ROAD & HOME

Courtesy : CNN ( 15 August 2012 )

AUGUST INVITATION

Warrior God Wins a Battle

The Telegraph ( Metro , page 17 )

 Calcutta , 13 August 2012 , Monday

Chinese church reopens after a decade of litigation

The spirit of a Chinese warrior god and the resilience of a community have helped save a church dedicated to the deity in the heart of the city after a decade of litigation.

Lamps were lit and the hum of prayers echoed in the freshly painted hall of the Toong On Church at 22 Blackburn Lane, off New CIT Road in central Calcutta, on Saturday for the first time since the building got dragged into a property dispute.

“Our efforts to save our church have paid off. We are delighted,“ Li Han Kuang, the secretary of the Toong On Church, told Metro. The first prayer session marked the birth anniversary of the deity, Guan Di. A dragon dance and a feast followed the prayers.

The battle to save the church may have been won but the war is far from over for the Chinese, whose population in the city has dwindled to less than 2,000.

Two garbage vats in the vicinity of the church have marred the joy of winning back the building. “We have started a movement to restore the sanctity of the place,“ said Dominic Lee, a resident.

Construction of the church had started in 1917 and the structure was completed in 1924.
“It used to be the nucleus of the vibrant Chinese culture in the city,“ said secretary Kuang.

According to Kuang, the church had rented out the ground floor to a Chinese businessman in the Forties to generate funds for its upkeep.
He opened an eatery named Nanking.

The going was smooth till 2000, when the businessman's grandson Au Yau Wah tried to sell off the property.

The dispute went to court and dragged till Wah's death.
The community got back possession of the church last month after both sides withdrew their cases.

Toong Oon Prayer Meeting

The Chinese community held a service before the Toong Oon Temple , on 15th July 2012 and then went inside the temple ...

The actual condition just outside Toong Oon Temple, even after a whole day of trying to remove the garbage that was piled there

Paying Homage at the door before entering into the Temple itself

Congregation at the Entrance Door of the Temple

The Beautiful statute of Kuan Yin, as seen by the devotees after a
period of 2 years

Under the Candle Lights for the Offering Ceremony

Offering to Kuan Yin at the Alter

SAVE OUR TOONG ON CHURCH

TOONG ON CHURCH , KOLKATA

22, BLACK BURN LANE, KOLKATA 700 012

From

HUMILIATION

SHOW SOME RESPECT TO THE HERITAGE MONUMENT OF THE INDIAN CHINESE COMMUNITY

STOP CONSTRUCTION OF THE GARBAGE DUMP AND PUBLIC TOILET

    保 留 我 們 的 東 安 關 帝 廟 ，

在 22, BLACK BURN小 路 ，KOLKATA 700 012

從 羞 辱 .

顯 示 尊 重 我 們 的 印度 中 國 社 區 的 遺 產 紀 念 碑

停 止 建 設 廢 料 垃 圾 堆 和 公 共 廁 所 。

    
In Simplified form :

保 留 我 们 的 东 安 关 庙 ，

在 22,BLACK BURN 小 路，KOLKATA 700 012

从 羞 辱 .

显 示 尊 重 我  们 的 印  度中 国 社 区 的  遗 产 纪 碑

停 止 建 设  废 料 垃 圾 堆 和 公  共 厕  所 。

Overseas Fliers

Buddha Light Temple

Innaguration of the new Buddha Light Temple at Tangra on 29 th April 2012

HOLIDAY IN CHINA THIS SUMMER

CHINA HOLIDAY PACKAGE FOR CHINESE PEOPLE IN KOLKATA

Can Contact :

Mr.Sanjoy Bose
Branch Head - Leisure Travel
Zenith Leisure Holidays Ltd

68, Ballygunj Circular Road, Annapurna, 7th floor, Kolkata 700019

mobile +91 98305 19768 | phone 033 40143916 | skype - sanjoy65

www.zenithholidays.com

4G & ZTE

Bharti Airtel launched India's first TD LTE / 4G services in Kolkata yesterday ( April 10 , 2012 ). ZTE, the Chinese telecom equipment maker, will be the backbone of its network in Kolkata .

Mr. Cui Liangjun, Chief Executive Officer, ZTE India said, “We are glad to be a part of Airtel’s foray into LTE services for the first time in India. ZTE is fully determined to build a strong LTE ecosystem that offers a scintillating experience for Internet users.”

TD-LTE ( Time-Division Long-Term Evolution ) is China's home-grown 4-G mobile-telecommunications technology and standard co-developed, since late 2007, by Datang Telecom, China Mobile, Huawei, ZTE, Nokia Siemens Networks, Alcatel Shanghai Bell, Qualcomm, ST-Ericsson, Leadcore.

ZTE is a leader in developing LTE technologies and till date has applied for 381 essential patents (EPs) for LTE standards, which account for approximately seven percent of the total number of EP applications globally. The organization offers a full range of LTE base stations, including widely distributed macro stations. It has won 30 contracts for LTE commercial application and has deployed test networks in cooperation with more than 100 operators across the globe.

TD-LTE offers asymmetric use of unpaired spectrum.It allocates separate channels for outward and return signals, emulating full-duplex transmission over a half-duplex communication link.

Ethnic Chinese Population

‘Quit India’ orders: the waning of the ethnic Chinese population in India

| Talk by Kwai-Yun Li |
Photos by Vidura Bahadur

9th Feb | Thursday | 6 pm |
Ants Cafe
( Behind New Horizon School )
100 Feet Road
Indiranagar | Bangalore

( organised by maraa in collaboration with The Ants Cafe )

All are welcome

About the Talk:

The first Chinese immigrated to India from China in the 1770s. Others followed. These Chinese settled mostly in Calcutta. In the early 1800s, the East India Company decided to convert the jungle in Assam into tea plantations. They recruited “tea planters” from China. The Chinese immigrants continued to arrive in India. In the early 1950s, they could be found in the cities like Delhi, Bombay and Calcutta and in tea plantations and towns in the foothills of the Himalayas, like Makum, Darjeeling and Shillong.

