Jan Hugo:

Welcome to The Relocated South African, as always your host, Jan Hugo, from Lagos in Portugal. Most relocation stories follow a familiar path: someone grows up in South Africa, leaves for another country, and builds a new life there. But today’s guest represents a different kind of global South African story. Marco Bouwer didn’t just move countries. He built a bridge between them through his work with MyChinaLink. He operates in the world of international trade, connecting South African businesses with China, and navigating one of the most complex global business relationships in the world. Welcome, Marco.

Marco Bouwer:

Thanks for having me.

Jan Hugo:

It is great to have you. I look forward to your story. I always ask my guests to give us a bit of background. Where did you grow up, go to school, study, and how did you get to move to China?

Marco Bouwer:

That is a very loaded question. I was born in Port Elizabeth, where my mom and dad’s families are all from. I then spent some time in the north, in Pretoria, but I was mostly raised in the Western Cape, in Cape Town, in a place called Durbanville.

Jan Hugo:

And so you went to school and then to university?

Marco Bouwer:

Yes. I was at Stellenberg High School. That was back in the day when Father Christmas was still wearing shorts. I think I was in the second or third matric group; it was a brand new school in a brand new neighbourhood, and now I hear Stellenberg is one of the powerhouse schools in that area.

Back then it was a little different. I also studied for a while. I was in Stellenbosch, at Eendrag Koshuis, and I eventually got my degree. That was around the 1992 to 1994 period, when there were a lot of big changes in South Africa.

Somehow, long story, a friend and I started a small community newspaper covering the rural areas of the Western Cape: the Winelands, the Swartland, and all the way up along the West Coast. We did that for about a year, and as our money was running out, Die Burger knocked on my door and asked if I would be interested in a job. I took it with both hands. That is where my career started, as a journalist at Die Burger, which was a fascinating time.

Jan Hugo:

Wow, I can just imagine. Did you cover regional stories or anything in particular?

Marco Bouwer:

Yeah, all kinds of stuff. That was at a time when the print newspaper was still dominant; it was just before it started slumping. Digital was a brand new thing. Reading news online was not something people did. They used to anxiously await your newspaper or have it delivered to their door. I still miss the feeling of a newspaper in your hand in the morning.

I covered regional news, local news, a lot of court news. One of the things I covered was the gang violence, the gang wars that were going on in Cape Town and the Cape Flats at the time. That was very intense. I even got some death threats.

One of the stories I often tell is about being a young reporter. Sometimes I think you’re not quite human yet at that age; you don’t quite realise what you’re doing or what you’re missing out on. Each morning the editor would sit with all the reporters, go through the editorial meeting, assign stories, and at the end he would mention a few extra items. That morning he said, “I just have one small thing. The president is going to visit a school this morning with his entourage.” Which was Nelson Mandela. “Does anybody want to go?” There was just silence. Everybody was busy. He said, “Look, it’s Nelson Mandela. All you need to do is write a byline and go with a photographer.” So I said, fine, I’ll go. Now, thinking back, what a ridiculous thing that nobody would absolutely jump on that.

I got to meet the president, had tea with him for half an hour while he was waiting for the street to clear so he could get into his car. That is mostly what I covered though: community news and court news.

Jan Hugo:

That must have been awesome. I just interestingly heard that today, in fact, they are launching a new newspaper in South Africa called Die Papier, which is going to be a physical paper again.

Marco Bouwer:

Wow, that is exciting. We will see how that goes. I hope they do very well.

Jan Hugo:

Yes, they say they are going digital and physical. I heard about it on another podcast. Someone said at least the lady who helps at home will be happy because she will have a newspaper to clean the windows with. But now, after a career as a journalist, how did you get to live in Shanghai?

Marco Bouwer:

I asked my editor if I could take a month off to go and travel with some friends who had just finished at university. He reluctantly agreed and said he would keep my job for me, which, thinking back, was very fortunate. I left, went to Taiwan to teach English for a few weeks, and then the plan was to go and surf in Bali for a week and come back and start my life in South Africa. I was there for a while and ended up staying longer. One night I went to visit some South African friends and knocked on the wrong door, because everything is in Chinese and I couldn’t read it. A girl opened the door and she is my wife today. She was this American girl teaching at an international school there. I was so surprised to see someone I thought could speak English, because I was very homesick at the time.

