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but applies to all residents of the empire.
A colleague from West Africa recently visited home in Cameroon. To her amazement she noticed that fewer boys loitered the streets, than usual.
When she asked, she was informed that many people were now working on various Chinese projects. The ethos at these projects is hard work, which some of the youngsters find a bit too heavy.
So when they absent themselves from work without permission, the Chinese supervisor goes to fetch the worker from home and explains that a wage has already been set aside and must be paid to that particular worker, not anyone else.
So the youngster should go and work so as to rid the company of his wage.
The Chinese have been socialised, not just to work hard, but to work hard for the long-term benefit of the family.
Arthur Smith in Chinese Characteristics (1894) writes about the diligence of the Chinese society.
Smith goes on to point out that this diligence, in fact, is not characteristic of a single group within Chinese society, but applies to all residents of the empire, from the wealthy businessmen, who do not retire from business, but devote themselves to it with the same kind and degree of attention as when they were poor; to the scholars who study themselves to weariness in preparing for the civil service examinations, to the farmer who bestows the most painstaking thought and care upon every stalk of cabbage, picking off carefully every tiny insect.
As Africa witnesses more and more Chinese projects and investments, we now have first hand experiences with this work ethic. Driving from Chinhoyi to Harare, an unusual sight of a “white” man on a tractor, catches our attention and then we quickly realised it was a Chinese man working the fields.
So many other examples could be cited of Chinese foremen and supervisors working hand in hand with labourers, on road constructions, dam constructions or on mining ventures, as opposed to long distance supervision. The intention of their hard work as Arthur Smith wrote is family.
The hard work is grounded on the need to provide a long-term benefit to the family.
China is well known for having its one-child per family policy.  It is a common sight to find a husband and wife team running a trading store or business.
They also usually have at least one child, who joins them at their store.
What happened to the grandparents?
As one article puts it, grandparents quite simply continue to live the entrepreneurial dream and also operate stores of their own; hence they seldom find time to look after grandchildren.  This realisation that families are the nuclei to a nation’s well being and prosperity is a motivator to the Chinese people.
This allows the work ethics to be developed and shaped right from the local levels to national levels.  The most important qualification for local leadership in China is the ability to work hard.
Richard Madsen, who travelled and researched on a poorer village of China, found that all of the village’s leading cadres were physically strong and first-rate farm labourers. The villagers simply would not accept as a leader anyone who was weak and incompetent in manual labour. Yang (1945) wrote about a Chinese father whose advice to sons would be along these lines; “there is nothing in this world that can be won easily. A piece of bread must be earned by one day’s sweat. The desire for better food, better dress, a good time, or the easy way will lead but to the ruin of our family”
This philosophy has been written off by many of the African middle and upper class.
We see an increasing tendency of children being groomed to believe that they have everything that they need and do not need to work hard. We also see many of our African families deserting core families for other possibilities, and so the nucleus family’s long-term benefits get eroded. We also see failure of passing on the entrepreneurial spirit from one generation to another.
The first lesson therefore is to root business and work exploits for the benefit of the family. Keeping family small is perhaps not a bad idea. In that strong Chinese work ethic driven by family values is also a culture of saving.
A second lesson is on the discipline to save and is in one story about a cobbler who went to Shanghai to work.
The cobbler earned about RMB1 000 per month. He spent RMB300 per month on rent, for a room he shared with four others.  He spent another RMB300 on food, consisting of two-man tau for lunch.  The cobbler saved RMB400 per month and that is 40 percent savings rate.
These savings are targeted at enabling children to attend good educational institutions.
Family values of hard work are transferred to children who are driven to excel in their schoolwork, sports and whatever they set to achieve. The family’s commitment to their children’s success is also found in consistent support through education and setting up careers or businesses.
The interesting thing about all that hard work is humility.  In fact many people of Chinese origin can easily be passed over as mere mediocre people.  Yet in that humble, family backed and hard working culture, is a treasure waiting to be discovered. One such recently discovered treasure is the new forward, number 17 of the New York Knicks.
Jeremy Lin an American-Taiwanese stole the NBA limelight, literally from zero to hero.
Lin did not reach this milestone in an easy way. He had been undervalued. Not given a chance, he was a benchwarmer.  Not until he shocked the world when for the first time he led the New York Knicks in beating the Los Angeles Lakers with a career high of 38 points.
He started playing basketball when he was still small.  Lin’s father, Gie-Ming Lin, watched basketball games of his favourite stars and shared what he learned from those videotapes with his son.
According to ESPN, Lin’s father would take his son to the court after the small boy had finished his school homework at night.  So we see fathers playing a pivotal role in shaping not only family values, but work ethics and developing their children to life changing careers.
The likes of the Zimbabwean tennis family, the Black, American Tiger Woods and Kobe Bryant, show fathers’ roles in their children’s futures.
This can only be achieved when family values are kept intact and if fathers make the long-term benefit of the family, a priority.  Lin pursued his passion guided by a strong work ethic taught by his father. In a rags-to-riches fashion, during his high school, Lin was rejected by many schools for a sports scholarship.  So he tried his chance in Harvard University for a scholarship.
Harvard has never been famed as a producer of great athletes.  Since, Ed Smith in 1953, Lin is the first NBA player coming from Harvard in more than 50 years.
A culture of hard work and high ethical standards is seldom developed for the public eye, but for individual character. There is something great when underdogs decide to stick to an ethical character for when they get their chance to rise from obscurity; it is as if the whole world was waiting for them.
When the “Chipolopolo” boys rose to display their disciplined hard work and solid team work to win the Africa Cup of Nations, they thrilled us all including their opponents.

l Gertrude Takawira is a researcher and consultant in governance and development.