Chinese Language Analyst

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First Prize

"From Border to Border" has won the first prize of the Taiwan Competition, Women Make Waves Film Festival

第二十一屆「台灣國際女性影展」今晚舉行「光榮時刻：台灣競賽獎」頒獎典禮暨影展閉幕典禮，以記錄印度加爾各答中國城及華人生活為題的「邊界移動兩百年」獲「光榮時刻：台灣競賽獎」首獎，動畫短片「櫛髮」及實驗短片「小團圓記」則獲得特獎。

台灣紀錄片「邊界移動兩百年」以印度加爾各答多元族群移民為故事主軸，導演鍾適芳用當地生活影像與多種族群語言，傳達移民者對當地政治、經濟、種族、文化等面向的態度與看法。評審團一致認為該片「傳達了創作者兼具深度及廣度的視野，從家族、種族、國族、性別、世代及歷史的多重角度，帶領觀眾了解鮮為人知的華人移民社區，並且看見宏觀歷史世代的複雜性。」

女性影展競賽首獎「邊界移動兩百年」導演鍾適芳(左)與評審范情(右)。

                      圖／女性影展提供

                    

中秋节歌 Moon Festival Song

圆圆的月亮 The Round Moon (Children Version) by Thomas Chen (Original )

 圆圆的月亮 The Round Moon (Thomas Chen's Version) Original 

A P O L O G I S E ! ! !

Time to apologise to the Chinese of Assam’s Makum

Chinese School in Makum

On 19 November 1962, on the last day of China's India war, where we got the kind of drubbing that the Indians have been receiving in Old Blighty and Down Under consistently, Assam's police and Indian military personnel swept into Chinese neighbourhoods and the homes of Chinese living in India.

These were people who had been born here, were Indian citizens or married to Indians. They were gruffly ordered to get into or pushed into waiting jeeps and vehicles and driven to local police stations and eventually to trains. All this time, hapless, confused and humiliated, they kept asking, "Where are you taking us? Why are we here?" or "What do you want from us?" only to receive hostile silences or at times a helpless shrug from local policemen who wanted to but could not help them.

Those who reached the train station late were left behind. Thus parents were separated from their children, husbands from wives, siblings and friends from each other. It is an abomination, a horror that we have refused to face up to over the decades, hiding it not just under the carpet but wiping it off all histories. Or are there still some secret notes and notings, buried in some dusty and hidden files of the Ministry of Home Affairs or the Ministry of External Affairs and the Ministry of Defence that tell the story? Can these be dug out by some diligent and resourceful researcher or reporter or conscientious official and put in the public domain?

On that unexpected winter train journey — and November nights are cold in the desert — food, water, sheets or blankets, they rolled across the country to an internment camp in Deoli, Rajasthan. After a few days, a large group was sent to Kolkata and from there, in three ships, transported to China, a land they did not know.

Fifty years later, as our news media bristles with hostile reports about China, we are silent about the atrocity committed on a defenceless minority whose only crime was that they bore Chinese names.

   

n her powerful book, Makum, the scholar and novelist Rita Choudhury brings out the pain, horror and tragedy of those lost years. Written in Assamese and now being translated into English by the feminist publishing house, Zubaan, the book traces the history of this forgotten and shameful chapter in the history of free India. It is seen as extremely fashionable to do a spot of China-bashing these days, whether about Chinese threats to our borders, to our economy, to our environment security or to our conventional security concerns. But our bellicosity does not address the fact that a chunk of land in Arunachal Pradesh remains in Chinese hands: Sumdorong Chu, which the Chinese seized in 1986 and on which they built a helipad, triggering a confrontation that put some 400,000 soldiers on both sides against each other, raising fears about a military escalation. Luckily that abated.

But 50 years after they were externed from Makum town in Assam's Tinsukia district (Makum is a town in the area) and other parts of the region, our Indians of Chinese origin still live in sadness, forgotten by many and virtually discarded by the Centre. Dip Bhuyan, a young filmmaker, has put together a moving narrative of this lost community, who weep and speak, not in anger, but in sadness from their homes in Assam where a handful still live and in China where the "deportees" were packed off, caught between two Asian giants and two worlds. They still speak and write Assamese.

The Divided Soul traces their stories and stirs a sense of sadness mixed with anger that the victims of 1962 have not been rehabilitated or compensated. Perhaps local politicians are too scared of the China factor or being seen as "soft" on security issues to speak openly about it. Why are human rights groups and independent civil society organisations not talking about it either? We are talking about barely a few hundred such families in the Northeast, perhaps a few thousand more in Kolkata and other cities.

It is time to face the past and make amends. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's government, besmirched by dirt, would do well to acknowledge the harm done to one of our tiniest minorities, who were pawns in a battle between two giants. It could help restore the dignity of both sides and a measure of trust. It could restore a balance to history.

Time To Apologise 

 by
SANJOY HAZARIKA

From Taiwan

From Taiwan – Inspiring India with the best !

