When the film ended and the Enlightenment gradually turned on, Ababacar Niang, a Senegalese businessman, struggled to contain his emotion after having seen his transnational journey to the city of Yiwu, in the Chinese province of Zhejiang (East), deploy on the big screen.
Dakar, May 4 (Xinhua) – When the film ended and the Enlightenment gradually turned on, Ababacar Niang, a Senegalese businessman, struggled to contain his emotion after having seen his transnational career towards the city of Yiwu, in the Chinese province of Zhejiang (East), deploy on the big screen.
The scene took place Thursday evening, during the first of a documentary film retracing the life of Mr. Niang in Yiwu, screened at the Grand National Theater in Dakar, the capital of Senegal.
The story of Mr. Niang is the first episode of the documentary series “Yiwu: an extraordinary city”. Produced by the Documentary Research Center of the University of Communication in China, this series started in 2021 and required almost four years of filming. It extends over more than a dozen countries and regions, telling the experiences of several foreigners who came to seek success in Yiwu.
In 2013, Mr. Niang arrived in China, full of enthusiasm and hope, with the aim of finding reliable suppliers of sports facilities after winning a supply contract in Senegal. However, the project interrupted along the way due to funding difficulties, leaving it blocked in Yiwu.
Faced with this unexpected, Mr. Niang chose not to abandon. He signed up for international trade courses, worked hard to improve his linguistic skills and carried out internships in Chinese companies.
He said that at that time, he worked dawn until late at night, without ever feeling bitterness, because “with each step forward, a little more light shone in my heart”.
As his experience grew up and his network widen, Mr. Niang has gradually managed to find a place and founded his own import-export business, with the ambition of helping African traders to better connect to Chinese supply chains. He spent a large part of his time traveling between different Chinese cities, looking for products, negotiating prices, inspecting quality and even resolving disputes for his customers, which earned him the confidence of the African business community.
Once his activity has been stabilized, Mr. Niang also founded a family in China. During his free time, he began to document his life in China through videos and writings, in order to offer an authentic look at Yiwu and to show China seen through the eyes of an African.
In recent years, Mr. Niang has started to return more frequently to Senegal, bringing the knowledge and experiences acquired in China. “This includes an understanding of market rules, respect for education and work, as well as the search for contracts and efficiency,” he said.
It is in this context that the Chinese documentary team discovered Mr. Niang. At the start, he thought it was a simple shoot. But as the shooting advanced, he understood that it was much more: a moment of “being seen” between different cultures.
The filming team followed it in its daily activities: verification of stocks in warehouses, coordination of orders in factories, morning video calls with customers. These apparently trivial moments have been carefully captured and highlighted on the screen.
During the first, Zhang Nan, executive director of the documentary, said that filming in Yiwu had changed his vision of trade. “Trade is not only a flow of goods. It is a bond that goes beyond cultures, languages and fate. It builds confidence through apparently insignificant transactions and weaves commonplace by daily cooperation,” she said.
For Mr. Niang, this documentary is a recognition of his years of perseverance. “If this documentary can give a little less hesitation and a little more courage to young people, then he will have already accomplished his mission,” he concluded.
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