On October 20, 1962, the Chinese and Indian armies clashed in NEFA (North-East Frontier Agency, modern day Arunachal Pradesh) in the north-east and Aksai Chin in the north-west. The Indian Army suffered a humiliating defeat. The Indian government interned over 2,000 Chinese residents in Deoli Detention Camp, Rajasthan; deported an equal number to China and enacted a series of anti-Chinese ordinances and laws.


This talk is an attempt to tell the story of an ethnic minority group caught in a border dispute.


About Kwai-Yun Li: Kwai’s parents immigrated from Moi Yen, China to Calcutta, India in the 1920s. The youngest of nine children, she was born in the sleeping alcove at the back of the family shoe-shop in Calcutta. She immigrated to Toronto in 1972 and became an accountant. While working in accounting, Kwai returned to school and became a writer. More about her on www.kwaiyunli.com


About Vidura Jang Bahadur: Vidura was born in Lusaka, Zambia and has travelled extensively across India and China over the last decade. His interests lie in exploring ideas close to him and experimenting with storytelling, form and format. He is currently working on a photography project on the Chinese Indian community that will culminate in a book and an exhibition.



maraa presents Pause-in Times of Conflict, a monthly forum for reflection on creative practices in places of conflict. So far, they have paused to explore creative practices and explorations in Palestine, Iraqi Kurdistan, Kabul and Kashmir and The Emergency. In January they paused at dub poetry - a form of oral poetry spoken and performed on various subjects including protest against racism and police brutality, the celebration of sexuality etc. www.maraa.in

This month they are pausing at stories of the Chinese-Indian community caught in the 1962 border war through a talk by Kwai-Yun Li .


Pause is a non-funded initiative, it is only with your support we can sustain this forum.

REPUBLIC DAY

HAPPY NEW YEAR 4710

Chinese New Year falls on Monday, January 23, 2012

Chinese New Year is popularly known as Spring Festival. It usually starts from late January and early February. The variation in the date of festival is due to the changes in the track of the new moon.

Chinese New Year starts with the New Moon on the first day of the new year and ends on the full moon 15 days later. The 15th day of the new year is celebrated as the Lantern Festival.

2012 marks the 4710 th Chinese New Year, and this time it is the year of dragon according to the Chinese zodiac calendar.

The dragon is the 5th sign of the Chinese zodiac and it is regarded as an auspicious symbol which stands for power, good luck, success, and happiness.

C O N F U C I U S

Touch of Dynasty

On the occasion of the centenary celebration of the Overthrowing of Qing Dynasty, how Dr. Sun Yat Sen touched me in my youth



All young student is expected to at least do their study, yet this kind of expectation is usually untenable to the young student, for what matter to them is to be free to play and to eat when they are hungry; and they seems to be always hungry.

The years of my schooling pasted without much significant events, a few here and there, with the exception of one normal incident that turn out to have leaved a permanent impression in my life.

It was normal as a student of class IV in a Chinese school, to be given a chapter to learn by heart as home task. On that particular occasion, most of my classmates did what we usually do. I, on my part did not even turn the book.

Next day, our class teacher promptly calls us up to find out whether the task was comply with. Soon he found many of us wanting. The defaulters were punished by a few strokes with a warning that it should not be repeated. If it were repeated in the future a tougher punishment would be given.

When my turn came, I was also found wanting. Instead of getting a few strokes of canning which should be painful I was spared. I was told to knee before the big photo of our National Father till I am told to get up. Time passes slowly, and it became more and more uncomfortable as it dragged on.

After one period of class it had become embarrassing, at the second period it had transformed into shame. Finally, I became the most noticeable shameless student of the class.

When I found it nearly unbearable, I picked up enough courage to ask my teacher for the reason which merited my special punishment.

What happened, till today, his words rang out loud and clear as it was yesterday, although it happened some 60 years ago ?

I was told to have a good look of the image of the person in the photo and identify him. I acknowledge him to be none other than Dr. Sun Yet-Sen, the National Father of China, It did not make any more than that his was responsible for the overthrowing of Qing Dynasty.

Then the teacher told me firmly that I ought to be ashamed and apologies to this great man who had sacrificed so much for the liberation of our nation. For I have not even care to use the talents that I have and have not even try to be a person I am to be. It is a shame for anyone who do not develop oneself and to be of service in the world we live in.

Somehow I could not help but to start to feel the shamelessness, worthlessness and uselessness. Tears soon followed, and with my teacher’s gentle prompting I made up my mind to do my best in the future by following his example of selflessness and perseverance in doing what I am born to do. From then onward I never failed to do my best and in the best of my ability.

Looking back, I realized on that fateful day I was touched by him whom I hardly know personally, but was so overwhelmed by his personality and example.

On recalling what happened that day, when he had touched and changed my attitude of life. I am proud and grateful to the Almighty for Dr. Sun Yet-sen and my teacher who cared and took the interest of the student’s future. I thank them for evermore.


PS : Dr. Sun Yat Sen was born on 12-11-1866 in the village of Cuiheng, Xianshang county, Guangzhou, Guangdong Province, China; which is 26 km north of Macau. But a certificate of birth issued by Hawaii that he was born in Kingdom of Hawaii on 24-11-1870, but the claim of Hawaii birth was based on typewritten testimony, and without any documentation from witnesses. He died on 12-3-1925 after illness in Beijing, China.

Treasures Of Ancient China

India and China, the two wonderful ancient civilizations of the world, is more than two millennium years old. The two countries were connected through the ancient ‘silk route’. But introduction of Buddhism in China from India was the most eventful incidence in the mutual relationship that triggered making of Buddhist art and architecture in China and the travel to India by the Chinese Buddhist monks like Fa-Xian, Zunzangand Izing.

To extend the historical tradition of friendly exchanges between the two countries, the year 2006 was declared as Indo-China Friendship Year and a significant component of it was the organization of exhibition on “Treasures of Ancient India” during 2006-07 in the four cities of China-Beijing, Zhengzhou, Chongqing and Guangzhou. The exhibition of about 100 artifacts was a microcosmic presentation of Indian art offered to the Chinese people at their doors. In reciprocation, an exhibition on “Treasures of Ancient China” has been organized this year (2011) in four cities of India - New Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad and Kolkata. The exhibition has been jointly organized by the Archaeological Survey of India and the State Administration of Cultural Heritage of China. It showcases about 95 antiquities in various art forms ranging from Neolithic to the Qing Dynasty. The range of Chinese exhibits in the exhibition, which will be at the National Library , Kolkata from 8 th Sep to 7 th Nov 2011, is very large, covering jade objects, porcelains, decorative elements, terracotta, metal ware etc.