TAITRA


SOLE TAIWAN INDUSTRIAL TRADE SHOW
EMMA EXPO
BANGALORE   INDIA   2014
SEPTEMBER  11-13


Emma Expo India is a 3 day event being held from 11th September to the 13th September 2014 at the Bangalore International Exhibition Centre (BIEC) in Bangalore, India.

 This event showcases products like Machine Parts & Accessories, Automobiles Parts , Tools, Cutting Tools, Molds and Other Related Equipment , Pneumatic Tires & Tubes, Electric Wire and Cable, Industrial Plants And Machinery, Wood Working Machinery, Electrical Equipment, Battery, Cell, Charger, and Module, Computer & Peripherals Products, Engine Parts, Motorcycles, Drive Information System, Sundries, Adhesives, Manual Hand Tools, Industrial Computer and Peripheral Products, Car Accessories , Instrument and Apparatus for Demonstration and more etc. in the Automotive, Electronics & Electrical Goods, Plant, Machinery & Equipment industries.





TAIWAN DELEGATION  AT  THE TAJ BENGAL 
 KOLKATA  INDIA  2014
 SEPTEMBER 15
 SINGLE  BUSINESS  DAY  MEET


To Explore Business opportunities with Taiwan Companies on OEM ODM basis or per your requirements please come to visit our Taiwan Suppliers coming to Kolkata for a Single Day Business Meet.


In 2013 TAITRA organized a Taiwan Delegation of 30 Companies to meet around 250 Local Companies with a whooping fruitful conduct of 600 Meetings at The Oberoi Grand Hotel – Kolkata.


Following the Success of last year’s Taiwan Delegation visiting India we do hope that this year we will have more people coming to attend this exclusive meetings!


This year Kolkata Taj Bengal, 2014, 15th September a Taiwan Delegation of 9 Exclusive Companies will be open to all Business Opportunities & Prospective Procurement for a single day one-to-one business meet!


We hope you will be interested to meet them. We have allotted 20 minutes for each meeting.


If interested in others also, Please let me know which are the companies you are interested to meet and what is your *preferred time*? Please Confirm. I will insert it in our Meet chart accordingly.


*timing allotment will be on a first come first serve availability*



Ann Elizabeth Lee

Taipei World Trade Center, Kolkata Office.
Apeejay House, Block " C", Ground Floor,
15, Park Street Kolkata-16.
Tel: +91-33-4004-2796/97.
Fax: +91-33-4004-2798.
Email: kolkata@taitra.org.tw

L O V E - D E V O T I O N

FINDING SAMUEL LOWE  :  FROM HARLEM TO CHINA

“People don’t know there’s a long history of the black Chinese,” says former TV Executive, Journalist , entrepreneur and filmmaker  Paula Madison (  Paula Williams Madison was born in Harlem, New York in 1952 to parents Elrick Williams and Nell Lowe Williams ) .

In tracing her roots through Jamaica,  Paula Madison set out to find a missing link – her Chinese grandfather and long-lost relatives across the Pacific. She turned that journey into a fascinating documentary, “Finding Samuel Lowe: From Harlem to China” about heritage and family .
 

 Three successful black siblings from Harlem discover their heritage by searching for clues about their long-lost Chinese grandfather, Samuel Lowe.

Retired NBC Universal executive Paula Williams Madison and her brothers, Elrick and Howard Williams, were raised in Harlem by their Chinese Jamaican mother, Nell Vera Lowe. Nell encouraged them to realize the rags-to-riches American dream, resulting in their growth from welfare recipients to wealthy entrepreneurs. In order to fulfill a promise to their mother to connect to her estranged father's people, they embarked on journey to uncover their ancestral roots.

The three traveled to the Toronto Hakka Chinese Conference where they connected to members of the Chinese Jamaican community. As the mystery of their grandfather's life unfolds, the trio travels to Jamaica, learning that their grandfather had a life there similar to their own, starting with humble beginnings in Mocho, Clarendon Parish, and ending with successful business ownership in the affluent St. Ann's Bay. But in 1933, he left Jamaica, returning to China for good.

Taking family tree research to an epic proportion, the siblings and 16 of their family members travel to two Chinese cities, ShenZhen and GuangZhou. Together, they visit their family's ancestral village, finding documented lineage that dates their family back 3,000 years to 1006 BC. The trip culminates in an emotional and unforgettable family reunion with 300 of their grandfather's Chinese descendants.

At its heart, this is a story about familial love and devotion that transcends race, space and time.

Chinese Buddhist Temple

CALCUTTA , JULY 20 , 2014 , SUNDAY , page 24

Chinese Invasion . . .

 

 XIAOMI 

 OPPO

GIONEE 

 LENOVO

 

BELONGING ! !

