After graduating from high school, Ghasemi Soleiman came to China and studied dentistry in Wuhan for five years. On a fortuitous chance, he visited Yiwu, which impressed him as a city full of unlimited business opportunities. He then moved to Yiwu Industrial and Commercial College (YICC) to study business Chinese. In Yiwu, he plans to open a trading company after graduation and engage in import and export trade.
Yiwu: A city that makes dreams come true
In Lizu village of Yiwu, Soleiman has his livestreaming office where he records videos about Chinese culture with his friends. These videos have amassed a following among international viewers on social media platforms like YouTube and Instagram. Ghasemi's YouTube account has over one million followers.
In order to show the Chinese culture he loves so much to more people around the world, Soleiman shoots short videos about tea leaves, brown sugar, and other local specialties. He's also highlighted Yiwu's rural development and preparations for the Asian Games in several of his videos. Each video explains the culture behind and developmental trends of each topic. Thanks to his videos, many people internationally are increasingly learning about the actual China, while also overcoming common stereotypes about the country.
Next year, Soleiman plans to launch an online shopping platform, Habibi, which means "dear" in his native language. He noted that a number of such platforms are already available in the UAE and the Middle East, although the variety of Chinese products is very limited on them. As a result, Soleiman wants to promote a wider range of high-quality Chinese products through his platform."Habibi consists of a young team, and we'll be contributing to the development of Yiwu's agricultural industry through live broadcasting about local farmers and products," He explained.
In the world of business since 15-year-old
The 25-year-old Soleiman has 10 years of business experience, thanks to the fact that he was born into a family oriented towards business and social connections. He has been studying Arabic, Farsi, Chinese, and Turkish since he was a child, and learned to do business with his father from the age of 15.
Soleiman grew up in Abu Dhabi, and his father is Arabic and his mother is Iranian. In his culture, boys are disciplined very strictly at home. In Arabic philosophy, girls need care like flowers, while boys should learn to be independent and take up the burden of family from an early age.
Going to more places, learning more Chinese culture
Early in his life, Soleiman learned about China through martial arts movies. Only later, after doing some research online and talking with many of his friends who had been to China, he developed the impression that China is a country with great prospects for development that is suitable for learning and for doing business. Thus, he decided to attend college in China.
Following the idea that "seeing is believing", Soleiman is convinced that to really understand a place, one must go there in person. Especially for businesspeople, if they want to do business in a place, they must understand and integrate into the local culture.
During his eight years in China, Soleiman has traveled from the icy and snowy northeast of China to the capital Beijing to the desert regions of Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region in the west, as well as to Sanya and Hong Kong in the south. He discovered that not only does each place in China have its own dialect, but also a rich variety of cultural differences.
"China is vast and presents so many different cultures. I still don't know enough about it. In the future, I will visit more places to learn more about local cultures and to live in China and develop well. This is my greatest wish," he said.
(Text and photos by Jiang Xinyi, translated by Marco Lovisetto, edited by Kendra Fiddler)
