Chungking Mansions faces Nathan Road, which runs through Hong Kong’s most prominent business district, Tsim Sha Tsui. Cheap accommodations are concentrated in this five-block complex, which attracts traders and backpackers of all nationalities and ethnicities. Chungking Mansions, which is reputed to be a den of vice for the dodgy activities it has housed over the years, is where the cultural anthropologist Sayaka Ogawa resided for over half a year, starting in October 2016. She stayed in the complex in order to conduct fieldwork on small-scale Tanzanian traders and their commercial activities.

In Tanzania, East Africa, Ogawa had previously researched and closely observed the commercial practices of small-scale traders called Machinga. She lived there for about three years, became part of the Machinga community, and even sold second-hand clothes by the roadside to better understand their business arrangements. The Machinga approach to business is known as ujanja, meaning slyness and craftiness in the Swahili language. Ogawa was particularly interested in the logic behind their approach, which differs from formal business practices of contracts and legal regulations that are often employed in developed nations and other societies.

In recent years, this group of people from Tanzania has been increasingly travelling to China in search of new import products to replace the second-hand clothes they typically sell. Ogawa followed them to Hong Kong and discovered an underground economy run by small-scale traders from all over the world.

“The China-based transnational informal trade started appearing in the early 2000s,” Ogawa explained. She added, “Small-scale traders from Asia, Central and South America, the Middle East, Africa, and around the world came to China and built their own production and trade system. Although such a trade system has been conducted discreetly, as almost all of their business activities are illegal, it is said that it provides employment to hundreds of millions of people globally and generates huge profits in the tens of trillions of dollars.” A vast amount of money flows through this underground economy. “This is intriguing,” Ogawa thought to herself and instantly became captivated by the idea.

During her half-a-year stay in China, Ogawa tracked the daily activities of a Tanzanian second-hand car dealer who called himself “the boss of Chungking Mansions.” Through him, she explored the kinds of businesses Tanzanian traders conduct in China.