Tuesday , July 8 , 2014 , page 11

GETTING  PAST  THAT  YEAR  OF  BITTER  MEMORIES

The Cha Project, to restore Calcutta’s Old China Town

(From top)The interior of the Sea Ip shrine, A modern version of a hand-written community newspaper , The former chamber of the Chinese dentists’ association , A closed municipal vat near the Toong On Church

The breakfast served in Calcutta’s Tiretta Bazar — ostensibly the city’s older, original China Town — is truly appetizing. But the stories I was told during my visit by its Chinese residents were distinctly unpalatable. Dominic, who runs a modest store near-by, recounted his mother-in-law’s banishment to an internment camp in Deoli in Rajasthan. A resident of Shillong, she was forcibly put on a train by Indian security personnel in 1962, the year of India’s disastrous war with China. Dominic’s description of the woman’s terror is matter-of-fact. During the long journey in the cold (it was November), the bona fide Chinese residents — most of them had been born in India or had married into Indian families — were denied blankets. Each time the train stopped at a station, threatening mob chanted racial slogans. The years in Deoli, the last of the detainees were released only in 1967, were spent in physical hardship. The Chinese people were forced to take up agriculture to survive, even though most of them had owned small businesses in cities. A large number of the families were later deported to China. Unable to integrate themselves into an alien land and culture — weather, food, dress, nothing felt like home — the displaced population emigrated to Canada in search of a better life.

That morning, Lin — Georgie to his friends and a consummate chef — also shared his knowledge of the difficult years that followed the War. He had grown up listening to stories of discrimination against Calcutta’s Chinese community: Indian companies got rid of Chinese employees on flimsy grounds while Chinese businesses — shoe-shops , for instance — were crippled by militant trade unionism.

Another woman, a teacher who had been listening to my conversation with Tiretta Bazar’s residents, sternly asked me my year of birth, the reason for my visit, and then said, “What would you know about not belonging?

I didn’t know much, but I wanted to find out.

The truth is that like most other Calcuttans, my knowledge of the city’s Chinese population is limited to Indianized Chinese food — I was treated to dimsum soup and pork balls in Tiretta Bazar— and the boisterous New Year dragon dance. Indifference and ignorance have contributed to our collective apathy towards the community’s troubles: the dwindling population (Calcutta’s Chinese residents number around 2,000, say unconfirmed estimates), low literacy and employment rates, the ruinous state of Chinese places of worship (a municipal vat lying within metres of the Toong On Church was shut after sustained agitation). But the Cha Project, a restoration initiative that aims to conserve Tiretta Bazar with generous help from Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage, the Singapore-based Buzz Media and, surprisingly, the state tourism department, has now been conceived to plug the gaps in the city’s knowledge of the Chinese community. A detailed project report is being drafted to chalk the outlines to restore and preserve, among other places, a cemetery, old temples as well as the iconic Nanking restaurant. A heritage centre, conceived of as a repository of Chinese artefacts, has also been planned as part of the project. There are plans to revive such traditional Chinese crafts as shoe-making. Thirty-odd Chinese-owned shoe-shops survive in Calcutta, and their mass-produced stock has few buyers in a liberalized retail trade dominated by global manufacturers. Care is also being taken to design the project in a manner that would benefit the local economy. Vendors who sell breakfast in Tiretta Bazar would be provided with stalls, carts and clean water.

Redesigning public spaces to renew their organic ties with a community’s history and culture remain central tenets of modern conservation. In this respect, the Cha Project isn’t quite original. Yet its emphasis on incentivizing heritage conservation for the stake holders — in this instance, the Chinese community — underscores its importance. In a culture that refuses to prioritize conservation, thereby ignoring history and the lessons it holds for us, the only way to preserve the past, perhaps, is by transforming the collective responsibility of protection into a profitable enterprise. Incidentally, this model of entrepreneurial conservation has been successfully practised to restore Chinese enclaves in other parts of Southeast Asia. Kuala Lumpur, for instance, has a bustling area selling Chinese food and knick-knacks. Premised on the philosophy of sustainable development, such projects strive to transform neglected urban heritage zones into “mixed-use” public spaces, comprising restaurants, museums and outlets for performance arts — each agency serving as a prop to educate visitors about the local community’s history and cultural practices. If the Cha Project were to succeed, the morning market in Tiretta Bazar could metamorphose into an aesthetically designed lane selling delicious, hygienic food. The restoration of the surrounding decaying temples would also mean that greedy Calcuttans as well as those with a serious interest in the city’s syncretic history would flock to this stretch. Such visits, in turn, would help regenerate the local economy. Securing the livelihoods of food vendors, artisans and small traders would, theoretically, preserve an eco-system comprising distinct forms of architecture, cultural practices and trades.

Such a participatory approach has additional benefits. First, it democratizes conservation by limiting the role of the State to that of a facilitator. Second, and more important, conservation is consequently seen as a public, and not an esoteric, engagement.

But incentivizing conservation has its own pitfalls.The prioritizing of economic regeneration often leads to selective representation and embellishment of community history. The Cha Project’s laudable intention of preserving and presenting the best — in other words, what is deemed most attractive for consumers — of what the Chinese community has to offer reveals the dilemma inherent to sustainable conservation. Should not the stories of deprivation, deportation and subsequent disenfranchisement of Calcutta’s Chinese people be accommodated in a project meant to record the history of the community? The wilful exclusion of the unedifying aspects of the community’s relationship with the city would bolster the dangerous proposition of conservation being divested of the mechanisms to redress past injustices.

