Unlike Guangzhou’s African community – who have faced prejudice and hostility – Yiwu’s foreign residents enjoy an ‘unusual freedom of worship’, with the municipal government even consulting international traders on city business

After dark on Exotic Street in China’s eastern city of Yiwu, three Yemeni boys crowd round a large charcoal barbecue rack selling lamb kebabs and baked breads. They order in confident Mandarin, chatting rapidly between themselves in Arabic.

Inside the adjoining Erbil restaurant, two Jordanian men share a plate heaped with barbecued meat and vegetables, while on the street corner two men sit smoking shisha pipes. The Zekeen supermarket sells both instant noodles and halal meat, and an African woman wearing a hijab carries out bags of shopping. Opposite, two young Russian women emerge from a shop that sells the unlikely combination of trainers and sex toys.

This mix of communities, religions and languages has augmented Yiwu’s reputation as one of China’s most multicultural cities; a risk-taking new frontier drawing fortune hunters from across the world. As Mark Jacobs puts it in his book Yiwu, China: A Study of the World’s Largest Small Commodities Market, “anything can be had for a dollar or a yuan”.