Over the recent years, the Kenya-China relationship only brings to light memories of our ballooning debt, the Standard Gauge Railway (SGR), multiple roads across the country, and the growing Chinese population in Nairobi's Upper Hill, Hurlingham areas.
However, the two countries share a history dating back to the 1400s.
In Lamu County, exists a village called Siyu which is located on the North Coast at Pate Island within the Lamu Archipelago, where a Chinese bloodline was traced to.
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According to scholars, the village dates back to the 1300s.
In 2005, the village grabbed headlines after a DNA test conducted on Mwamaka Sharifu revealed that she was of Chinese descent. She got a scholarship from the Asian nation to go and study Chinese medicine.
Speaking to a local daily, Mombasa-based scholar and historian Stambuli Abdillahi Nassir divulged that studies on the history of communities at the Coast is yet to be exhausted.
According to Nassir, the Chinese arrived in Kenya 80 years before Vasco da Gama.
The Chinese were led by Chang Ho or Ma Ho and Zheng. He converted to Islam and intermarried with the communities at the Coast. Ma is Chinese for Mohammed.
"Evidence that they converted to Islam can be seen from their cemeteries. Muslims bury the dead in the direction of Macca and so are the Chinese cemeteries," Nassir stated.
According to the Chinese Embassy, Chinese sailors survived and escaped from a wrecked ship and settled in Siyu in 1415.
In 2005, the Embassy retraced Chinese roots to Siyu village. Archaeologists and scientists studied the region and its people and also tested DNA samples.
Mwamaka Sharifu, now a doctor having graduated in 2012, finished High School from Lamu Girls Secondary School. She was referred to by many as the "China girl" from her resemblance.
She was sponsored by the Chinese government to pursue further studies after her ancestry was traced to the Chinese Ming Dynasty in East China’s Jiangsu Province.
"I want to see the place where my ancestors live. I look forward to visiting China and studying in the Chinese university," Sharifu stated in 2005.
She got the opportunity to meet the real family of the great sailor, Admiral Zheng.
Sharifu is keen on returning to Kenya and help her family and community. She is keen to join politics and aspires to be a Senator.
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