The argument in the kitchen cut through the house and interrupted my writing. I was living in N’Djamena to conduct research and renting a room in the house of a Chinese businessman. When I went to see what was happening, Abakar, the Chadian cook told me he had been accused of stealing meat that he had been instructed to throw away the day before.

What appeared, at first glance, as a personal dispute over food was in fact one instance of a much broader and highly contested issue: the everyday employment relationships between Chinese employers and local workers in African contexts, particularly when those relationships unfold in private and poorly regulated spaces.

Debates over Chinese enterprises in Africa have long focused on wages, infrastructure, and geopolitics. Far less visible, yet equally consequential, are employment relationships that take place inside private homes rather than factories or construction sites. Cooks, guards, cleaners, and other household workers often fall into non-formal or semi-formal categories of labor, governed less by written contracts than by personal authority. In Chad, this invisibility has become more pronounced with the reinforcement of localization requirements under national labor and sectoral regulations, including the Labor Code (Code du Travail du Tchad) and localization provisions linked to the petroleum and extractive industries. While these measures increase reliance on national labor, they leave domestic and household employment largely outside effective oversight. As a result, conflicts over responsibility, trust, and discipline are rarely mediated through institutions and are instead managed through personal judgment.

Abakar’s situation reflected this dynamic clearly. There was no defined system for managing food supplies, no agreed boundary between waste and use, and no written description of his responsibilities. Accusations of theft extended beyond meat to eggs and peanuts, reinforcing a generalized suspicion that local workers were inclined to take advantage of their employers. This suspicion did not emerge in isolation. It was actively reinforced by other Chinese businessmen, who warned against becoming “too soft” and advised constant vigilance. In response, managerial control replaced clarity. Cooking tasks were combined with cleaning duties, and mistakes were interpreted as moral failings rather than organizational ambiguity.

After months of accumulated tension, Abakar abruptly resigned for his dignity. On the day he left, the conflict escalated sharply, and the dispute was eventually taken to the police. From the outside, this reaction appeared excessive. Within the context of an employment relationship governed almost entirely by suspicion and informal power, it was less surprising.

Abakar’s previous work experience with another Chinese employer, Lian, told a different, hopeful story. Workers remained for many years, turnover was low, and disputes rarely escalated. Lian did not deny that workers occasionally took small amounts of food, nor did he pretend that poverty was irrelevant. Instead of responding with constant surveillance, he invested in training. Workers were taught professional kitchen standards, hygiene protocols, and additional skills such as driving and basic maintenance. Responsibilities were defined in advance, and authority operated within predictable limits.

Under Lian’s arrangement, the cook did more than acquire professional skills. With stable expectations and clear responsibilities, he was able to organize his days, manage his income, and maintain a sense of dignity that extended beyond the kitchen.

Yet life and work cannot be fully separated in domestic employment. When work takes place inside private homes, professional boundaries are easily dissolved by everyday intimacy. I saw this in another household, where a Chinese employer, Hong, lived and ate together with a much younger local cook. Their relationship was built on closeness rather than rules. Responsibilities were loosely defined, work discipline gradually weakened, and frustrations accumulated quietly on both sides. When the relationship eventually broke down, it ended in open conflict and a bitter departure. What had begun as care and generosity turned into resentment, not because of ill intent, but because work and life had never been clearly separated.

In tones of both Chinese employers and Chadian workers, these conflicts are often explained through personality, culture, or intent. Yet what is striking across different households is not who behaves better but who ends up performing the work of regulation. Chinese employers are more prone to conflict not because they lack a sense of rules but because they are more often pushed into highly exposed domestic arrangements, where institutional mediation is absent and governance is effectively privatized.

One evening, after leaving his job, Abakar reflected on these experiences in his own words:“Working with Chinese bosses requires patience,” he said. “Not because of culture, but because work is personal when rules are missing. When everything depends on mood or trust, conflict is only a matter of time.”