We went back to the US together, I got my citizenship, and we both went to study for our master’s degrees. Her condition was that she really liked living in Asia, and if we got married, she wanted to go back at some stage. So after seven years in the US, both of us having studied and me having got my citizenship, we both got jobs in Shanghai. That is how we went back.

Jan Hugo:

That is fascinating. Which city in the US were you in?

Marco Bouwer:

I studied in Florida, in Miami, and then we also lived in Washington DC. Those are probably the two most transient cities in the US. Nobody in Miami or Washington DC is actually from those places.

Jan Hugo:

And what did you study?

Marco Bouwer:

I studied for an MBA.

Jan Hugo:

My word. It just shows you how life works. You knock on a wrong door and the lady becomes your wife. So because of her, you chose China over staying in the US?

Marco Bouwer:

Yes, I never planned that. The plan was only to go back for one more chapter, maybe three years. We both had two to three-year work contracts. I got my dream job in China, working at an international PR agency, so writing was still heavily involved, and my wife was a school teacher at an international school.

The three years ended and then other opportunities came up. At the time, China from about 2009 to 2019, just pre-COVID, was absolutely the place to be. Every major global brand and every foreign brand wanted to get a piece of the Chinese market, and it was just anything goes. It was the hub of entrepreneurship. Tech companies were starting everywhere, and a lot of my friends started small businesses that made it in a big way and are still around today. It was a very exciting time in Shanghai.

Jan Hugo:

Fascinating. And at any time during that initial period, from the US to China, did you ever consider going back to South Africa?

Marco Bouwer:

Every day, yes. It was never my plan to leave South Africa. I was going to go for a month and come home, and I think that always stuck in my head. I was always looking for opportunities. But in the time I was in the US, in the early 2000s, it was perhaps not a good time for me to find a job in South Africa as a young guy with less than ten years of experience. There were opportunities in the US for me as well, so I didn’t try too hard. I just always kept my eyes open, applying for something every other month or sending a few emails out.

Jan Hugo:

And your editor at Die Burger who kept your job for you?

Marco Bouwer:

I just didn’t go back. I think I wrote an email one day and said I was so sorry and really appreciated it.

Jan Hugo:

My goodness. Now, living in China: is it more difficult than you expected?

Marco Bouwer:

I don’t know how to answer that question. It is very hard to live in China. Going in 2012, it is very hard to explain to family and friends. China is like one big anomaly. When I went in 2012, nothing was in English. People didn’t speak English. It was very hard to do things.

But at the same time, it was an incredible place to live. It was a first-world city with some of the best public transportation in the world, lots of opportunities for business, and what we call “China speed,” where things happen so fast. Every three or four months we would leave China, because it is easier to come back and love the place if you leave it occasionally. And we are in Asia, so everything is an hour or three-hour flight away. It is not far. It sounds like I am a world traveller, but it is really just because it is easy to travel. It is like living in Europe: going from Holland to Belgium is not a big deal.

Every time we came back, there was something new. They build skyscrapers in three to six months. Whole restaurant strips are gone when you return and new ones have popped up. Coffee shops have replaced your favourite hair salon. It is constantly moving and changing.

They use WeChat here, which is like an ecosystem in itself. Not quite Facebook, not quite Instagram, not quite WhatsApp. It is all of that combined, and you do everything on it. In the last seven years, China has become a completely cashless society. I use WeChat to communicate with people, because it has instant translation. I pay all my bills, order food, get in a taxi, go on the metro, text my friends, do business, and make video calls. Everything you can possibly think of, you can do on this one app, and the whole country runs on it.

On the other side, I went back to the US to do some banking in Washington DC a few years ago; it had been seven years since I was there. I parked in the same parking lot, had the same issue with the same parking meter, went to the bank and the same clerk helped me. The bakery was still next door with the same bread I had liked, so I bought some and walked back to my car, and everything was exactly the same.

Jan Hugo:

Ha ha ha!