The exhibition is aimed at further strengthening the bond of friendship between people of the two nations.

Venue :

Belvedere House , National Library
Alipore , Kolkata - 700027
9 th Sep - 7 th Nov , 2011
( 10 am - 5 pm )
Phone : 2479 1381 / 82 / 83 / 84

I n d e p e n d e n c e

On the invitation for 64th Independence Day Celebration by West Bengal Governor

The invitation arrived bringing a sudden and somewhat similar feeling as those of the Virgin Mary at her visit to her cousin Elizabeth who was carrying a child.

The humble sensation of unworthiness brought forth by the bestowing of significant for being remembered in this great and unique occasion is the honour on behalf of the Chinese Community in Kolkata.

In a way this has shatter ambiguousness and darkness that held by us in spite of being born and lived in this land of our birth. With this some ray light and hope emerges to encourage us.
It is the beginning that has to bring us hopes for our future as citizen. We do hope the message of hope and understand will become stronger, with the removal of undue suspicion so that will bring forth the more enthusiasm and strength to fulfill our contribution as proud citizen of India.

JAI HIND !!

G L I M S E

Lost Tribe

By Ming Tung Hsieh

Published: April, 2011
Pages: 252
ISBN: 9781456773380

This book is part memoir, part un-usual history of India and China, with lot of untold true stories about a small and an unique tribe that used to live in Calcutta’s (now Kolkata since 2001) China Town for as long back as the city of Calcutta which was established by the British East India Company in the 18th century, about the poignant story of an once vibrant tribe that was systematically rounded up by their thousands, women, children and infants included, then transported in special trains to a concentration camp in Rajasthan when a short sharp war broke out between India and China in 1962, many more were arrested in the middle of the night, taken to border and pushed across to China for deportation, even though many of them had never been or seen China before, such ethic-cleansing like measure were resorted to until it become a lost tribe. Emphasizing the fact that they were mostly small traders, shopkeepers & skillful craftsmen, diligently working and contributing to the local economy, never indulged in any antinational activity, yet when the far away border dispute cropped up between the governments of India and China, they were summarily arrested because of their ethnicity, this book also has many untold stories narrated by inmates of the only concentration camp interning the ethnic Chinese civilians during the later half of the 20th century, about how they lived, ate and stubbornly not giving up hope of being able to come out of it alive some day. When writing this book which had taken him more than four years of research and search for the relevant men and materials, he maintained that maximum care was taken to be as accurate and truthful as possible, he dedicates this book to the memory of the lost tribe as well as to the survivors from, and all those who did not survived in that wretched concentration camp

Mission Focus on Chinatown, Kolkata

The Telegraph , Calcutta
21 June 2011 , Tuesday
page 18 ( METRO )

Can also read at : The Telegraph ePaper

A Fusion Of Yoga & Tai Chi

The Times Of India ,Kolkata
28 May 2011, page 14

Ninety-three-year-old yoga guru Iyengar & 117-year-old Shaolin master Lu Zijian will brainstorm in China to bring about synergy in traditional fitness practices

What do a 93-year-old yoga guru and a 117-year-old Shaolin master have in common? The fact that they practise their art for hours even at this age. And that after a lifetime exploring the links between body, mind and spirit, they are sharp and agile enough to teach youngsters one-third their age lessons on how to stay not just fit but also equipoised.

Next month, yogacharya B K S Iyengar and the oldest Chinese martial artiste alive, Master Lu Zijian, will come together at an ambitious China-India yoga summit to be held in Guangzhou. The agenda: a dialogue on the traditional fitness regimens of the two countries. Not just that, Iyengar will lead a packed, three-day programme to guide around 1,000 yoga enthusiasts from China and abroad on the many interconnecting layers of the system. ‘‘I will go from the scratch to the ultimate,’’ says Iyengar, who is generously allowing beginners and veterans to take his classes.
Yoga reached China around 40 years ago and caught on like a wildfire despite the fact that the country has its own indigenous systems of mindbody regimens. There are about 15 millions yoga practitioners in China today.

This summit will see the entire yoga industry spread across neighbouring Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau converge at Guangzhao. ‘‘Tai Chi is now not as popular as yoga in China. Yoga is definitely more popular among the educated youth, especially the women—95% of the learners are women,” says Zhiyong Chen, who is directing the
event that has the backing of the Indian consulate and the Ayush (alternate health) department of the ministry of health.

Lu Zijian, who is fondly referred to as the Yangtze River’s Great Chivalrous Man, lives in Chongqin and practises the evolved Tao-based martial art and healing system, bagua zhang. He has lived through China’s historical decades and is today celebrated as China’s most healthy centenarian.

With some help from interpreters, the two masters will “compare Tai Chi and yoga, their principles and similarities, how they look at the human body, mind and spirit, and how they work to improve them”, says Chen.

Senior Iyengar teacher Birju Mehta, who will be among the team of six from India, says the Indian and Chinese systems perhaps have parallel end goals though they follow different processes. Iyengar has held large-scale yoga summits across the world—the last in Russia two years ago. But this one is generating a lot of buzz because it sees the coming together of people who have inherited similar systems. And also because Iyengar has declared that this will be his last foreign yoga tour.

The yogacharya remains a staunch classicist in a world where yoga has acquired some really outlandish forms.But he is also open to dialogues with other traditions and last year had a public interaction with the Dalai Lama over Indian and Tibetan traditions.

Malini Nair

TAGORE AND CHINA

On May 12, 2011, Chinese ambassador Zhang Yan attended the launch of the new book Tagore and China hold in Alliance Francaise de Delhi. Chinese Indian scholar Tan Chung, Special Secretary of the Ministry of External Affairs in charge of public diplomacy Jayant Prasad, publisher of the book and other experts and academicians all in total over 100 people also took part in this event.

