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Advances in Social Sciences Research Journal – Vol.7, No.12
Publication Date: December 25, 2020
DOI:10.14738/assrj.712.9473.
Wu, Y., & Gao, W. (2020). A Study On Intercultural Contact Factors And Acculturation: A Survey Of African Merchants In Guangzhou.
Advances in Social Sciences Research Journal, 7(12) 259-285.
A Study On Intercultural Contact Factors And Acculturation: A
Survey Of African Merchants In Guangzhou
Yiming Wu
Guangdong University of Foreign Studies,
Guangzhou, China.
Wenjing Gao
Guangdong University of Foreign Studies,
Guangzhou, China.
ABSTRACT
This paper adopted a qualitative study of questionnaires to identity how
selected intercultural contact factors are correlated with psychological
and sociocultural adaptation. It is found that psychological and
sociocultural adaptation situations of African merchants in Guangzhou
are both moderately well;psychological adaptation of African
merchants was proved to be correlated with 5 intercultural contact
factors.; the sociocultural adaptation of African merchants was proved
to be correlated with 5 intercultural contact factors;correlation analysis
proved that outgroup social support has a stronger positive correlation
with both psychological and sociocultural adaptation than ingroup
social support, which is the main source of social support for African
merchants;the overlapping and strength differences of correlations
show that the two acculturation dimensions of African merchants are
distinct and interrelated, thus verified the Colleen Ward's two- dimension acculturation model in the group of African merchants in
Guangzhou.
Keywords: intercultural contact factors, two-dimension acculturation model,
acculturation, African merchants
INTRODUCTION
Research Background
The history of exchanges between China and Africa can be traced back to ancient China. During the
Tang dynasty, Africans were sold as slaves for wealthy families in China. Later during the Yuan
dynasty, Africans got rid of their status as slaves and began to engage in the reselling business (Xu,
2013). After the reform and opening-up, China’s rapid economic development, together with its
large population, gave rise to the flourishing of the manufacturing industry which was labor- intensive. Thereby, goods manufactured in China have begun to be well-received around the globe
because of attractive prices and quality. Naturally, Africa, in the era of scarcity, became an ideal
reselling market for African merchants. However, it is until the 1990s when African merchants
started to flood into China. In 1997, the Asian financial crisis broke out, the African merchants who
were doing business in Southeast Asian countries suffered a lot from serious shrunk of assets due
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Advances in Social Sciences Research Journal (ASSRJ) Vol.7, Issue 12, December-2020
to the devalue of southeast Asian currencies. At that time, the flourishing Guangzhou, with a highly
developed trade system and relatively low cost of living, quickly became the premier place for doing
business from the perspective of Africans.
Later, with China's entry into the WTO and the deepening of reform and opening up, the number of
Africans visiting Guangzhou had increased by 30 to 40 percent every year since 2003, driven by a
trade boom between China and Africa, according to Chinese officials (Chen, 2009). Guangzhou
Municipal Public Security Bureau revealed that, up until 2018, at least 14,963 Africans with legal
status are currently living or doing business in Guangzhou. According to the Guangzhou
Development Research Institute (2014), Guangzhou has accommodated one of the largest African
groups in Asia. The neighborhoods of Guangzhou Railway Station, SanYuanLi, North of Tianhe
district and Xiaobei in Yuexiu District are the most concentrated area of African traders (Li, 2009).
Guangzhou is also known as “Africa in Miniature” or “Chocolate City” and the Baohan Street in
Guangzhou earned its most distinct name, the “African Street” (Li, 2009).
African merchants in Guangzhou are mainly engaged in import and export trade and they can be
categorized into three types (Xu, 2013). Firstly, there are some African merchants who are company
owners in the first place when they came to China. African merchants in this category often have
rich trade skills and multinational trading experience. Most of them registered formal trading
companies at the time when they came to Guangzhou or serving as permanent agents stationed in
China of large African companies. Their main responsibility is to purchase all kinds of goods for
African domestic companies. Normally, this kind of businessman has a high social status and has
lived in China for years. Secondly, Most of the African merchants fall into the category of “Cross- national Profiteer” who import relatively cheap Chinese products and resell them to their home
countries to get the price difference.
