With Africa drawing Chinese investors, Lina Getachew Ayenew wants to introduce more of her countrymen to Mandarin
My name is Lina and I am from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. I run a social enterprise that aims to bring digital education to Ethiopian students. Learn more about it at www.educationforethiopia.org.
My journey started as I wrote the first book in the world that helps Amharic (Ethiopia’s lingua franca) speakers learn Mandarin Chinese. Many people in my country were happy to have access to educational materials in local languages so I set out to make that widely accessible.
Like many students in developing countries, Ethiopian pupils work as well as attend school. If they miss school for whatever reason, especially their science and math classes, they may never catch up. Digitized content will meet them where they left off.
Previously, I wrote about Africa-China relations. Having lived in China for about a decade, I wanted to share with my audience how China and Africa are shaping the world. I have a book series called “The Complete Beginner’s Guide to China-Africa Relations.”
If you read all that, we should probably talk. Send me a message or add me on LinkedIn below.
With Africa drawing Chinese investors, Lina Getachew Ayenew wants to introduce more of her countrymen to Mandarin
But this does not mean that all Chinese small businesses have failed to attract local customers. One sector that has been particularly successful in this regard is healthcare.
So many Ethiopians in the travel industry, using the behavior of the few Chinese visitors they have hosted as an example, are highly skeptical about Chinese tourists. Unfortunately, the Chinese have been stereotyped as hard bargaining, business-oriented and not particularly curious about culture. Not many think of them as "tourist material".