To early residents of Shekou, the Nanshan District area that pioneered China’s reform and opening-up policy, the small, exotic bar street with dim, flickering lights near Sea World likely is part of their memories from decades ago, when Chinese and foreign oil companies started to set up bases in Shekou for their projects in the South China Sea. Now, with the facelift of the Sea World area nearing completion, that once small bar and restaurant street has transformed, and so have owners’ businesses. Shenzhen Daily reporter Cathy Mo tells the stories of three expats who met with Shenzhen Party chief Wang Rong on Nov. 3, during Wang’s visit to Shekou, to discuss their successful, long-term business operations in the city’s most populous international community. Benefitting from China’s policy of opening up to the outside world, Leon Durupt, Angelo Caroppo and John Guy have created success stories that have let them realize their dreams in China.

    Leon Durupt, musician and bar manager

    To the surprise of a Shenzhen Daily reporter, Canadian Leon Durupt, general manager of The Terrace bar and restaurant, started a recent interview with a simple question about how to proceed.

    “In English or Chinese?”

    His familiarity with the Chinese language reflects Durupt’s long history in China.

    “In the early years of the 1990s, I started to think that there might be a good niche for me as a musician to stay and make a living in China,” Durupt recalled while sitting in a chair at The Terrace, which specializes in Thai food and energetic live music. “For a musician, the 30-million-people Canada market is really small and competition is strong. I came to Shanghai in 1996 with a long-term plan to learn the Chinese language and get to know the people and the culture.”

    Durupt moved to Qingdao in 1998 and, around 2001, got the idea of becoming a businessman and running a bar or restaurant instead of being only a singer. Durupt thought Qingdao might be a good place for him to start, because he had become famous in Qingdao after acting as a Canadian doctor in the hot TV series “Chinese-Style Divorce” around 2004. He later wrote a Qingdao Olympic song for CCTV 5.

    But then an American friend asked him to take a look at Shenzhen. He traveled south and found a vibrant, open, high-tech city, a special economic zone that was home to many young people and convenient for flights with its proximity to Hong Kong and Macao. He finally settled down in Shekou, the community with the city’s biggest expat population and a different European feeling from other parts of the city.

    He started The Terrace, the first live music bar in western Shenzhen, in partnership with two other Canadians and an American in December 2005.

    “It was not at all as easy as we had thought. We made no profit in the first year.”

    Durupt said he flew twice to Manila to find the right mix of singers and musicians. Trying to offer the best music experience possible, he and his partners invested some 3 million yuan (US$49.18 million) in the bar, including the sound system and acoustics.

    As a singer, Durupt performed with the band every evening. “But in 2007, I struggled when I had some polyps on my shengdai (vocal chords). I had a small operation and since then my role has changed a lot. As the general manager, I had to learn the day-to-day business, communicate with the staff and customers, and deal with complaints and government issues. I did paperwork for six months without talking because of the operation. I was lucky that I could come back to the stage,” Durupt said.

    He’s now looking positively toward the future. “Starting in 2007, the business became stable and climbing. I believe that after 2014, when the whole Sea World Square facelift project is completed, more people will come from other sides of the city to see the mysterious Shekou,” he said, in an upbeat mood. “My business is expected to be rocking.”

    “As foreigners living in China, we feel lucky to have the chance to make a living here,” he said, repeating what he told Wang Rong at The Terrace on Nov. 3.

    Angelo Caroppo, passionate gastronome and trattoria owner

    Stepping into the Trattoria Italiana Da Angelo restaurant in the Excellence Century Building in the Futian CBD, diners find themselves in a classic Italian atmosphere. First, they are greeted by Italian statues, then they’re overwhelmed by beautiful Italian opera, large frescoes depicting stories from ancient Italian history and family photos hanging on most of the walls and pillars.

    Angelo Caroppo is a passionate lover of food and owner of the Italian restaurant.

    “I was born in a small southern Italian city and I loved the farmers, farms and organic food. I started to cook dishes when I was a kid,” Caroppo told Shenzhen Daily. “The first time I came to Shenzhen with my then Chinese girlfriend, I decided to bring a piece of Italy to Shekou,” Caroppo said.

    He developed a romance with Ningbo woman Zhu Manying while they were traveling in Kampuchea, Cambodia, in early 2005, and then followed her to her workplace in Shenzhen.

    The Italian man is not without confidence in the restaurant business.

    He got involved in the field in Germany at the age of 18, and then traveled to Los Angeles in the United States to run a small restaurant that only served lunch.

    What still makes him proud is that during this period of 14 years, he was a private chef for big Hollywood names including Mel Brooks, Steven Seagal and Bill Cosby while they were on movie sets.

    The first Trattoria Italiana Da Angelo opened in the Sea World area in December 2005. “We named the restaurant Trattoria because we would like to provide a feeling of home to expats in Shenzhen,” he said.

    The restaurant became quite popular among expats in Shekou for its authenticity, but it still took quite some time for diners to follow the restaurant to downtown Futian, where Caroppo opened his second trattoria in 2007. It was also in 2007 that he married his Chinese girlfriend Zhu.

    “At that time the area was not quite developed, with construction sites here and there,” Caroppo said. “It was a torturing world for me in the first two unprofitable years. I put all my life in it. I cooked myself. I was there waiting for my guests. I thought they might need some more time to find me, and two years later, some people started to come.”

    In 2011, Caroppo set up his third trattoria in OCT Bay.

    Summing up his experience, Caroppo said big success always comes with big amount of work.

    “If you want to be somebody in this business, you need to put a lot of ingredients inside. You have to be faithful to your guests, you have to be loyal to the job, you have to dedicate your life,” he said. “If you don’t have a passion you cannot do it.”

    Caroppo’s wife said Trattoria Italiana Da Angelo will consider expansion to other cities when its management expertise gets further developed.