In his remarks, ambassador Zhang congratulated the publishing of the book. He indicated that Tagore is a well known and influential Indian litterateur in China. Several activities have been held in China in commemorative of Tagore's 150 years birth anniversary. Tagore has made great contributions to the mutual understanding and cultural exchanges of China and India.
Mr. Tan Chung gave a briefing of the book and a retrospection of Tagore and his visits to China. The book, which collected articles and essays about Tagore by both Chinese and Indian scholars, was published by Sage Publications, and edited by: TAN CHUNG , AMIYA DEV , WANG BANGWEI and WEI LIMING ( Peking University, Beijing, China ) .

TAGORE AND CHINA

edited by: TAN CHUNG Emeritus Fellow, Institute of Chinese Studies, New Delhi and Academic Associate, University of Chicago
AMIYA DEV Fulbright scholar to USA
WANG BANGWEI Peking University, Beijing, China
WEI LIMING Peking University, Beijing, China
Published : May 2011 , Pages : 420 Size : Crown: 7" x 10"
Imprint : SAGE India , India (INR) Rs 895

About the Book

Tagore and China is the first full account in English of Rabindranath Tagore’s visit to China and its civilizational import. Perhaps for the first time, exhaustive material related to the visit has been collected.

The book charts Tagore’s ‘grand visit’ in 1924 undertaken in response to China’s ‘Tagore fever’ and the series of talks he gave there, their antecedents as well as impact. Also discussed is the foundation of Cheena-Bhavana at Visva-Bharati—and thereby of Chinese studies in India—and Tan Yun-shan’s lifelong dedication to it and the Sino-Indian love it held.

This well-researched book unearths new material from Chinese sources to confirm the devotion of Tagore’s interpreter, poet Xu Zhimo, to him and Tagore’s affection for Xu Zhimo. Tagore’s two personal visits to Xu Zhimo, preceded by the latter’s visit to Santiniketan, have also been detailed.

Supplemented by several rare photographs, Tagore and China is a fitting tribute to Tagore’s 150th birth anniversary and is going to be of abiding value to Sino-Indian understanding.

About Tan Chung

Immediately after his birth in April 1929 in Malaya, Tan Chung was carried by his mother and aunt to Santiniketan to be shown to his father, Prof. Tan Yun-shan ( Tan Yunshan was the Founding Director of the Department of Chinese Language and Culture "Cheena-Bhavana" at Visva-Bharati University, Santiniketan) .

Gurudeva Rabindranath Tagore was glad to see the baby and christened him “Asoka” --- the Bengali name, Tan Chung could, unfortunately, never use. Tan Chung returned to Malaya(now Malaysia)with his mother who was the principal of the Aiqun Girls’ School at Batu Bahar. He was then raised in China from 1931 to 1954. He came to India to be united with his parents and studied at Santiniketan from 1955 to 1958.

He then started his career teaching Chinese language in India from 1958 to 1994 continuously in the National Defense Academy (Khadakvasla), School of Foreign Languages of the Ministry of Defense (New Delhi), Delhi University and Jawaharlal Nehru University. He also taught Chinese history at Delhi University from 1971 to 1979.

Tan Chung has published ten books in English and six books in Chinese. His 'China and the Brave New World', published in 1978, 'Triton and Dragon', published in 1985, and 'Dunhuang Art', published in 1994, are used as reference books for university students in India,USA,Taipei, and Hong Kong.

His 'India and China: Twenty Centuries of Civilizational Interaction and Vibrations', co-authored with Professor Geng Yinzeng of Peking University, is Part 6 of Volume III of the series of History of Science, Philosophy and Culture in Indian Civilization, published by Centre for Studies in Civilizations, New Delhi. His 16th book is 'Rise of the Asian Giants: Dragon-Elephant Tango'（2008,Anthem Press). His 17th book 'Tagore and China' has just been released .

Tan Chung has been active in developing Chinese studies in India in various capacities as the Head of Chinese and Japanese Studies of Delhi University, Chairperson of the Centre for Afro-Asian Languages and of the Centre for East Asian Languages of Jawaharlal Nehru University. He helped create the unit of East Asian Studies in the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts (New Delhi) when he was Professor-Consultant there from 1990 to 1999. He was the founder Co-Chairperson of the Institute of Chinese Studies ( Delhi ) from 1990 to 2002.

He guest edited a special issue on 'India and China' for the Indian Horizon, the journal of the Indian Council for Cultural Relations in 1994. He has been the Honorary Consultant of the Editorial Board of The Selected Books of Oriental Cultures, Beijing , from 1996 to date.

He popularized the concept of 'Chindia' in China, and brought out the Chinese language book, Chindia --- Idealism and Realization in 2007.

Tan Chung is the recipient of Padma Bhushan award in 2010.

Chinese Musician Strikes Tagore Chord

The Times Of India
Kolkata , May 5 , 2011 (Thursday)
Times City , page - 6

She loves to play Tagore songs and dreams of lending a Mandarin touch to the bard’s tunes. They could serve as a bridge between the two ancient cultures, helping people from the respective countries realize the affinity in their music. Chinese musician Liu Yuening , who plays the Yangqin — a santoor-like instrument with its origin in the Middle-East — shared the stage at the Town Hall with singer Prateek Choudhury on Wednesday. But Yuening, an acclaimed music researcher, is bent on striking a melodic partnership between Indian and Chinese musicians.
“A few minor alterations to a Tagore song can convert it into a Chinese rhythm which could be readily appreciated by listeners in our country. I have been playing these tunes in China and would love to do it in Kolkata where everyone swears by Tagore. I expect this to pave the way for a collaboration between classical singers from India and traditional musicians from China. They have a lot of common ground to work on,” said Yuening.

