Dubai: No mention of the Chinese community can be complete without a visit to the vibrant and electric Dragon Mart in Dubai.
The 1.2km dragon-shaped mall, symbolising wealth and good luck, is always buzzing with the energy of the community. Customers can find almost everything under one roof in any of its 4,000 shops spread in blocks A to J.
Ranging from electrical appliances, interior decor and architectural accessories to clothes, medicines and garden accessories, the Dragon Mart is a shopper’s delight.
Most shopowners live in the China Cluster of the neighbouring International City.
If you are looking for seamstresses, translators, masseurs, computer technicians, Chinese chefs and Feng Shui masters, you need only drop a word at one of the shops at the Dragon Mart and sure enough they will source the right person for you from the expansive residential area.
Two generations of Chinese families now live and trade in the neighbourhood.
Arabic touch
A large section of Arabic-speaking Chinese come from Ningxia province.
Many of them are followers of Islam and feel at home with the culture and the language.
Younus Ma Bing, 22, came to Dubai to join his uncle’s Chinese herb business.
They own six small kiosks in the Dragon Mart, selling a variety of herbs and pills such as spirulina tea and beauty products. “A lot of these herbs are fast-selling items and I feel quite at home here because I am fluent in Arabic and am able to converse with customers,” Younus said.
Beauty secret
Mariam Wen Yan Ma, 27, a sales girl at a beauty products kiosk in Dragon Mart also from Ningxia Province studied Arabic at her local university and lives in the International City with her husband and child.
“I am able to work at the Dragon Mart because this place is so close to my home. I am looking forward to celebrating the New Year with family and so many other Chinese friends here in our community,” she said.
Bang Yun Dong, 40, has been in Dubai since 2005.
He came here as a tourist and settled down here, opening a small sanitaryware shop at the Dragon Mart initially. “My business did so well that we expanded our business and now my family is involved in it,” says the trader who shuttles between the two countries and lives in the China Cluster in the International City.
Fashion sense
Lu Wan Jiang Xiang, 22, came to Dubai from the south of China after high school to join her parents — father Hongling Wu and mother Wan Hui Wan.
She graduated from a Dubai college, improved her English and now helps out at the fashion garment shop along with her sister Sijia.
Lu loves the fashion sense of young college girls in Dubai.
“Initially, I did not like being in Dubai. I still miss my friends and cousins in China. But I like the cosmopolitan culture of this place and now have picked up good English language skills which help me in the business,” she says.
Multi-tasking
Wang Quan, 27, a teaching assistant from Beijing came to Dubai a year ago to teach Mandarin to non-Chinese at the Chinese Language Centre.
She loves teaching the nuances of the language, but has also started her own travel agency business.
“While teaching Mandarin I have now picked up conversational English and it makes me so happy,” she says
Chan Yan Hang, 32, the manager of an interior decoration shop at the Dragon Mart, is looking forward to spending time with his family in Shanxi province as he his taking time off from work.
“But I will be back as I have spent four years here. I like the warm and sunny weather and find the Emirati people very friendly and hospitable.
