Heeding her mother's words

Angelina Dodissea Alberto Gomes says she came to China to study because Angolan employers are looking for job candidates who can speak good Chinese. Xinhua

Bonds of wisdom

Searching for Chinese roots in Africa

One Angolan student is pinning her future on learning Chinese in Guangzhou. She is one of 50,000 Africans working or studying in the city, Huang Yinjiazi and Shi Xiaomeng report.

Angelina Dodissea Alberto Gomes, an Angolan, says in Chinese, "You're going to study in China and get a better job back home after you graduate."

These are the words her mother said to her before Gomes traveled to China.

"A person with a diploma from a Chinese university is most welcome in the Angolan labor market," Gomes says.

A year ago, Gomes, 27, traveled to Guangzhou in South China to learn Chinese, hoping that would help her job prospects back home.

Now a student at the College of Chinese Language and Culture at Jinan University, she plans to stay in the country for five years.

"Angolan employers sometimes ask job candidates whether they speak good Chinese," Gomes says. "That's why I'm here."

Angola has enjoyed double-digit economic growth in recent years and has attracted a great deal of foreign investment, including from China.

She worked in her brother's company for six years after she graduated from a vocational high school, where she studied mechanical engineering.

Her life in China was financed by her widowed mother, a doctor, who raised nine children on her own.

"Studying and living in China are relatively cheap, except for taxi fares," Gomes says.