As financial junkies continue to worry about the state of the market, a few (brave) Chinese souls have crossed land and sea to open new restaurants in the most dangerous city on earth: Baghdad. In a city that serves nothing but Arab goods and services, one might question their likelihood of success, their safety and perhaps even their sanity. Nonetheless, these men and women from Hubei, who speak neither Arabic nor English, seek profit where no man dares to tread, just like their fellow Chinese in Africa.
Local Iraqis are more than happy to host their guests, for they feel that foreign presence might possibly draw violence closer to an end. Customers go in and out the restaurant befuddled with curiosity, but only curiosity. These hardworking Chinese, who left behind wives and children to open the $200 Baghdad restaurant, neither serve food that cater to Arab diets nor own enough Arabic decorations that appeal to its customers aesthetically. The previous occupant had opened a shop on the premises that sold alcohol. He had only given up his business because he was seized and beheaded for selling the prohibited beverage.
Yet Chinese restaurants in Iraq is not exactly a novel idea. Chen Xianzhong, hailing from China's Jilin Province, studied Arabic in Beijing University and became the proprietor of Baghdad's first authentic Chinese restaurant. Chen's relationship with Iraq came after the Gulf War, when he traded textile goods in Baghdad's bazaars. After the Iraq War, which disrupted his business, he spent all his money on building two Chinese restaurants and a hotel. But that proved too much for him, even though he had spent most of his life in Iraq. He was almost kiddnapped, as were many Chinese civilians during the chaos, and his restaurants were car-bombed. He suffered from many setbacks, but his only reason for not leaving Iraq was not because of money, rather his love for the country.
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