Interestingly, the resistance to make history representative can also stem from the community itself. Most of the Chinese residents I spoke to seemed anxious to ensure that the conservation project adequately reflects the community’s adaptability and industriousness — its two most prized qualities. But my enquiries concerning the existence of opium dens and the shadowy links with the underworld were met with silence or denial.

The community’s enthusiasm to disseminate its virtues, while concealing the faultlines, betrays its nervousness about being demonized in the eyes of the majoritarian group. This reiterates the fact that the reconstruction of community history through institutional means is, inevitably, a political exercise in which the balance of power is decidedly tilted in favour of the majoritarian community. The challenge for the Cha Project is not only to make conservation profitable. Its legacy will be judged by its ability to record truthfully the sources of tension between the city and a people who wanted to belong to it.

Economic and cultural marginalization of the Chinese people has contributed to the sense of alienation that prevails in old China Town. The State’s indifference towards redressing the horrors perpetrated on the community has also compounded its estrangement. Therefore, it will not be enough to compensate the wrongs of the past by preserving a heritage space. The reintegration of the community depends on the State’s willingness to make it visible not only on the city’s economic and cultural map but also in the sphere of education. The inclusion of the community’s contributions to Calcutta, as well as its present problems — migration, worrisome demographic indicators, and so on — in the official curriculum is critical to an attempt to dissipate this sense of alienation. The preservation of derelict edifices as well as language is necessary to restore the community’s sense of dignity. There is thus a case of reimagining the idea of heritage conservation itself. It should no longer be deemed only as a complex exercise involving the preservation of endangered architectural forms. It has to be thought of as a holistic enterprise that must harmonize the difficult, and often contradictory, demands of architecture, aesthetics, education, culture, economics and justice.

Its conceptual limitations notwithstanding, the Cha Project can be an important milestone in a city that is yet to develop a professional and empathetic outlook towards conservation. The success of the project may provide the necessary impetus to other public-private partnerships to restore all that is being threatened with permanent effacement. Hopefully, such initiatives would also expand their field of enquiry to preserve the architectural legacies and cultural practices of indigenous migrant communities — Marwaris, Biharis, Punjabis, Odiyas — that have enriched the city as a living space. Some such segments, having tasted affluence through the real estate business, pose the greatest threat to older parts of the city like Tiretta Bazar. The need to educate them about the importance of preserving and regenerating public spaces and their affiliated histories should be treated as an urgent, and public, responsibility.

Uddalak Mukherjee

Reviving India's only Chinatown

 In most big countries around the world you would find at least one Chinatown, or an area dominated by the Chinese community.

In India, the only surviving one is in the eastern city of Calcutta.

Despite India and China being neighbours, the number of people of Chinese origin in Calcutta has been dwindling rapidly, but now there are plans to invest money and bring it back to life.

From Border to Border

Career Opportunity

We're hiring . Join us

DDFS , a luxury retail company would like to hire Chinese who are present in India and are passionate for making their career in retail and have good command over Chinese language, at the luxury travel Duty Free stores at Terminal 3, Indira Gandhi International Airport in Delhi.

The job role broadly includes - 

·         Acknowledge and approach Chinese Nationality Passengers  at the Airport

·         Ensure highest level of customer service

·         Present, demonstrate and sell the merchandise

·         Make a continuous effort to promote sales

·         Assist in stock handling

·         Maintenance of shop standards

Compensation :   Fixed salary + Incentives + Boarding & Lodging

Excellent Working Environment ,  Work Life Balance , Defined Career Progression

Delhi Duty Free Services Private Limited ( DDFS )

Airport Building 302,

New Udaan Bhawan Complex,
Near Terminal - 3,
IGI Airport, New Delhi - 110037,
India.

www.delhidutyfree.co.in

Mobile:  8800395506  /  9818335927

Landline:  01149242936

Contact : Ms Megha Laroia ( Manager – Human Resources )

Email : megha.laroia@delhidutyfree.co.in

Company Profile: Delhi Duty Free Services Pvt Ltd is the biggest luxury travel retail operator in India, with exclusive duty free retail space present at the new International Airport T3 terminal . Delhi Duty Free is established as one of the world’s prominent luxury travel retail shopping experiences and destination.DDFS retail over 100 of the world’s best known international brands in makeup, skincare, perfumes, tobacco, confectionary and Liquor.

Where Are You ???

Chen  Family

Certain Surekha Misra, who was living in Hastings, Calcutta in 1960, with her father, a Navy officer, and her mother of German national, is seeking information for A Chen family.

The Chen family  was running a small restaurant opposite Cylde Row Housing , Calcutta , in 1960. Her best  friend's' name were Janet, Jean, Jojo and ( may be) Nicole. Janet's brother Victor and Edward.

At present Ms Misra is residing in Germany.

C H E R I S H

     Kolkata , May 14  2014 , page 6

Study of Kolkata's culture curry

Students From Denmark And Ahmedabad Document Chinese, Anglo-Indian Heritage

Architecture students from Denmark and all over India are in the city to study and document the Chinese settlement at old Chinatown in Territi Bazaar. The team will also photograph and sketch Bow Barracks, a nearly century-old Anglo-Indian hub.

