Lu Zhifang’s mother was horrified at the prospect of her leaving China for the first time to take up a job in South Sudan, and she tried to stop her getting a passport. So when 29 Chinese workers were kidnapped north of the border by South Sudan-aligned rebels within a month of Ms Lu’s arrival this year, her mother’s worst fears appeared to be justified.
“My parents are really very worried. I have to call every day to say I’m safe,” she says.
For the manager of the Eastern Pearl restaurant, part of a year-old Chinese complex offering rooms, buffets and night-time karaoke, the view on the ground in Juba, the South Sudanese capital, is anything but dangerous. “It’s just like a miracle. Before I had only seen Africa and Africans on TV,” she says. “South Sudan maybe itself is a little pearl.”