Profit from the price difference can be dozens of times of the average monthly salary of those African
merchants back in Africa. With the in-depth development of Sino-Africa trade and cooperation, the
era of profiting from the export of cheap goods is getting off the stage (Lin, 2019). More and more
African merchants are upgrading their mode of business to business service-oriented and the scope
of capital scale and absorption is also gradually increasing. A great number of Africans who were
previously “Cross-national Profiteers” have transformed their business into multinational trading
companies, logistics agents, or purchasing guiding agencies and settled down in their leased offices
in the Xiaobei area. The third category of African merchants is known as “migratory businessman”.
These are Africans who have formal jobs in Africa but will spend one to two months every year in
Guangzhou to do business.
Migration has been described as both the root of the problem and an opportunity for individuals
and society to upgrade (Baubock, Heller, & Zolberg, 1996), and the consequence of migration is that
both groups and individuals must experience cultural adaptation (Sam & Berry, 2006). Conflicts due
to cultural differences arise frequently between African merchants and local Chinese. Therefore,
poor acculturation status of African merchants has not only negatively affected their own lives and
business, but also the whole society. What’s more, with the increasing trend of African merchants
settling down in Guangzhou, the number of their spouses or children are also climbing. Therefore,
it is of great necessity to explore the relationship between acculturation status of African merchants
and relevant influencing factors. This paper aims to explore the current acculturation status of
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URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.14738/assrj.712.9473 261
Wu, Y., & Gao, W. (2020). A Study On Intercultural Contact Factors And Acculturation: A Survey Of African Merchants In Guangzhou. Advances in Social
Sciences Research Journal, 7(12) 259-285.
African merchants in Guangzhou and identity how intercultural contact factors are related to the
psychological and sociocultural adaptation of African merchants in Guangzhou. The significance of
this paper is elaborated both academically and empirically.
RESEARCH PROCEDURE
Research Purpose
In order to explore correlations between the acculturation status of African merchants in
Guangzhou and intercultural contact factors, this research was designed to obtain data on two
aspects. Firstly, data on how well African merchants have acculturated in Guangzhou were collected.
Secondly, the performances of the six intercultural contact factors were investigated. Then, the data
collected was uploaded to SPSS 25.0 and be used for descriptive and correlation analysis.
Questionnaire Design
In the questionnaire, a wide range of variables related to acculturation status are assessed
respectively. Measures were either taken directly or developed for the project or modified from
existing scales. With the exception of demographics information, all items reported were answered
on a 5-point Likert scale ranging from “strongly disagree” (1) to “strongly agree” (5). Detailed
information on the selected scales, number, and source of the items in the present study are
reported in Table 2-1.
Psychological adaptation. This scale consists of two sub-scales, including life satisfaction and self- esteem. Life satisfaction is measured with a four-item scale, adapted from Bradley’s (1994) Well- Being Questionnaire (W-BQ12), which assessed the overall degree of African businessman’s
satisfaction with their lives. A sample item is “I am pleased or satisfied with my personal life”. Self- esteem was measured using three of the ten items in Rosenberg’s (1965) Self-esteem Inventory. A
sample item is “I feel I am a person of worth.”
Table 1: Structure of the questionnaire
Sociocultural adaptation. The sociocultural adaptation was measured by using fifteen items adapted
from the Sociocultural Adaptation Scale (SCAS) developed by Wards & Searle (1990). This scale
generally assessed the ability to deal with difficulties that African merchants might encounter
during acculturation, including communication, cultural knowledge, and daily interaction. A sample
item of the scale is “I can see things from the local’s world view”.
Scale No. of Items Source
Psychological adaptation
Sociocultural adaptation
6
15
Bradley (1994)
Rosenberg (1965)
Ward & Kennedy (1999)
Ethnic identity 4 Phinney (1992))
Perceived discrimination 5 Williams et al. (1997)
Social support 6 McCubbin et al. (1996)
Social interaction 4 Tucker et al. (2004)
Language use and proficiency 5 Tucker et al. (2004)
Demographics Information 5