African Crafts Made in China

Half the fun of going to Africa is coming back to the US with a suitcase full of ‘authentic’ African souvenirs to show off to your family and friends. The spectacular, brightly-colored crafts that one might collect in Africa are quite enchanting to the American eye. These gifts hold a very special meaning to those who buy them and those who are receiving them. This meaning has a lot to do with the assumption that each and every gift is handmade by hardworking African villager that they bought it from. To most African people, however, these crafts hold a very different meaning. Most people who make their business selling these gifts have no idea where they even came from. That is because like everything else these days, many of these popular items are being made in China. Gretchen Wilson interviewed a South African artist about how the Chinese are ‘stealing’ African identity by mass producing African artwork and selling it on African markets for cheaper than those made locally. As a tourist now it is difficult to tell the difference between African art and its Chinese replicas. This is a situation we hear of a lot in the West with Chinese-made fake designer clothing and accessories, but few people would expect this to be happening in the East. Perhaps this is because of the automatic association we have with Africa as ‘authentic.’ But if I buy a beautiful hand-carved giraffe from a market in Tanzania that actually originated in an assembly line in a factory in China, is it still ‘authentic’?