Slain immigrant lived a dream, briefly

STANTONSBURG -- Song Ni's dream when he left New York five years ago was to open a restaurant and raise his family away from big city noise and crime.

Like many immigrants from China, Ni saw opportunity in small-town America. He knew that even a place as tiny as Stantonsburg, a Wilson County town of about 800 people, could support a hole-in-the-wall offering dumplings, General Tso's chicken and "Happy Family."

It's this shared vision that has propelled thousands of Chinese restaurant workers -- the vast majority from the southern coastal province of Fujian -- into cities and towns across America. They go where fast food chains often don't venture.

There are more than 43,000 Chinese restaurants across the country, according to the trade publication Chinese Restaurant News -- more than all the McDonald's, Burger Kings, Pizza Huts, Taco Bells and Wendy's combined.

But Ni's dream came to an end July 28 when robbers shot him dead in his home, just across the street from the Jin Jin Chinese Restaurant he owned. He was 34.

Ni's death has left his family devastated and many other Chinese restaurant workers questioning the security of operating in small towns.

Coming to America

Ni came to the United States in the early 1990s when he was about 19. He was following his father, who left Fujian about a decade earlier for New York. Chinatown had always been a good place to start for those with limited English.

Ni took a few English classes in Chinatown and worked in Chinese restaurants. In 2000, while he was working as a waiter at a Chinese buffet on Long Island, he met Mi Lin, a pretty young waitress from his home city of Fuzhou.

The two wed a year later. They never applied for a marriage license but took their vows in Chinatown before family and friends, almost all from the Chinese restaurant industry.

Shortly after the couple had their first child in 2002, they decided to move south.

"He wanted to open a small restaurant and make a little money so his loved ones could live together in a quiet environment," said Lin, 28. "New York was too noisy."

The family went first to Georgia, then to North Carolina. Ni's older sister previously had settled in Rocky Mount. In the beginning, Ni worked as a cook in restaurants around Wilson County. But in his spare time, he looked for his own place. One day he discovered Stantonsburg -- a town with no Chinese restaurant.

Ni leapt at the chance when a space opened in the town's commercial center, which has a coin-operated laundry, diner and Piggly Wiggly.

He bought a red-brick, three-bedroom house across the street for about $70,000 in June 2004. Its backyard abuts acres of cotton. The modest 1,334-square-foot building was big enough for his family and two cooks to live in. And living close to the restaurant made it easier for Ni, his wife and the two cooks to put in long hours seven days a week.

Ni mowed his lawn. Lin hung the clothes outside. When Ni's parents visited, they tended a small vegetable garden.

"The older father used to give us snow peas," said next-door neighbor Tim Isler, a bottle factory worker.

Multiculturalism

To a town that recorded no residents of Asian descent in the 2000 U.S. Census, Ni's restaurant added a new dimension of diversity.

Marguerite Whitley, 82, and her husband regularly ordered takeout from Ni and were fans of the generous portions.

Jin Jin's menu is not highly representative of Ni's home province. Fujianese cuisine more heavily favors seafood, such as fish, squid, shrimp, crab and lobster -- some of which Ni cooked in his own style for his family during off hours.