Led by Kamalika Bose, assistant professor, faculty of design at India's premier architecture institute, Centre for Environmental Planning and Technology (CEPT) University, the 27 students of whom 12 are from Aarhus School of Architecture in Denmark and the rest from CEPT, Ahmedabad, will study traditions of the two communities reflected through cultural and occupational practices, food habits, dress and architecture. They will also study how time has impacted the communities, altered the socio-economic circumstances and eroded the cultural heritage.

“The eclectic history of diverse immigrant communities shape and leave an indelible impression on the socio-cultural nerve of a city . The cosmopolitan character of a city is demonstrated in the multitude of ethnic enclaves and their architectural diversity found within such historical urban quarters. Kolkata serves as an exemplary case of the proverbial `melting pot' of Armenians, Chinese, Jews, AngloIndians, and Greeks, among others, who migrated to the city from 18th century onwards,“ explained Bose, the lead instructor at CEPT summer school in Kolkata.

The three-week programme is designed to expand the students' understanding of culture and community and their contemporary significance through documentation, observation and analysis.

The study selected two ethnic settlements--old Chinatown and Bow Barracks--located in close proximity to further compare and cross-refer cultural strands that inter weave to form Kolkata's composite ethnic heritage.

The team will look at Bow Barracks that was built in 1918 for soldiers in World War I and has since been home to AngloIndians.

Prior to Independence, Kolkata was the largest and most permanent home for this community of mixed descent, with over 100 families in the neighbourhood now.

The Chinese community in Kolkata, on the other hand, has a 250-year-old history where old Chinatown forms the most distinctive settlement in South Asia.

It continues to have a population of over 2,000 comprising people of both Cantonese and Hakka Chinese descent.

The rich-built heritage of the Chinese is, however, poorly documented as Bose discovered during her consultancy work for the Cha Project, an initiative to preserve Kolkata's rich history , not glassed up in a museum but tangible, living heritage.

“Kolkata is architecturally under-studied. I realized the paucity of a base map while surveying old Chinatown. One of the first tenets of conservation is to have good sets of drawings, documenting each building that is of heritage value.

This has to be done in a manner that involves the community so that they can then use these tools for the revival of old Chi natown,“ said Bose.

Apart from visits to Chinatown and Bow Barracks, the programme includes a panel discussion on urban heritage, a visit to a former Danish colony in Serampore and a French colony in Chandannagore and a visit to the lime workshop at the Scottish Cemetery in collaboration with the Kolkata Scottish Heritage Trust.

“It is extremely exciting for architecture students from Denmark to have the chance to experience two foreign cultures -Indian and Chinese -at the same time and learn how to benefit from the tremendous wisdom and richness embedded in both. In a globalized world, it is of utmost impor tance that we can distinguish and cherish the cultural diversity we live in. Denmark and India share a short period of common history . We are curious to find and identify some common traces of the past on a visit to Serampore next week,“ said Thomas Hilberth, associate professor, Aarhus School of Architecture, Denmark, and coinstructor of the programme.

Danish student Thea Dahl Orderud is bowled by Kolkata.

“The city's cultural heritage peeks out from the everyday life of citizens; a way of living where the physical borders of houses is extended by its social activities. Never before have I experienced anything like this,“ she remarked.

Prathyusha Ravi, who is doing her post-graduation in architecture and conservation at CEPT, felt that Kolkata had been a resilient canvas expressing unique painting of architecture and settlements of British, Chinese, Danish and Armenians.

“As architects, we study patterns that make the painting look perfect but contradicting imperfections add great value and beauty to the city . As citizens living in the canvas, it is in our hands to protect this great inheritance from fading.

I hope this documentation will be a stepping stone for the same,“ she added.

Subhro Niyogi  TNN

M I S S I N G !!!

May  2 , 2014

Missing from Chinatown


As Kolkata’s Chinese population dwindles, we discover a story of immigration gone wrong and a community straddling two worlds


Kolkata’s love affair with Chinese food begins at daybreak. In a lane near the Lal Bazar police station, a group of Chinese hawkers sit by the wayside, keeping their pork momos, chicken sausages and prawn wafers warm in steel steamers. Known to loyal customers as the famed Chinese breakfast, the food sells rapidly. By 8am, the vendors have all but disappeared. For the rest of the day, it is hard to find a significant Chinese imprint in an area still referred to as the city’s Old Chinatown. Thomas Chen, a 36-year-old mechanical engineer, grew up here in Tiretta Bazar. When he walks around the neighbourhood today, he is often left asking — where have all my people gone?

The story of the dwindling Chinese community in Kolkata tells of forced departures, uneasy prospects and a people searching for a new home. Photo: Arunangsu Roy Chowdhury


Tom Lai’s family had moved out of Tiretta Bazar in the 1950s, but he remembers that in his grandmother’s time, even the large backyard and living room of their Park Street house would witness several impromptu parties. “Fifty or 70 people would suddenly land up. We’d cook noodles, rice and momos together. It would be a community feast. Now I meet someone Chinese once a month, maybe two,” says Lai, a designer of retail spaces in the city. Lai’s revelation should come as no surprise. There just aren’t enough Indians of Chinese origin left to party with or even meet. From 50,000-strong in 1960, Kolkata’s Indian-Chinese community shrank to less than 10,000 in the early 2000s. While some optimistic members of the community prefer to believe that they still number 3,500-4,000 in the city, official estimates in 2013 revealed that the number might be closer to 2,000. Though this drop in numbers calls for a closer examination, it is first an occasion for nostalgia.

