北京到布加勒斯特，地理距离八千七百四十五公里。十年前，北京人Jimmy Jin怀揣着创业梦跨过了这段距离。10年后，他在布加建立起自己的餐饮帝国，生意可观。然而他说，“我在罗马尼亚生活了10年。我觉得在这里，我依然是个陌生人。”

文/Simina Mistreanu

A few years ago, Jimmy Jin looked at the Chinese restaurant market in Bucharest and noticed that the most popular brands were owned by a Romanian and a Lebanese, respectively. He decided he wanted to be on the market himself and perform better than the competition.

Jin, 30, has been an expat in Romania for 10 years. A Beijing native, he and his family have built several businesses in southeastern Europe before he decided to focus on creating a restaurant chain: Kungfu King.

Jimmy Jin，今年30岁，是一个土生土长的北京人，在罗马尼亚已经生活了10年。几年前，他偶然发现在罗马尼亚首都布加勒斯特，最受欢迎的中餐馆反而被罗马尼亚人和黎巴嫩人垄断。他决定加入竞争。

Kungfu King is one of the upper-scale Chinese restaurants in Bucharest and caters mostly to corporate professionals at one of its locations, and to families at its other location. The third restaurant is to be open this month.

Jin的Kungfu King在布加勒斯特是一家高档中餐厅。消费人群主要是公司白领以及附近居民。

I met Jin yesterday at his restaurant near Victoriei Square, Bucharest’s main business neighborhood. His story is similar to that of foreigners who saw promise in Romania’s newly opened markets and decided to build businesses here.

他的故事跟那些在罗马尼亚的新兴市场中看到希望并且开始扎根创业的外国人一样。

His parents came to Romania in 1998 to recover some old debt. They noticed that the market was underdeveloped, nine years after the end of communism, and decided to start importing clothes from China. Later on, they expanded into Greece, but business didn’t go that well there.

1998年，为了偿债，他的父母来到罗马尼亚。当时，罗马尼亚的市场非常不发达。于是他们开始从中国进口衣服，做起贸易。

Jin joined them in 2005. Four years later, he wanted to start his own business in the construction field, but it required too high of an investment, so he settled for a restaurant.

2005年，Jin加入父母的生意。四年后，他开始想在建筑领域创业，然而这需要太高的资金投入，于是他开始转做餐饮。

“In the first three months, I did all the jobs: cook, cleaner, manager,” he says.

“在前三个月里，我干过所有的活儿：厨师、清洁工、经理。”

He eventually brought five cooks from China and started building his brand.

最终，他从中国招来了五名厨师，开始建立自己的品牌。

Doing business in Romania is much easier than in China, Jin says. On one hand, bureaucracy is not as bad. On the other, success here is not so dependent on relationships – 关系 – as it is in China.

“在罗马尼亚做生意要轻松很多。一方面，手续没有那么繁杂，另一方面，商业的成功没有那么依赖关系。”

Bucharest has clean air, and people are warm, Jin says. But it hasn’t all been sunshine and butterflies.

“布加勒斯特有新鲜的空气和热心的人们。但是生活从来不是只有鲜花和掌声。”

“I’ve been tricked a lot here – by friends, by business partners, by acquaintances, by lawyers, by landlords,” he says. He’s realized that many of the friends he’s made here were after their own interests, and that has been hard to swallow.

“我被玩的很惨——被朋友、商业伙伴、熟人、律师还有房东。”他意识到他在这里结交的朋友，很多都是有自己的心思的，他们非常逐利。这一点对他来说很难接受。

“I’ve lived in Romania for 10 years, and I still feel like a stranger,” he says. “I’ve recently spent a few months in the U.S., and I felt right at home there.”

“我在罗马尼亚生活了10年，现在我依然觉得自己是个陌生人。最近的几个月我在美国度过，在那里我会有家的感觉。”

Nevertheless, he sees a future in this country and hopes to contribute to improving the education system. He also regularly gets involved in community work through his church.

尽管如此，他还是看到了这个国家的希望，并且希望帮助完善它的教育系统。他也开始参与到社区工作中。

But when his wife, Dana Lee, became pregnant, they both decided she should give birth in the United States so that the child could have American citizenship.

妻子Dana Lee的怀孕让Jin决定在美国产子，这样孩子就是美国公民。

“If he wants, he can live in Europe with us, or he can go back to China, or he can go live in the U.S.,” Jin said of his 1-week-old son Justin. “I want him to have all the doors open for him.”

Jin的儿子Justin现在一周大。“只要他想，他就可以待在欧洲，跟我们一起生活。他也可以回到中国，或者去美国生活。我想给他留出尽可能多的选择空间，由他自己去决定未来要走的路。”