans, grants and infrastructure development as well as an increase in trade.

These achievements are a result of the strong foundation of friendship laid by the respective founding fathers, the late chairman Mao Zedong and the late Tanzanian leader Mwalimu Julius Kambarage Nyerere, and nurtured by subsequent generations of leader of both countries.

As I prepared to board a flight home from Beijing, I realize that I have got to know and appreciate a country that will play a key role in Tanzania's future.

(China Daily Africa Weekly 12/12/2014 page9)