Marco Bouwer:

And that is normal there. In China, it does not work like that. Six months is a very long time here. I equate China to the digital age, where things change so fast. Shanghai is more cosmopolitan, so it is an easier city to arrive in now. The younger people arriving say, “This is so nice, there are Western restaurants,” and the waiters speak English because the new generation grew up with English as a subject. Back then, you were like a baby. You couldn’t speak the language, didn’t know the system. They put you in an apartment and you didn’t know how to install internet or ask a plumber to fix your toilet. You were literally helpless. Now it is a push of a button.

Jan Hugo:

Fascinating. And WeChat, is it government-controlled or is it a private enterprise?

Marco Bouwer:

Well, since I am online, I just want to say that China is doing a great job.

Jan Hugo:

Ha!

Marco Bouwer:

Everything is monitored, and there are strict regulations in place. It is quite different from the West. In the West, we are used to privacy laws. In the US, it is an individualistic society. In South Africa, people are very important; it is more of a collective society. But in China, there is no privacy. There are cameras, about ten cameras on every street corner, and nobody knows. With the absence of privacy come a lot of benefits. It is very hard for the typical Westerner to accept that because there is always somebody watching you, always a camera tracking you. Everything you do on your phone is known. It is not so much state-owned, all of it, but it is very strictly monitored.

I will tell one quick story. We had a business colleague visiting and he walked out of his hotel, put his hand out to get a taxi, and a car stopped. He assumed it was a taxi. He got in. It was a gang situation, though that sort of thing is different here in China; it was just a bunch of guys. They took him to an empty apartment, had a cash machine ready, and said they wanted him to give them money by card. He thought his life was in danger, but they were very polite, even asked if he wanted water. He had to give them money because the leader’s daughter was apparently having an operation the following week. He gave them what was in his card, and they took him back to his hotel.

He immediately went with the hotel concierge to the police station. Within 20 minutes, via the cameras, they had located the car, identified the licence plate, and knew exactly who it was. The hotel concierge was told, “Don’t say a word, I will deal with this.” Half an hour later, a man arrived with a briefcase containing his money in cash. He got most of it back, with a small fee deducted. That was the end of it, because it reflects very badly on the local police when something like that happens to a foreigner. But it shows: everything and everybody is monitored.

Jan Hugo:

Wow, that is fascinating. And you must have been in China during COVID. Was it really as bad as it looked from outside?

Marco Bouwer:

It was terrible. Absolutely terrible. We lived in a nice compound, a housing community, and we were able to get out. The Chinese were very good at making sure food was delivered; the local government would provide food, which was well organised. But at some stage you couldn’t even leave your apartment for three to six months. Every day, sometimes three times a day, you would line up and get a test from someone in a hazmat suit. You would then load the result onto your phone via a QR code, and if it’s red, you get put in a facility. That was hanging over your head every day while you were trying to work.

We had drones flying overhead at the height of it, announcing in Chinese over the compound: “Release the desire of freedom from your heart.” Every municipality was trying to do what it could to keep people contained and stop the virus spreading. Given how many people live per square metre, I think they did a very good job. But it was a horrible time.

Jan Hugo:

I can just imagine. We were there when Cyril called us “my fellow South Africans,” and that was horrible enough. I cannot imagine what you must have felt like as a South African-American who is used to some freedom. And you just had to accept it; there was nothing you could do.

Wow. So Marco, talk me through what day-to-day life is like where you are. We always think about South Africans: we braai, we kuier, and all of that. What is your daily life like in Shanghai?

Marco Bouwer:

It is big-city life. The centre of Shanghai is shaped by its history. After the Opium Wars, different Western governments each got a concession, built and governed according to their own laws: the Americans, the British, the French, the Russians, the Germans, the Japanese. This area, about ten by five miles in the middle of the city, includes what was called the French Concession, laid out in a French style with wide, tree-lined streets, the trees covering the sky, and beautiful buildings. That is the centre of the city. On one side you have Lujiazui and the financial skyline you always see on the other side of the river. It is a very, very pretty city with an enormous amount of history and it is incredibly convenient.

We have the largest metro system in the world. There is a metro stop every half a kilometre, in a city of 26 to 27 million people. Being in the Concession, you never feel like it is that crowded. There is just always someone around, and you can get food from any part of the world.

There is even a South African restaurant here, and I am having dinner with South Africans on Sunday. But you do miss the outdoors, the green, your own people. I still miss South Africa every day, and it has been 20 years.