Based in Beijing, she started learning yangqin at the age of nine. By the time she was 12, Yuening had been hailed as one of the leading yangqin players in the world. She went on to do a doctorate from Hungary, where she spent two years researching music. In 2009, she spent seven months at the University of Delhi for a cultural research programme as an Asia Fellow of the Ford Foundation. It was during this stint that Yuening chanced upon the santoor and was taken aback by the similarity between the instruments. “Yangqin originated in the Middle-East and has its European and Chinese variants. In India, it’s the santoor... music in the region has common roots,” said Yuening.
It launched her on a mission to identify the commonalities in Indian and Chinese music. “First, the musical scale in our notes is similar. Secondly, the inspiration behind Indian classical music and Chinese traditional scores is the same — nature. Finally, both India and China have a strong folk music culture and draw heavily from it. These left me convinced that there would be a common origin, a starting point which unites our music,” explained the musician.
The quest brought her back to India in 2010. Yuening travelled to Kashmir for a lecture on Chinese music. “The people there were quite receptive and showed interest in my music. I got little chance of exploring the area, though,” she said. She rounded off her trip with a concert in Kolkata. “The visit gave me the chance to study Tagore songs more carefully. I kept playing the tunes and hit upon the idea of giving them a Chinese touch. Even my friends in India thought it was a brilliant idea and that it could be the ideal starting point for a musical collaboration,” she added.
It will lead to the more difficult task of identifying the similarities in Indian ragas and Chinese scores, realizes Yuening. “Let Kolkata and Tagore songs be the launching pad. I will have done my bit for music if I can accomplish the task,” signed off Yuening.


Prithvijit Mitra - TNN

Have A Say

The Times Of India , Kolkata
Saturday, 19 March, 2011 , page - 4
Times City , Dance Of Democracy

Empowered Chinatown to have a say in citizens’ mandate

And you thought this 100-year-old ghetto did not want to integrate, let alone press the V-button. The country’s only Chinatown, now better known as the Land of the Fat Mama, is increasingly being swept by a tsunami called ‘didi’.

Prodded by the Election Commission’s rigorous voter-list updates, more and more of the city’s Chinese residents are now empowered with photo ID cards, ready like never before.

“Even if we still prefer to remain cocooned, we are not indifferent to our citizenship rights,” say Monica Liu, owner of the Beijing chain of restaurants. A Kolkatan for the past 40 years, Liu keenly watches the ‘breaking’ news flash on the small screen in the run-up to Bengal’s historic elections, even as she swears of being ‘strictly apolitical’.

Dominique Lee, who runs a food-processing unit, was more forthright: “People are riding high on the ‘Mamata’ hurricane.”

Referring to the excitement, Clemen Tseng, a supplier at the other Chinatown,Territi Bazar,say,“People voted en block for the Trinamool in last year’s KMC elections. Here’s the conclusive round.”

Meanwhile, it’s difficult to discern what matters more — change or citizenship. The latter is a touchy subject for the ‘apolitical and apathetic’ 1,000-odd population in the melting ‘wok’. Chinatown, spread over KMC wards 58 and 66 (starting from Chingrighata in the north to E M Bypass in the south and Hatgachhia in the east to Christopher Road in the west), does not factor in the poll fray. But for those living here ‘each vote counts’.

“One vote translates to avowing an individual’s democratic rights,” say leather businessman Liang Chen, 68, who was recently included in the voters’ lists.

All those who have acquired the ‘hallowed’ status (Indian citizenship) sound as keen. “I got my Indian citizenship only in 1999. Some of my family members still don’t,” avers Paul Chung, 70, former president of the Indian Chinese Association for Culture, Welfare and Development.

His community’s pangs were captured in the chopsticks. One was reminded of The Legend of the Fat Mama, the popular Rafeeq Ellias film on the bittersweet story of the Kolkata Chinese community and its migration to Toronto and elsewhere in the aftermath of the 1962 Indo-China war. The Chinese have been barred from getting Indian passports ever since.

Isheng Chen, 56, a leather unit owner, possess Indian passport but has been left out of the voter lists. “The passport allows me to travel to Canada where my wife, Liong Chen, lives. But I need voter card,” he says. The political dadas who have been enthusiastically “booking” walls for graffiti did not heed Chen’s repeated requests.

Community leader trader Francis Chia, 60, sounds disillusioned: “We’ll vote, but it’s no use.”

The two-square-km walled township is overrun with filth. Drinking water is also missing in Tangra, frequented by Kolkatans for lip-smacking Chinese food. The stench from the open drains juxtapose the illuminated eateries. Most tanners have refused to shift to the Bantala leather complex despite the Supreme Court order.

The Trinamool is into a whispering campaign saying it would let the tanneries stay. But people like Nan Kui, a schoolteacher, are not buying the poll promise. “The government’s Chinatown beautification project is dormant. Building a Chinese tower isn’t exactly an emergency. We need basic amenities.”

Ajanta Chakraborty

Times Of India , Kolkata

Photo Gallery

RABBIT NEW YEAR

Chinese New Year , Calcutta (Kolkata)

2011

The Year Of The Metal Rabbit

Chinese New Year ( year 4709 ) falls on February 3 , 2011

Events list of Chinese New Year 2011 Celebrations in Kolkata :

30th January 2011 : Lion Dance Show at Territi Bazaar ( ICA )
1st & 2nd February 2011 : Lion Dance Show at Tangra Bazaar ( Pei Moi Chinese School )

3rd February 2011 : Chinese New Year 4709

5th & 6th February 2011 : Fete & Dance Party at Pei Moi Chinese School

Let's welcome the year 4709, the Year of the Rabbit

China Town issue of Robbar

Sangbad Pratidin's Sunday supplement "Robbar" of 50 pages has published an issue on

" China Town "
Pratidin , also known as the Sangbad Pratidin is one of the popular Bengali daily newspapers of Kolkata.

WALKATHON

The Chinese community participated with great enthusiasm .

Mr. Liu Sak Hua aged 86 took an active part in the walk.

Nobel Absence

The Chinese dissident Mr. Liu Xiaobo, seen in a portrait, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday ( December 10, 2010 ) in Oslo. The chairman of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, Thorbjorn Jagland, sat next to an empty chair representing Mr. Liu’s absence at the prize ceremony with Nobel diploma and Nobel medal placed on the empty chair during the ceremony in Oslo City Hall .

Mr. Liu is imprisoned in China and his close family members are forbidden to leave the country. It was the first time in 75 years that no representative of the winner was allowed to make the trip to receive the peace medal, a diploma and the $1.5 million check that comes with it.