Early bird: Eager diners gather at Chinese eateries, in Kolkata, the prawn wafers and pork momos run out in a few hours. Photo: Ashoke Chakrabarty 


Rita Chen, 60, has witnessed the slow erasure of Chinese influence from Kolkata. A hairdresser for 45 years, she talks of the numerous Chinese-owned salons of the past. Once the preferred destination for many a Kolkata woman looking for a bouffant and a bob, only a handful of the parlours remain. Chen remembers the sumptuous food served at the legendary Nanking restaurant. A favourite haunt of Bollywood stars such as Raj Kapoor and Dilip Kumar, Nanking was forced to shut shop in the late 1970s after a bitter property dispute. Bentinck Street, she recalls, had an unending row of Chinese shoe shops. Just a quarter of these are now in business. “They have all settled abroad,” she explains.

For Chen, ‘abroad’ is a familiar place. Her parents, son and six of her seven siblings have all immigrated to destinations such as Australia, Hong Kong and Macau. “In Calcutta, it is very difficult to have a good future,” she says. “It is better if they leave.”

Waiting in line

There are many families like Chen’s in Kolkata. Straddling two disparate worlds, they all mention waits in visa offices that last weeks and queues in passport offices that stretch for months. If one is to collectively consider their accounts, it might be fair to assume that the narrative of Kolkata’s Indian-Chinese community is that of immigration gone wrong. The steady exodus only proves that for this minority, seamless integration has always proved a distant dream. Discrimination, lack of opportunity and unfavourable circumstances are just some of the varied reasons cited by those boarding the next plane out, but they all agree — there’s no running away from history.

Desi blood: William Wong, who runs a dry cleaning shop, wishes his children knew a bit of Mandarin. Photo: Ashoke Charabarty 


Descendents of the Hakka people in China, the Indian-Chinese populace of Kolkata seems to have movement in its blood. Known for their migrations across the Chinese mainland, it seemed only fitting that the community acquired the name Hakka, a word that roughly translates to ‘stranger’. Paul Chung, president of the Indian-Chinese Association, talks about how Chinese businessman Tong Achi arrived in Calcutta with 110 Hakka labourers in 1782 to set up a sugarcane factory for the British. The 72-year-old settles comfortably into his couch before making a comparison, “As far as a migrant work ethic was concerned, they were a lot like the Punjabis. Very, very determined.”

With each passing decade, the number of Chinese migrant workers in Calcutta began to rise. But much like Tong Achi’s original crew, says Chung, “those coming in never came here to stay. They came here to earn money and return.” The year 1949 changed all that. As the Communist Party of China established the People’s Republic, it became clear that no warm homecoming awaited those who had been lured by jobs overseas. “That’s the day we lost our motherland,” laments Chung. Families that would strictly insist upon the use of Mandarin and Cantonese at home began to send their children to English-medium schools. Calcutta’s Chinese community might have even mastered adaptation if it weren’t for October 1962, a date that saw India go to war with China.

Call of home: Fredrick Liao abandoned the comforts of Taiwan and returned to Kolkata to run his father's restaurant. Photo: Ashoke Charabarty


Paul Chung was still in school when the Chinese launched their offensive. His classmates ridiculed him for not being Indian and passersby threw stones when he walked down the street. Some like Monica Liu, however, had it worse. Only nine at the time, Monica and her family were picked up from their home, imprisoned in Shillong Jail for a fortnight and then sent to the Central Internment Camp in Rajasthan’s Deoli. Held without trial, they and a few thousand others were forced to stay in the desert camp for five years. “We were given food, but no education. We had lights, but no fans. We were completely forgotten by the Indian government,” says Monica. By the time she was released, it became apparent that most members of her community were looking for a ticket out of India, one that proved too expensive for her. “Think about this,” she says, “My husband has nine brothers and two sisters. But only he stayed back. What does that tell you?”

Monica’s life is, in many ways, a tale of dogged perseverance. From not having enough money for airfare, she now owns six restaurants and a beauty parlour. On the walls of her office hang pictures of her hobnobbing with the late former chief minister Jyoti Basu and Mother Teresa. Ordering the staff at her Tangra restaurant, Monica says the “empire” she has created should be reason enough for her children to stay put. But not everyone from the area is quite as fortunate.