Jan Hugo:

I hear you. When you say you miss the green, is there not much open space and parkland?

Marco Bouwer:

There are lots of parks, but they are clinical and clean, very pretty and beautiful. Getting out of the city takes a while. Every second month or so we travel somewhere in the country. China is an absolutely beautiful country. If you go to the different provinces and further west, and because transportation is so incredibly well organised, I get on the metro half a kilometre from my house, go to the airport, and for a very cheap price fly to another province where we spend a week seeing 5,000-year-old ruins in nature. That is pretty cool.

Jan Hugo:

Absolutely fair. And what about language? How do you cope with Chinese?

Marco Bouwer:

I have always worked in an English environment, and I did study quite extensively in my first five years here. At one stage I told my team at the agency, “Please don’t speak English around me in meetings, just speak Chinese.” I quickly realised what a dumb idea that was. The only thing I could really contribute was textbook Chinese, which is like reading a library book in a business meeting.

If you don’t speak it or use it every day, it is such a difficult language. The foreigners here who are fluent in Chinese either studied it before they came, or came to China and studied full-time for a year, or they married a Chinese person. If you come here and study twice a week for an hour, you are not going to learn the language.

That said, I get around fine. Everybody speaks English, and if they don’t, I know enough Chinese to help myself in most situations. My wife’s Chinese is good as well, so we manage.

Jan Hugo:

And menus, ordering food, are they in English as well?

Marco Bouwer:

No, they don’t use menus. Every restaurant you go into, you scan a QR code, the menu comes up, you translate it on WeChat, click on what you want, and pay. There are no people involved anymore. It is kind of strange.

Jan Hugo:

My word. Do you have kids?

Marco Bouwer:

No, we don’t have kids, but there are plenty of international schools here if we do.

Jan Hugo:

And healthcare: the things we always think about, Discovery, insurance, all the things we take for granted in South Africa. What is that like?

Marco Bouwer:

It was pretty bad when we got here in 2012, but it has gotten much better. Just like in South Africa, you have state hospitals, which have improved in quality significantly; they have excellent equipment and the care is incredible. Then you have private hospitals. Most foreigners, especially if you come with a company, will have a medical benefit and will likely go to a private hospital, which is staffed mostly by foreign-trained doctors or Chinese doctors who have trained abroad. The English is never a problem. The care is very good.

In terms of customer service, the country is still growing in that area. For serious operations, I would not necessarily recommend staying here, because culturally the approach is a little different. Most foreigners I know go for their annual check-up in Bangkok at one of the private hospitals. It is medical tourism at five-star facilities with the best care and food included, half a day or a full day of tests, for less than you would pay for a single doctor’s visit in South Africa.

Jan Hugo:

Wow. And cost of living: how does it compare to the US and South Africa?

Marco Bouwer:

The US is out of the equation now. It is very tough living there at the moment; everything is incredibly expensive, and it is going to get worse before it gets better. Shanghai is ranked as the sixth most expensive city in the world, but if you live here you can choose between a foreign restaurant or a local Chinese restaurant, a five-star Michelin restaurant or the little mom-and-pop store on the corner. The Chinese food is, just like with South Africans, central to the culture; food is everything. For just my wife and me, with public transportation and everything else, I would say we live fairly cheaply. Actually, I would say it is cheaper than Cape Town.

Jan Hugo:

Wow. And what about income disparity? Are there very wealthy and very poor people?

Marco Bouwer:

There is a lot of disparity. The base hourly salary is very low, and entry-level salaries for fresh graduates are not high. But the sky is the limit. Shanghai is the city with the second-most millionaires in the world, possibly the third. Foreign corporate packages pre-COVID used to be incredible; if you got one, you took it, it set you up for life. That is not the case anymore, because of China speed. The Chinese are very smart and learn very quickly. Why hire a foreigner who doesn’t speak Chinese or understand the culture when you can hire a local for half the salary?

Jan Hugo:

Right. So you worked at a PR agency for five years. How did you get to start your own business?

Marco Bouwer:

I quit my job about two years ago. It is fairly easy to set up a company in China. It is called a WFOE, a Wholly Foreign Owned Entity. That was straightforward enough. What I do is called MyChinaLink, www.mychinalink.com, and we facilitate business, trade, and travel between China and Africa, or specifically southern Africa.

