Nathan VanderKlippe
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (Jan 11/02) - Jimmy Kong is sitting in the dimly-lit dining room at the Corner Mart.

He closes up an English-Chinese dictionary, placing it on the floor by his chair.

He has been in Yellowknife for 14 years now, but he is still seeking to better his English, his third language beside Mandarin and Cantonese.

That sort of continual desire for learning drives much of what Kong does.

Coming here in 1987 after a few years spent in Vancouver -- where he also owned a restaurant -- Kong came up for work. He liked the freshness of the natural surroundings and soon got into the restaurant business again.

He steadily bought up locations that fit into different market niches -- everything from the Connector at the airport to Bruno's Pizza. Now he has ownership of seven restaurants in town -- he owns several outright and co-owns the rest.

He only buys a location if he thinks he can spin a profit on it.

Kong works 16-hour days, bouncing between restaurants to help out wherever he is needed. He says he runs his restaurants on a foundation of respect, toward his clients and employees.

But he doesn't like to maintain a high-profile, relying on a sense of self-satisfaction. "If you're strong, you're always strong inside and you don't have to show that off."

Kong loves to cook.

"I like food," he said. "It's art -- French, Italian, Chinese. If there's a recipe I don't know I (look it up) on the Internet."

In fact, the computer is his main hobby: he enjoys designing Web pages. He even has one page with lyrics to popular Cantonese songs.

His goal, he says, is simply "to make myself comfortable." But to do that, he needs to keep dreaming and expanding.

"If you stop and satisfy yourself, you are finished," he said. To keep going, "you keep making mistakes, you keep learning."