Liu Xiaobo wins Nobel Peace Prize 2010

Rita Chowdhury's Chinese Balm to History's Wrongs ?

Chowdhury hopes her work will garner support for the hapless Assamese-Chinese community

Utpal Borpujari
The Times of India Crest Edition ( November 29, 2010 , page 32 )

Makum. The name is as exotic and beautiful as the terrible history it hides. A small, semi-urban habitat nestled amidst tea and oil country in Upper Assam, right at the heart of the region where India had first struck oil way back in the 1860s, it was here that a young girl from nearby Margherita would wonder about the fractured lives of what people told her were the 'Chinese'. As she travelled through the area by bus during the 1970s, she would tell herself, "Someday, I will have to know more about these people. "

Rita Chowdhury, now one of Assam's best-selling authors and winner of the Sahitya Akademi Award two years ago, not only went on to learn about that little community, but unearthed a sad, forgotten and largely unknown story about its forced displacement during the 1962 Indo-China war. Their only crime: they had Chinese looks and names. It didn't matter that they had completely assimilated with the greater Assamese community since the time their forefathers had been brought in as indentured labourers by British tea planters in the early 19th century.

It was her chance discovery of this history of statesponsored deportation of Chinese-origin people in Assam - a chapter that went almost unrecorded - that led to Chowdhury's magnum opus, the 602-page novel Makam, which is into its fourth edition since its publication in early 2010. But for Chowdhury, it's not about the sales figures. It's what India, suspicious of the Chinese then - even if they were its own - did to an unsuspecting and innocent lot.

"The least India can do is apologise to them for the misery inflicted by an insensitive state machinery for just being Chinese at an inconvenient time, " she says. Not only that, she wants the community, members of which are scattered from Hong Kong to Toronto with unhealed wounds in their hearts, to be given back the status of Indian citizens.

During her research, Chowdhury, who weaves history into fiction in her work, found that over 1, 500 Chinese-Assamese had been rounded up on November 19, 1962 and packed off to congested camps at Deuli in Rajasthan before being deported. The government auctioned their properties almost immediately. The author, who is now getting a documentary made on the traumatised families - some of whom had to live without fathers and mothers, husbands and sons, wives and daughters for years on end - has recordings of the deep sadness among members of the community she met during her research trips to Hong Kong and elsewhere.

"They still live with unhealed wounds, still unable to comprehend why they were deported even though they were Indian citizens for generations, " Chowdhury said recently. "They still suffer from a sense of persecution, so much so that they were initially very reluctant to even talk about the past. But once they began, their emotional bond with Assam and India just flowed out. "
One of the Chinese, who preferred not to tell his name on camera during a recording, recounted in pure Assamese, and with the soft Upper Assam lilt, how he was rounded up by police as he was returning home after finishing a paper in a matriculation exam. "I could never complete my matriculation, " he told Chowdhury.

"Most of these Chinese, from mainly the Canton region of China, had been brought by the British to work in India's tea plantations, " the writer says. "Some had ended up in Assam after fighting as soldiers in the Second World War. The extent of their tragedy can be gauged from the fact that many of them had been marrying into other communities when the deportations happened. Many families got broken up as only the Chinese were sent away while their native-Assamese family members were left behind. "

Makam - which in Cantonese means 'the golden horse' - recalls this painful story. Using fiction as the format, it employs two parallel narratives to talk about the wounds harboured by the community and the time when Robert Bruce of the East India Company set foot in Assam in search of what he suspected was tea drunk by the Singpho tribals.

Now, as the Enemy Property Act is being amended, Chowdhury feels it is the right time to try and get at least a sense of justice to the community's members. "It will be virtually impossible to get them back their properties, as they had been auctioned off, but we can apologise to them for the injustice caused to them. We can also try to get them back their Indian citizenship - for those who want to return. Many of those deported, though, have died already, " she says.

Chowdhury met Assam chief minister Tarun Gogoi who, she says, has assured her full government support in welcoming the Chinese-Assamese back, even if just as visitors. The subject came up in the state Assembly too, with full support from across the board in looking at it as a humanitarian issue.

"Total war declared by governments on civilians is always in violation of the UN's Fourth Geneva Convention on non-combatants, of which India has been a signatory since December 16, 1949, " Chowdhury says. "When the incident happened, Indian democracy was in its infancy and the media was not as strong as it is today to take a stand, which is why, probably, such a terrible thing happened. " Will the golden horse bring a little succour for a wronged people's pain? There are many who hope it will.

Walk For Peace

BREAKFAST

Courtsey : Fox History & Entertainement Channel

FH&E is India's only television channel purely dedicated to history. It stimulates our curiosity to know more about our world. As part of an international award-winning network, FH&E has exclusive access to a vast library of the world's best historical and factual programming offering a high standard of quality in both production value and research - not just from every corner, but about every corner of the world.

Asiad

The 2010 Asian Games, also known as the XVI Asiad, is a multi-sport event in Guangzhou, China that began on 12 November and finishes on 27 November 2010. Guangzhou is the second Chinese city to host the Games, after Beijing in 1990. A total of 476 events in 42 sports will be contested by athletes, making it the largest event in the history of the Games.The games will also be co-hosted by Dongguan, Foshan and Shanwei, the three neighbouring cities.It will also be the last iteration of the Games to have featured such big events, as the Olympic Council of Asia (OCA) have enforced new hosting rules for future games, beginning with the 2014 Games.

Five sporty rams, dubbed "Le Yangyang," will serve as the mascots of the Games.It is a stylized goat, which, in Chinese tradition, is a blessing and brings people luck. It is also a representative symbol of the host city Guangzhou, which is called the "City of Rams" or "City of the Five Rams".

The five rams are named A Xiang (祥), A He (和), A Ru (如), A Yi (意) and Le Yangyang (樂洋洋), and are a play on Guangzhou's nickname, "City of Goats". Moreover, the Chinese character "yang," or "goat," is also an auspicious symbol because, when read together, the Chinese names of the five rams are a message of blessing, literally meaning "harmony, blessings, success and happiness" (祥和如意樂洋洋).