Mandarin cut: Kolkata's women looking for a bouffant and a bob used to flock to Tangra's parlours. Photo: Ashoke Charabarty


A locality in east Kolkata, Tangra housed a majority of the Chinese population that had preferred the city over various other destinations. Home to over 350 tanneries, most of them Chinese-owned, the locality had rightfully earned itself the name Chinatown. A 1996 Supreme Court directive disturbed the peace. Citing environmental concerns, the apex court ordered that the area’s tanneries be moved outside the city limits. Leather manufacturer Peter Liu was one of the worst-affected. “You can’t solve the problem by simply allotting land in some new leather complex,” he says. “Relocation requires finance and my little local business could never realise that cost.” Electricity supply to his manufacturing unit was severed in 2002 and Peter has since been trying hard to keep his head above water. He has eight children and most of them now live overseas. Peter asks dejectedly, “When you see such troubles in front of your eyes, why would you want to stay?”

This, in some ways, is just the tip of Peter’s discontent. He and other Tangra residents believe that you only need to walk through Chinatown to measure governmental discrimination. Despite paying taxes, they ask, “Why do our streets have no lamps?” James Chung, who once had a leather business in Tangra, has since spent the last seven years in Sweden and Canada. Back in the country for a hiatus, he says, “Unlike other minorities who have benefited from reservations and quotas, the Indian-Chinese are completely ignored.” Arguing that the Chinese are effectively discouraged from thinking of themselves as Indian, Chung says, “We go to the same schools. We have dal with our meals. We try our best to be regular Indian citizens, but at every step we are reminded of our difference. So if you feel you are not wanted, you’ll either fight or you’ll go away.”

Toronto is the new Tangra

After having suffered prejudice even keener than the one described by Chung, Jimmy Leong felt that flight was a better option than fight. The 31-year-old says that while growing up, leaving Chinatown was always a cause for discomfort. “Outside that comfort zone, I was stereotyped as either North-eastern or Nepalese. Children and adults would tease me and say that I ate cockroaches.” He remembers people mocking his features, his “chinky” eyes and his flat nose. The ridicule, he says, “always made me feel that I didn’t belong and that I should move away as fast as I could.” Jimmy left Kolkata when he was 19, first going to Mumbai, then Taiwan — “I had always wanted to be in a place where there are people who looked like me” — and seeing that many members of his Indian-Hakka community were moving to Toronto, he finally decided to settle in Canada.

Working as an auto claims adjuster for an insurance company, Jimmy, a permanent Canadian resident, speaks fondly of a Hakka Chinese community that might have its roots in Kolkata but now flourishes in Toronto. Over a series of emails, he talks of the several Hakka restaurants in nearby neighbourhoods and of retired Chinese citizens who gather to gossip about the young. The community has also been catalogued in a phone directory and the guest lists for weddings are said to now far exceed similar occasions in distant Kolkata. Toronto, it would seem, is the new Tangra.

Back in Chinatown, Fredrick Liao has sacrificed the arguably superior nightlife, transport systems and sanitation of Taiwan to help run his father’s restaurant. As he scrolls down his Facebook profile, he points to a recent picture. Twenty young Indian-Chinese friends have gathered at the airport. They are bidding a mate farewell. He explains, “Only those with businesses stay. Everyone else leaves sooner or later. As a result I have more friends in Canada than I do in Kolkata.”

For those left behind

No amount of travel, it seems, can help members of the Indian-Chinese community escape the contradictions of their dual heritage. Fiona Leong left Kolkata for Scotland in 2010. After successfully pursuing a Master’s degree, she worked as a financial advisor with a bank in Aberdeen for two years. When people would ask where she was from, they weren’t satisfied when she said India. Their confusion would only deepen when she spoke Chinese. This “identity crisis”, she says, “was the biggest disadvantage of moving overseas.” Dressed in a sky-blue salwar kameez, 25-year-old Fiona says she returned to Kolkata after three years because she needed to be with her parents and sister. “At some level, I always knew I’d come back to be with my family,” she says.

Full menu: Monica Liu, who owns six restaurants today, along with her cousin Peter Liu. Photo: Ashoke Chakrabarty 


Often, family ties tend to be the strongest draw. Seeing that his four siblings had left for destinations like Los Angeles and Toronto, William Wong decided to stay back in Kolkata with his parents. He took control of Shanghai Co, a dry cleaning shop his father had set up in 1936. Wong says that even though he has never been to his village in China, he doesn’t believe there is any reason for his Chinese inheritance and Indian roots to be in conflict. “My children and I grew up here. We feel comfortable in India.” His elder son is studying at the Shri Ram College of Commerce, New Delhi, while the younger one goes to school in Chandigarh and plays badminton at the national level. “They like Indian music, Indian films, they have an Indian palate. I just wish they also knew a little Mandarin.”

Fortunately for Wong and other members of his community, there has recently been talk of 100 crore being spent to revive the city’s old and new Chinatowns. The brainchild of a Singaporean conglomerate called Buzzmedia, the ‘Cha’ Project plans to reopen several shuttered Chinese eateries and even seeks to revive Pei May, the last surviving Chinese language school in the city. But despite the optimism about the injection of funds, not many are convinced that this will staunch the decline of Kolkata’s Indian-Chinese populace. As 28-year-old Terence Yeh puts it, “Kolkata is like a slow, outdated gadget and everyone wants a faster life nowadays.” Monica Liu imagines a possible scenario where there’d be no Chinese inhabitants left in Kolkata. “That’s the day even I’ll have to run.”

