[3] On Lamu Island off the Kenyan coast, local oral tradition maintains that 20 shipwrecked Chinese sailors,[4] possibly part of Zheng's fleet, washed up on shore there hundreds of years ago.
[5][6][7] On Pate Island, Frank Viviano described in a July 2005 National Geographic article how ceramic fragments had been found around Lamu which the administrative officer of the local Swahili history museum claimed were of Chinese origin, specifically from Zheng He's voyage to east Africa.
[10][2][11] Recent Chinese migrants cite Kenya's relative stability and high rate of growth as factors in choosing it as their destination.
Thus, a rise of incidents involving local college-aged females has resulted in an increased rate of Afro-Chinese infant births to single Kenyan mothers.
[9] They accuse Chinese traders of "taking photographs of their goods to copy the designs", and claim "they have unfair advantages such as cheap labour in China local government support".
[22] Chinese people have also opened apparel factories in Kenya's export processing zones, but there have been protests against poor working conditions there.
Many Chinese businesspeople, especially those in the textiles industry, try to avoid directly dealing with locals as a result of this opprobrium, instead employing Kenyan human resources managers and accountants.
[2] The Kenyan government are taking a variety of steps to attempt to address the trade imbalance between the two countries, including encouraging Chinese traders to invest in local production facilities.