DAKAR, Senegal — Fresh out of college and frustrated by the paucity of job prospects at home, Cao Qihan, 23, did what generations of ambitious Chinese had done before him: He rolled the dice and ventured to a far-off, utterly unfamiliar land, where people speak languages he doesn’t understand.

But unlike compatriots chasing dreams of a better life in North America, Europe or Australia, Mr. Cao bought a plane ticket to Senegal, a country of 14 million that has about 2,000 Chinese residents.

Mr. Cao had relatives in Dakar, the capital, but little idea of what to expect.

“We Chinese think Africa is uncivilized and dangerous, but it’s turned out to not be so bad,” he said just weeks after his arrival, as he stuffed dumplings at his family’s restaurant in Dakar’s expanding Chinatown. “I think I’ll stay awhile.”

These days, more than 200 Chinese-owned shops line Boulevard du Général de Gaulle, a gritty thoroughfare that slices through the middle-class neighborhood of Centenaire and ends at the city’s imposing Grand Mosque.