For the first time in history, the opening ceremony was not held inside the stadium; instead, it was held along the Pearl River on Haixinsha Island. Athletes were paraded by boats along the Pearl River.The island holding the ceremony covers 174,000 km. At least 40,000 fireworks shots were used in the event. About 30,000 seated spectators were at the event.Fireworks were then shot out from the Canton Tower. The ceremony featured the water-themed arts show and culture of Guangzhou.The event was choreographed by Chen Weiya (陈维亚) lasting four hours with thousands of performers.

A C H I P U R

The Chinese temple at Achipur, which is being renovated and the deities in the sanctum sanctorum

The Times Of India , Kolkata, 29 October 2010
Times City , page - 2

Chinese donate 50 Lakhs for temple facelift
Jhimli Mukherjee Pandey & Monotosh Chakraborty

Achipur, a hamlet on the banks of the Hooghly, is just like any other Bengal village. But 300 years ago, this village, 30 km from Taratala, bustled with activity and was dominated by the Chinese. This was the first Chinese settlement in the country. Not a single Chinese can be seen here today, though. But every Chinese New Year’s Day on February 3 and for the rest of that month, Achipur turns into a mini Chinatown. Thousands gather at the Chinese temple here, especially on Sundays, to usher in the new year. This year, members of Kolkata’s Chinese community have pooled in nearly 50 lakh to restore the temple and build boarding and lodging facilities for the community.
East India Company documents show that a Chinese trader called Atchew Tong sailed into the village in the second decade of the 18th century and settled down. Others soon followed him. Atchew started a sugar plantation attached with a mill. The documents dating back to the governor generalship of Warren Hastings state that Atchew was a wealthy sugar trader who was permitted to operate from a vast tract of land off Budge Budge.
No trace of the sugar mill that Atchew ran successfully with at least 100 Chinese men and women remains. However, the “earth and fertility” temple that he built way back in 1718 still remains, though it has badly needed conservation and restoration for a long time. Its roof has developed cracks and leaks, damaging many of the tiny prayer rooms arranged in two rows on the sides of the main temple. Last February, members of the Chinese community, primarily from the Gee Hing Church at Tangra, gathered at the temple and decided that donations would be collected so that the temple could be saved and other facilities built. Word soon spread and Chinese people not only from Tangra but also from near Tiretti Bazar came forward to contribute.
Work on restoring the temple is now on in full swing. A bamboo scaffolding supports the centuries old roof as portions get repaired and conserved. Conservation architects have been roped in for the job. Even the floor had been damaged because of damp and is being completely being done up with expensive marble. “We are extremely happy that people have come forward and donated freely so that we could organise the restoration and conservation on such a grand scale. While the church initiated the project, it is actually a community project. It is our oldest landmark and we have deep respect for the place and the temple, which is also special in nature,” said S K Au, a spokesperson of the committee that is looking after the restoration.
The sanctum sanctorum of the earth and fertility temple consists of two gods of ancient origin — Thuti Kung and Thuti Fo. Thuti in Chinese means the Earth and the temple is rooted in the Chinese tantra cult. Locals, who are mostly Muslims, call it the Khuda-Khudi temple and revere it. Even the caretaker is a local Muslim villager, who would tell you that Chinamantala — as the place around the temple is called — is feared and respected by locals because of the magical powers of the temple.
“The two gods are older than the temple and Atchew Tong brought them with him from China. At the temple, you will also find the old Chinese custom of fortune-telling through sticks. Our priests live in the temple for the whole of February so that the community members can get their fortunes read through traditional play of sticks,” explained Au.

Elder's Day Celebration 2010

Indian Chinese community seek 1962 war memorial

Rahul Karmakar

Hindustan Times
Kolkata, October 25, 2010,page 7


People from the Indian Chinese community who were deported and harassed during the 1962 Indo-Sino war have asked the Centre for land at Deoli in Rajasthan to build a monument. Sandstone-rich Deoli is a town in Tonk district, 160 km south of Rajasthan capital Jaipur. More than 3,000 ethnic Chinese, many of them living in Assam at that time and suspected to be close to Beijing, were taken to the Deoli Internment Camp after the 1962 Sino-Indian War — but subsequently forgotten by both countries.

The Association of India Deoli Camp Internees wants the monument as “an acknowledgement of the persecution of the ethnic Chinese” 48 years ago. And as a reminder of “our loss of freedom”.

“The Indian government cannot heal the wounds of the Indian Chinese who lost their homes and kin and were forced to be scattered across the world after the 1962 war,” Assamese novelist-activist Rita Choudhury said. “It can at least honour those who lost their lives in the internment camp.

Unfortunately, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is yet to respond to the association’s letter.

A positive gesture, added the novelist who initiated the move, would go a long way in improving India's image vis-a-vis the minorities.

Choudhury helped many Indian Chinese reconnect with their roots in India during a four-year research across continents for her novel Makam. The book is named after Makum, a small town 505 km east of Assam capital Guwahati.

A Photographic Journey Of Fritz Hoffmann

Date: 21st October, 2010
Time: 5 P.M. Onwards
Venue: GD Birla Sabhaghar

Fritz Hoffmann will be presenting his life as a photographer, which began almost three decades ago and led him to spend the past 16 years documenting change in China. 13 of those years were as a full time resident photojournalist based in Shanghai. Hoffmann has travelled to every province and municipality in China on assignment for western magazines and as a contract photographer for NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC magazine.

Fritz was also filmed by National Geographic Channel on his recent photo documentation of the Shaolin Monks- The cover story of National Geographic October 2010. The documentary, to be featured in the 'Most Amazing Photos', is scheduled for a global premiere on National Geographic Channel on the 24th of October, 2010.

In light of his past experiences the topic of the talk is to be Development of China: A photographic journey.

Fritz Hoffmann (American) is recognized for his photographic work documenting change in China as a resident photojournalist based in Shanghai from 1995-2008. His pictures have been widely published and exhibited. He is a frequent contributor to National Geographic magazine. Hoffmann’s work has made an important contribution to world understanding of modern China. He was the first foreign photographer since 1949 to receive accreditation from China’s Foreign Ministry to reside outside Beijing, the political capital. He studied Mandarin at East China University of Science and Technology and at Shanghai University Academy of Fine Art. He has photographed in each of China’s provinces and municipalities several times. China continues to be the primary focus of his work.

