Shelves at Chinese Market are fully stocked
By James D. Wolf Jr. Post-Tribune correspondent April 20, 2012 4:30PM
Owners Boting Mo and Jiajuan Guo inside their Chinese Market in Valparaiso, Ind., Friday April 6, 2012. They opened the store in January at 1105 Calumet Ave. | Andy Lavalley~Sun-Times Media
Where to shop
The Chinese Market is at 1105 Calumet Ave. in Valparaiso.
Updated: May 24, 2012 8:05AM
Although the city’s first Asian market opened in January, owners Boting Mo and Jiajuan Guo recently completed stocking it with everything they plan to sell, not just Asian foods but also jewelry, clothing and other nonfood items.
The store has Chinese, Japanese and Korean delicacies.
“Although it’s a Chinese market, we want it to become more of a cultural market,” Mo said.
They hope to start carrying fresh vegetables within the year and eventually also have a restaurant attached.
Although Mo will turn 20 in May, this is the Valparaiso University student’s second business. He co-owns the Center for Asian Studies and Martial Arts, where he was also an instructor.
The couple decided to open the Chinese Market because of the lack of nearby stores selling a range of Chinese goods and ingredients while Guo, who came from Nan Jing City, worked on her master’s degree in English studies and communications at V.U.
“I would always have to go into Chicago,” as would other Chinese students, Guo said.
Mo said, “We wanted to do something to benefit the Chinese students.”
The rest of the community has embraced the store.
“V.U. makes up about 10 percent of our business,” he said.
The couple also wanted to open their first business “while we’re both young,” she said.
The business will allow them to travel back and forth between China and the United States, too.
Mo said he’s sure others have thought of opening an Asian market because of the growing population of foreign students at VU.
“I think we just got a jump on everyone,” Mo said.
