Last standing Chinese eatery has plenty of good fortune

How father and son won over the palates of Kenya's capital

First there were four, then three, then two and finally just one. When Tin Tin Chinese restaurant in Nairobi opened nearly 40 years ago it was in good company. Today, Tin Tin is the only Chinese restaurant in the highly competitive downtown area.

Henry Tin, now 68, has seen the city grow from one with single-lane unsealed roads to multilane paved roads overshadowed by Kenya's modern skyline. He has seen the Indian middle class pushed to the suburbs by the burgeoning Kenyan middle class whose changing lifestyle now dictates the business models adopted by entrepreneurs interested in surviving in the CBD.

"I think I am now the oldest Kenyan-born Chinese," Tin laughs.

For 37 years the Chinese restaurant has been a defining feature of the city's landmark Kenya International Conference Center. This is the place Tin's father, James Tin, believed would help them make their fortunes as he moved with his wife to start the family business. He was right.

"Our biggest client is the government that surrounds us," Henry Tin says, referring to the government office buildings on both sides of the street where the conference center is located.

In an ancillary business the Tins offer catering to businesses attending events at the conference center.

"This is what has kept us going," Tin says.

The venue plays a strategic role in marketing the country as an ideal host for conventions, exhibitions and other meetings. The country is now rated second after South Africa as a tourism destination for Chinese, the International Congress and Convention Association says.

In 1978, as Tin's father pushed on with building a thriving business, he probably would not have known how important government would eventually become in keeping it alive. This was after his mechanical repairs business in Mombasa, on the Indian Ocean coast, started to go into sharp decline as a result of surging oil prices.

"No ship, no work," Henry Tin says.

James Tin traces his roots back to Hong Kong, from which, with many other young men, he fled as the Japanese prepared to invade. Aged 16 years, he boarded a ship for India, only to be disappointed when he disembarked in Bombay, now Mumbai.

"He was unhappy with the environment," his first son says. "So he decided to continue with the voyage that took him to the shores of Mombasa."

He soon found work as an apprentice in a shipyard, went on to become a marine engineer and eventually found a position with African Marine and General Engineering Co Ltd. At the time, very few Chinese families lived in Kenya but he met another immigrant from Hong Kong who had moved with her family in 1946. They married and had four children whom they raised in the coastal area.

When Henry turned eight, he and his siblings were sent to Hong Kong to learn Mandarin, and they stayed there for six years before returning to Nairobi and continuing their schooling.

After completing secondary school, Henry enrolled at Muslim Technical Institute, now Mombasa Technical University, and became, like his father, a marine engineer.

Father and son opened a workshop and continued offering their services on ships that docked at the port. When the business sank, they jointly opened a restaurant serving Shanghai-style food, but that partnership eventually foundered.

James Tin decided it was time to diversify and moved to Nairobi to restart the food business in 1978.

"I was left at the coast to continue holding the workshop while at the same time supplying seafood to the business," Henry Tin says. It opened its doors on April 1, 1978.

After six months serving authentic Chinese cuisine, customers were complaining that the food was bland, and James Tin realized that he was more likely to succeed by offering Western Chinese food. Customers soon began to register their approval and the clientele steadily grew.

These good fortunes led the younger Tin to close the workshop and move with his family to Nairobi.

They opened a second restaurant at Westlands, a small city that was fast expanding, fueled by the Indian population, and the younger Tin became manager.

He recalls how challenging it was juggling between business and raising a young family.

"I was spending a lot of time at the restaurant so my two children had to finish their homework at the restaurant before we all headed home."

Business flourished, a reflection of the restaurant's ability to please local palates and its proximity to government offices.

On the other hand, the restaurant's offerings of authentic Chinese cuisine were overrun by an influx of Western fast-food restaurants.

But when James Tin died in 1993 the family was forced to close the Sarit branch.

Henry Tin says that by dint of being away from China so long, the way he speaks makes him stand out. However, he speaks Kiswahili well and perfectly pronounces indigenous names.

"I was born in Mombasa and I am a businessman. I have to be smart to be easily understood by my suppliers and employees."

Tin is happy that he has met English-speaking Chinese who have settled locally and even those who have gone further and speak Kiswahili. Likewise, he is proud of Kenyans who learn Chinese.

"This shows that the two cultures are quickly merging and there is acute awareness that the future of both nations lies with breaking language barriers."

Much of the kinds of things happening in Africa happened in China 30 years ago, he says, and Africa has a lot to gain by studying China's rapid growth and how it achieved it.

lucymorangi@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily Africa Weekly 01/30/2015 page29)