Prior to his move to China, Fritz established his place as a respected international photojournalist while working with JB Pictures in New York. Under the JB banner, he moved his base of operations to Nashville, Tennessee just before the first term of US President Bill Clinton, which increased interest in the American South. After JB closed, he opened the Network Photographers (UK), Shanghai bureau in 1997 as photo-correspondent. In 2002 Fritz co-founded the online picture library, documentCHINA.

Born in Seattle, Washington, Fritz was raised in a large family with a history of craftsmen. He began photography as a kid hitchhiking across the Pacific Northwest and then printing his pictures in the home darkroom. He honed his photography skills while slinging king crab in Dutch Harbor, Alaska. Fritz supported his early travel and photography with work as a carpenter. Travel experiences steered him to pursue social documentary photography and reportage. He spent 5 years working at newspapers in Seattle, Charleston, West Virginia and Knoxville, Tennessee before entering magazine work.

Nobel Peace Prize 2010

The Nobel Peace Prize 2010 was awarded to Liu Xiaobo (LEE-o SHAo-boh) , the first Chinese citizen to win the prize ( 刘晓波 , born December 28, 1955 ) for his long and non-violent struggle for fundamental human rights in China .

Liu Xiaobo is a Beijing writer and former literature professor. He was given an 11-year prison sentence on subversion charges on Dec. 25, 2009, after urging Chinese leaders to embrace democratic reforms. He has appealed his conviction to the Beijing Supreme People's Court.

Mr. Liu's sentence, judged by many analysts to be unusually harsh, has drawn criticism from human rights groups, Western governments and writers worldwide. Most regard the chances that it will be overturned or softened as slim.

Mr. Liu was seized by security officials in December 2008 as he and other intellectuals prepared to issue Charter 08, a lengthy manifesto that called on China's Communist Party to uphold individual rights and relinquish its monopoly on power. Modeled on Charter 77, the manifesto drafted by Czechoslovakian rights advocates three decades earlier, Charter 08 eventually garnered some 10,000 signatures before government censors pulled it from the Internet.

After being held more than a year in secret detention and later in jail, Mr. Liu was found guilty by a Beijing court of "inciting subversion of state power." Mr. Liu previously spent 21 months in detention for taking part in the 1989 pro-democracy protests at Tiananmen Square. And in 1996, after demanding clemency for those still imprisoned for their roles in the demonstrations, he was sent to a labour camp for three years.

In addition to helping create Charter 08, Mr. Liu's subversion charges were based on six articles he wrote that were published on the Internet outside of China.

PS : Charter 08 is a manifesto initially signed by over 350 Chinese intellectuals and human rights activists to promote political reform and democratization in the People's Republic of China. It was published on 10 December 2008, the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopting name and style from the anti-Soviet Charter 77 issued by dissidents in Czechoslovakia.

ChongYang Festival

Chongyang Festival is observed on the ninth day of the ninth month in the Chinese lunar calendar, which is also called Double Ninth Day. ( This Year It's on 16 th October 2010 ).

Having undergone a history of more than 2,000 years, the Double-Ninth Day was formally set down as a folk festival in the Tang Dynasty and both Emperors and civilians alike celebrated the festival following the tradition and custom.

As time goes by, the Double-Ninth Day has gradually formed the celebrating conventions of going on a journey, ascending height, inserting cornel, appreciating chrysanthemum, eating Chongyang cake, and drinking chrysanthemum tea / wine .

On this day, people always gather the whole family to spend the festival together.

As the figure "9" also stands for longevity and health in the traditional concept of Han people, the Chinese government set this day ( 9 - 9 ) in the lunar calendar as the " Elder's Festival" in 1989. Now, the Double-Ninth Day has been enlisted as Intangible Cultural Heritage of China. But way back in 1966 the Republic of China (Taiwan) dedicated this day as "Senior Citizens' Day", where the festival is an opportunity to care for and appreciate the elderly.

On the day, people eat the Chongyang cake, alias “huagao” (literally, flower cake), which is the food for Chongyang Festival in the Han Chinese tradition. Dating back to the Southern Dynasty, it is popular in most of the places in China, and as it is made for the Chongyang Festival, thus the name Chongyang cake. The cake is mostly made of rice powder and nuts, but the processing method varies in different regions, mainly baking and steaming, which is still popular nowadays.

The making method and eating custom of Chongyang cake vary in different places, so do its origin and connotations of folklore culture.It is generally recognized that Chongyang cake originated from the Chongyang Festival’s tradition of climbing heights. As restricted by the landform and resources, it was usually not convenient for the common urban residents to ascend heights, so they replaced height climbing custom with eating Chongyang cake (in Chinese, “糕” [cake] and “高” [height] have the same pronunciation).

Some historians suggests that the cultural connotation of Chongyang cake focuses on the character “糕”, the partial tone of which suggests promotion and high rank.

Many ethnic minorities in South China such as Yi, Bai, Dong, She, Bouyi, Tujia, Helao, etc also keep the tradition of celebrating the Double Ninth Day and eating rice cakes, but the way, the celebration, and the legend behind the festival differ from that of the Han Chinese.

As the festival is right in autumn when the chrysanthemums are in full bloom, the custom of appreciating chrysanthemums and drinking chrysanthemum wine / tea comes into being. Most people drink chrysanthemum tea, while a few strict traditionalists drink homemade chrysanthemum wine. Children in school learn poems about chrysanthemums, and many localities host a chrysanthemum exhibit. Mountain climbing races are also popular .

On the Chongyang Festival, people traditionally pick cornel branches and leaves and seal them inside a small sachet made of red cloth.This cornel is a small evergreen tree with pinnate leaves and small greenish-white flowers. The fruit is purplish red when ripens, with a pungent yet sweet smell. The cornel has medicinal functions like removing toxic cold, relieving pain, killing insects etc. Ancient people believed that wearing the sachet on the body could ward off evil and keep disaster at bay.

Since the ancient times, lots of poets have written down poems with the Double-Ninth Day as a theme. Wang Wei, a famous poet in the Tang Dynasty, can be remembered for his poem entitled On the Mountain Holiday Thinking of My Brothers in Shandong .