Cameroon emigrant gets lucky after a decade in China

Since arriving in China over a decade ago, Cameroonian expat Leke Asong has had no end of intense incidences that have involved predation, procreation and death. But it was not until the birth of his son in Shanghai recently that he felt he had experienced the circle of life.

Asong’s circle starts in the mid-1990s, when the African-themed Disney animation The Lion King became a worldwide sensation and popularized the phrase “circle of life.” At the time, Asong was oblivious to Hollywood movies, as he was consumed with his applied linguistics studies at the University of Yaounde in the Republic of Cameroon.

“I wanted to be a diplomat,” Asong told the Global Times. “I naively believed that if I knew enough languages I could become an ambassador to my people. Language was supposed to be the key to my future.”

The path unwinding

Raised and educated in French, English and a local creole called Kamtok, language would indeed become Asong’s future, but not in a way he anticipated. With six siblings and a recently widowed mother, Asong had to set aside his diplomatic dreams in order to help support his family.

After graduating he moved to Cameroon’s commercial hub, Douala, where he taught English at a public high school. “But the schools there were only paying teachers in arrears due to the shaky economy,” he said. “That’s when I first heard that many Cameroonian educators were quitting to teach in China, where the conditions and salaries were much better.”

African emigrants in China tend to settle in Guangzhou, where a thriving import-export economy, combined with South China’s subtropical climate, make it an attractive destination. But Asong, intent on cultural and linguistic immersion, distanced himself from the diaspora. In 2004 he found a teaching job in North China.

The city of Harbin in Heilongjiang Province is renowned for its winter ice festival, but Asong’s first job there at a private kindergarten was more a baptism by fire. “The pay and hours were exploitative, and they kept me literally locked in campus,” he laughed. “Then, if that wasn’t bad enough, the corrupt principal embezzled the school’s funds and fled to North America.”

Despair and hope

Asong found himself insolvent and unemployed, but he took his misfortune in his stride. By and by he obtained a job in another cold province, Liaoning. “Everything about dongbei (northern China) is extreme – the weather, the accents, the working conditions. But we Africans can adapt quickly to any situation. You see this from us throughout history,” he said.

His strong constitution and jovial personality also allowed Asong to acclimatize to another cultural extreme – the notorious “little emperors,” the spoiled students he was now responsible for teaching without any assistance. “The only reason I got that job is because I was an emergency replacement for the previous foreign teacher, who suddenly quit because her students constantly made her cry,” he said.

Asong, however, loved his new career overseas. He wound up staying in Liaoning for four years. Within that time he became fluent in Putonghua and amassed a network of local friends, with whom he watched his first-ever Hollywood movie – a pirated version of The Lion King.

Faith and love

In 2012, Asong’s mother passed away from Parkinson’s disease. He and his six siblings were now parentless, but, committed to a new primary school in Shandong Province, Asong made the heartbreaking decision not to return home. “I had already done everything I could for my mother. My students needed me here,” he said.

The following year Asong met Nicky, another Cameroonian teacher. In time he proposed, but instead of going back to Africa for a ceremony, the couple asked their families to hold a proxy wedding in their absence.

The newlyweds wanted to try their luck in Shanghai, yet after 10 years in China’s third-tier cities, where foreigners of any color are generally welcome, they were utterly unprepared for the open racism they encountered in a first-tier city.

“The schools I applied to in downtown Shanghai were apologetic but forthright. They told me parents here only want teachers with a white face and Western accent. My experience didn’t matter to them.”

Weeks turned into months as discrimination drove Asong further and further out into the outskirts. He eventually settled in Qingpu district, where a newly opened kindergarten has recently welcomed him. “Qingpu is the nicest place I’ve ever lived,” said the ever-upbeat African. “Everything is brand-new and everyone treats me like a guest of honor.”

Finding our place

This special treatment carried over to the birth of his first child in April, at Qingpu’s Zhongshan Hospital. Nicky was given a private room, Asong was allowed to attend the natural delivery, and a local TV station came to cover the event.

“They were the first foreigners to ever give birth at our hospital,” Shen Lihua, Nicky’s attending obstetrician, told the Global Times. “Yet because of their fluency in Putonghua, we communicated with them more easily than with most of our migrant Chinese patients.”

With the arrival of his son, 38-year-old Leke Asong has completed an entire “circle of life” in China. He teaches the song to all of his students. The indomitable lion attributes his endurance over the past decade to good fortune.

“My students always mispronounce my name Leke as ‘Lucky,’ but that’s exactly how I feel here,” he said.