Jan Hugo:

Does that mean you travel to South Africa a lot?

Marco Bouwer:

Probably more in future, but at the moment I can do everything from here. I work with a network of partners, both my team in China and South African partners and entities back home.

Jan Hugo:

And you are part of the Lekker Network. Has that been beneficial?

Marco Bouwer:

Yes. I like the energy and the whole vibe of the organisation. It is a real can-do attitude, and I love the “how can I help you” approach.

Jan Hugo:

That is my experience as well. There is a lot of negativity around South Africa, but these guys are just really positive, and I think that is the only way to do it. So what would you say is the biggest misunderstanding South Africans have about doing business in China?

Marco Bouwer:

I could speak about this for three hours. The big misunderstanding, I will be very blunt, is this: I have been here for more than ten years and I think I know nothing about the culture. I am very culturally savvy, I speak a little of the language, I know how to navigate. But then you have guys who come to China once a year for a workshop or a conference or an industry expo and say, “You can’t tell me anything about China.” You don’t know what you don’t know.

I think from both sides, from both the Chinese and the South Africans, and there are very good reasons for this, there is mistrust. But I find doing business with the Chinese so refreshing and easy. They are always ready, they get things done the same day or the next day, and whatever challenge or hindrance there is, they say, “What can we do? Let’s start. We will fix it.” Relationships are incredibly important here, they have to trust you, but they are always willing to do business and consider all options. I find that very refreshing.

Jan Hugo:

That can-do attitude. In terms of red tape, setting up a company or dealing with visas, how difficult is that?

Marco Bouwer:

People will help you. An agent will help you, whether you are importing or registering or whatever you are doing. But only as far as the questions you ask. If you don’t ask the right question, they are not going to tell you. You might think you know everything, but you didn’t ask everything because you don’t know what you don’t know.

Then, yes, there is a lot of red tape. The free trade agreement that was recently signed is really good in principle. It puts South African wine and agricultural products on equal footing with a lot of countries that previously had much better access because they didn’t face the same tariffs we did. I am very excited about the prospects for South Africa and for job growth. But Chinese regulations and registration processes are very strict. I am helping a winery register their wine right now and it is a two to four-month process, mostly in Chinese. You need someone by your side to help. It is very stop-start.

Jan Hugo:

On a scale of one to ten, how difficult is it to enter the Chinese market?

Marco Bouwer:

It is hard. Very hard.

Jan Hugo:

So if ten is easy, this would be two or three?

Marco Bouwer:

Yes, I would say two or three out of ten. It is very hard. But if you know the right people, it is more accessible. Ten years ago it was the Wild West; anything goes, you could get anything in, and the consumers were brand-agnostic. They didn’t grow up with any foreign brands, so they were not loyal to any brand. But today, if you want to come in and get a foothold, it is going to take patience, time, and money.

Jan Hugo:

I assume that with a market that vast, if they accept you, you have to be able to produce to satisfy it.

Marco Bouwer:

Yes. And people tend to forget that, as vast as China is, it is not one homogeneous market. I would compare it to Europe: it is one country, but the northeast is very different from the southeast, from the northwest, from the Shanghai area, from Hong Kong, from the far western regions. That comes down to palates, food tastes, culture, and in some places they speak a Mandarin that other Mandarin speakers don’t understand. What works in one place may not work in another. A big multinational like Starbucks or Coca-Cola typically focuses on the major Tier One cities, and even those are not the same. I was in a city last year bigger than Shanghai that I had never even heard of: Chongqing. I thought it was a made-up name. Chongqing exists, and it has 29 to 30 million people. In one city.

Jan Hugo:

That is just ridiculous. To put it in perspective, Portugal from south to north is just over 600 kilometres, east to west about 300 kilometres, with only ten million people. And you are talking about one city with 30 million. The numbers are mind-boggling.

Marco Bouwer:

It blows your mind. I once interviewed someone who was not from Shanghai, and at the end of the interview I asked where she was from. She said, “It’s a small city, you would never have heard of it.” I said, “Try me.” She said, “You really wouldn’t. Only six million people.”

Jan Hugo:

Ha! Trust: is it difficult to build, but once it is there, it works?

