The Ashanti Kingdom, from the 16th to the 19th century was one of Africa’s most powerful polities. The Ashantis fought three wars with the British before they were finally subdued in 1900 and integrated to the Gold Coast colony. The source of Ashanti power was gold. The gold which first brought the Portuguese to West Africa in 1471, as they tried to break the Arab monopoly on the African gold trade.
Ghana remains a major gold producer to this day and that production is still centered on the Ashanti region and its capital, Kumasi. The Portuguese and other Europeans who followed them to the Gold Coast, Dutch, Swedes, Danes, Germans, British are long gone. They have been replaced by Chinese miners and traders – all clustered around Kumasi and after the same prize: gold.
Driving through certain suburbs of Kumasi feels like being in a third tier city in China. Chinese hotels and nightclubs, Chinese supermarkets and restaurants abound. 65,000 Chinese from Guanxi province reportedly live in the area, most of them involved in small scale gold mining.
For us, though, the main benefit of that state of affairs is that Kumasi has the first Cantonese restaurant we have seen in Africa. Chef Chan quickly becomes friends with the boys – and the Han Court restaurant a welcome respite from the culinary frustrations of travelling through the hinterland of West Africa for three weeks.