Marco Bouwer:

Yes. Trust is definitive here. It takes time to build, like anywhere, but with the newer generation it is easier to establish business connections because they are less bound to the old style of needing many dinners together first. People just want to do business. If you have proven that you can deliver on your side of the deal, they will invest everything in strengthening that relationship.

Jan Hugo:

I have heard that in Japan, if you go out to dinner, the guys get quite drunk. Is alcohol a big thing in China?

Marco Bouwer:

For big formal meetings, alcohol is a big thing. I always take the glass and pretend to drink, otherwise you will be in trouble. But the new generation, who are further up Maslow’s hierarchy, have become much more sophisticated. Alcohol is not really a big thing for them anymore. In the wine industry, low-alcohol, non-alcoholic, and organic wine is very popular among the 20 to 30 somethings. And something lightly alcoholic and sparkling, like apple or grape cider or sparkling wine, is very much in demand.

Jan Hugo:

Very interesting, because here in Portugal we have what they call vinho verde. When we order it in a restaurant, they always say bring a straw because it is like a cold drink. It is about nine percent alcohol and extremely popular, and some of them have a bit of sparkle as well. I imagine it would do very well there.

Marco Bouwer:

It will do very well here.

Jan Hugo:

Managing logistics, supply chains, making sure things get there. How difficult is that between China and South Africa?

Marco Bouwer:

There are parts that are tricky. We do freight forwarding, shipping, logistics, and exporting. We can also help with agricultural products coming in from South Africa, where there is bigger volume and therefore bigger risk if, for instance, fruit gets bruised. We can be the person on the ground who helps manage that. If anything happens to a shipment, it could be a big problem, but I work with very experienced partners and we have a strong team. The saying here is: anything is possible in China.

Jan Hugo:

And things like forex and banking, can you help with that?

Marco Bouwer:

Yes, it is not our specialty, but we can and often do.

Jan Hugo:

There must be some funny stories about working with Chinese people and living in China. You must have at least one.

Marco Bouwer:

Not ones I can tell you. Most of it has to do with misunderstandings.

Jan Hugo:

Just one you can share.

Marco Bouwer:

Ha! Maybe ask the next question and I will try to think of one. There are so many.

Jan Hugo:

Ha ha ha! That’s fine.

Marco Bouwer:

One thing I find interesting is that the retirement age here is very low. Because it is such a collective and community-orientated society, every day in the parks you see retirees getting together for games, sport, and dancing. There are big dance groups in every park after five o’clock.

What is also funny sometimes is that because things change so fast, even I cannot always keep up. Take traffic laws: when I got here, traffic laws were only suggestions. A red light was a suggestion. Now the police actually stop people. And often it is a 70 or 75-year-old man who has never stopped at a red light if there were no cars coming, and the police now have to explain what he did wrong. Because the change is so fast. There is a lot of stuff like that.

Jan Hugo:

Interesting. When you bring South Africans over and introduce them to Chinese people, are there awkward moments over food or cultural differences?

Marco Bouwer:

Not really. In a city like Shanghai, people meet a lot of foreigners. If you make a mistake, they know you are a foreigner and you just didn’t know. So it is fine.

Jan Hugo:

What is your favourite Chinese food?

Marco Bouwer:

There is a lot. I love the northern Chinese food: heavier, with potatoes, meat, and thick noodles, very similar to our Afrikaans stews. In the southwest, everything is spicy. And here in Shanghai, it is mostly seafood.

Jan Hugo:

And the dog story, is that real?

Marco Bouwer:

No, that is a fallacy. It is more prevalent in countries that are further behind in development. In Southeast Asia, dog meat is still more of a common sight. I have not seen it in China in probably the last ten years, and people frown on it now.

One of the big consumer trends at the moment, if anyone listening wants a free idea for something to import into South Africa, is pet accessories. Everybody here has pets because the new generation are very averse to having kids; raising a child is incredibly expensive. So you get a pet instead. Big stores are opening up with pet food, pet toys, pet clothing, all kinds of accessories. It has become a massive, multi-million-dollar industry in China.

Jan Hugo:

It is interesting. We have what we call China shops here in Lagos: big hypermarkets where you can buy anything, all staffed by Chinese people who speak Portuguese. Electronics, garden stuff, clothes, and of course all the pet stuff. They have obviously found Portugal too. And then there is Temu, which a lot of people use now as well.

Marco Bouwer:

Very convenient. I cannot remember the last time I walked past a dog outside without a jacket or a hat on.

Jan Hugo:

Ha! My wife would be very welcome there. I think she has a platinum card on Temu. It is amazing what you find out you need when you start looking.

Marco Bouwer:

There is a saying among the sourcing agents in China: in six days, God made heaven and the earth. On the seventh day, China made everything else.

Jan Hugo:

That is probably about right. Now, we are getting towards the end. What do you miss most about South Africa?

Marco Bouwer:

Just the people, the land, the country. A braai. I know that is a cliché, everybody says it, but it is not so much about the braai itself because we can have one here. It is about the samesyn, you know, the getting together and the kuier. And kuier is a concept I don’t think any other country has.

Maybe, and this will sound strange, the Chinese have something similar, and some other Asian countries, because it is a collective society. It is that whole Ubuntu thing: people are people because of the people around them. People are important. You will not find that in a country like the US or in a lot of European countries. I don’t know about Spain and Portugal, but maybe people are friendlier there because of the warmer climate.

Jan Hugo:

I think, especially in Portugal, it is very family-orientated. On a Sunday you go to a restaurant and the whole family is there: the kids are not on their phones, everyone is talking. It is much more like that. And in that sense, do you miss your family? Do you see them regularly?

Marco Bouwer:

Every day. Most of them, every day, we speak a lot. I go for months where the only Afrikaans I speak, because I am Afrikaans originally, is with my family: my mom, my dad, my brother and sister, all in Cape Town.

Jan Hugo:

Have they been over to see you?

Marco Bouwer:

No, nobody has been here. I usually go back once or twice a year. Setting up this business, it has been a little harder to get away, but I will go back again soon.

Jan Hugo:

And integrating socially with the Chinese, making friends: is that difficult?

Marco Bouwer:

It is quite hard. The social interaction is different here. In general, you make friends through your business relationships. That is mostly where the relationships are built.

Jan Hugo:

And through your wife’s work in teaching, do you meet other teachers and people in that world?

Marco Bouwer:

Yes. We tried to have our friends outside of the big international campus communities; it was just a healthier situation, you don’t see the same people seven days a week. We have always maintained our own circle of friends. What is good about an international city like this is that everyone is in the same boat, so it is much easier to connect and make friends because you are all experiencing the same thing, encouraging each other, and going through the same challenges.

Jan Hugo:

Excellent. Marco, last question. Looking back at a career that went from journalist to running a business from China, any regrets? Would you have done anything differently?

Marco Bouwer:

Maybe bought a lotto ticket. No, I would never have foreseen the way things have gone. No regrets. Maybe spending a little more time in South Africa, but in general I have been very, very fortunate. I have travelled all over Asia multiple times, all over the US, and I am going back next month for a two-week road trip to see clients and family. That part is really nice, but I would give half of that up to spend a week in Cape Town.

Jan Hugo:

My word. Well, Marco, you can be found at mychinalink.com, and you also do tourism, it is not just business.

Marco Bouwer:

Yes. We are actually bringing a group of South African businessmen and women over in October for a discovery trip to China. Last year we did one in the other direction, to Rwanda for a group of Chinese investors. We can go both ways. We also do travel consulting and planning for Chinese outbound tourists to South Africa. And we offer training to make tourism vendors, hospitality providers, hotels, staff, and guides “China-ready,” because there are very specific expectations from Chinese travellers.

At the end of this month we are doing two webinars: one for business people on day-to-day effectiveness in China, and another on attending the Canton Fair, which is one of the biggest trade fairs in the world, happening next month. We offer pre, during, and post preparation for that.

Jan Hugo:

Awesome. We could talk for hours. Thank you so much, Marco. It is absolutely fascinating, and you are our first guest from China. Thank you.

Marco Bouwer:

Thank you very much for having me. I really appreciate it.

Jan Hugo:

As always, if this episode resonated with you, you are welcome to share it with someone who might need to hear it. You can find more episodes of The Relocated South African wherever you listen to podcasts. Thanks for listening, and I will see you next time.

This transcript was edited for clarity and readability. Some repetitions and filler words have been removed.