                                                                                                                               Shreevatsa Nevatia

DETERMINATION PAYS OFF

 KOLKATA , THURSDAY,  April 24, 2014 ( page 2)


Half-a-world Flight Without Skull Bone

Patient Flies To Toronto With City Doctor’s Help

" Ivan Lin Chung Was One Of The Chinese Who Had Left India After 1962 "

Kolkata: When 64-year-old Ivan Lin Chung, a Canadian citizen of Chinese origin, was wheeled into a private hospital in Kolkata last February, his right side was paralyzed and his speech had been affected by a clot in the brain. Doctors rated his chances of survival at less than 50%. Removing a skull bone was the only option left to them. They not only operated on him successfully but accompanied him in his 32-hour journey on connecting flights to hand him over to his family members in Toronto.

    Ivan, who was on his way back home after a trip to China, had stopped over in Kolkata to spend the Chinese New Year with relatives. During a two-month stay at the hospital, he suffered a cerebral haemorrhage, forcing doctors to remove his skull bone to ease the pressure on the brain. On April 13, Ivan — a doctor himself — left the city on a Jet Airways flight for Mumbai, en route to Brussels from where he flew business class to his home in Toronto, accompanied by a doctor and a nurse from the hospital. He made the journey lying on a stretcher, semi-conscious and without his skull bone, even as a battery-operated monitor tracked his vital parameters.

    Ivan has not only survived the strenuous, consecutive commercial flights, doctors and relatives in Toronto said he arrived in a pretty good condition. “In fact, he is showing signs of improvement. On Tuesday, he moved his right leg and made an attempt to sit up. We are grateful to the hospital in Kolkata and are pleasantly surprised by the excellent arrangements made by the airline that made the transportation risk-free. We didn’t expect the journey to be so smooth,” said Michael Chung, the patient’s brother.

    Afflicted with multiple illnesses, Ivan had gone to China in November. He arrived in Kolkata last January and had planned to spend a couple of weeks here. On February 4, his right arm suddenly went numb. His nephew got him admitted to the Medica Superspecialty Hospital where a clot in the brain was detected. Ivan remained drowsy and was treated with anti-epileptic and anti-edema drugs. But they failed to prevent the clot from bleeding. It led to a sudden deterioration and doctors had to do an emergency decompressive hemicraniectomy (removal of the skull bone) to reduce the brain pressure. It was done by neuro-surgeons LN Tripathi and Sunandan Basu.

    “It was the only option left and it stabilized his condition. But he improved very slowly since the procedure on February 20. His daughter flew in from Toronto and wanted to take him back. Initially, she sought to arrange for a chartered flight armed with the necessary intensive care equipment. But the cost turned out to be forbidding. Then, we got in touch with Jet Airways who agreed to allot us the last row of their business class and promised medical assistance at the transit points. It was going to be a challenge but we decided to go ahead with the family’s approval,” said Arindam Kar, critical care head at Medica, who flew with Ivan. They were accompanied by nurse Swapnil Thulung.

    At the Kolkata airport, Ivan was wheeled into the medical zone where he went through a clinical examination and was declared fit to fly under supervision. He was put into an ambulance and driven to the aircraft, shifted to a wheel-chair, lifted to the plane and again put back on the stretcher once inside the flight. Kar and Thulung checked the monitor every 20 minutes and injected fluids.

    The process was repeated at the Mumbai airport, where Ivan’s security check-in and immigration formalities were completed at the medical emergency room. On the flight to Brussels, the patient started feeling uneasy. Kar and Thulung swung into action, using medicines and administering clot-dissolution injections twice to stabilize him. “Fortunately, the situation never went out of control. In fact, he took the strain quite well. It was always going to be a risk, though for his skull bone had been taken off. He had been on ventilation for three weeks at the hospital and was obviously very critical,” said Kar.

    At Brussels, Ivan was put through another round of treatment. “Now, we were on the last leg of the journey and felt a little tense. We didn’t obviously want things to go wrong at the final lap. The cabin crew was just as eager to ensure a safe flight,” said Kar.

    It requires a huge amount of coordination to transport such a critical patient across the globe, said Sarvesh Gupta, chairman of the Airlines Operators’ Committee (AOC). “Every transit station has to be prepared and things have to be done on time. For the airline concerned, it is a risk for if anything untoward happens, the flight has to be diverted to the nearest airport which amounts to a loss of time and money. But airlines do take such risks for the sake of helping passengers,” said Gupta.

    Kar felt this could pave the way for more such critical patients to be flown out of the country. “Like Ivan, foreigners often fall ill and require hospitalization in Kolkata, forcing them to be stuck in an alien city. They end up spending much more than they would back home. In this case, Ivan had spent Rs 8 lakh for his treatment in Kolkata. The bill would have run higher if he stayed longer. In Canada, he is being treated free of charge,” explained Kar.

    Ivan’s family is relieved to have him back. “He is doing well now and may soon undergo a surgery to put the skull bone back,” said Michael Chung.

 ( Ivan Was One Of The Chinese Who Had Left India After 1962 )

Incredible journey

Ivan Lin Chung’s right arm went numb On February 4, when he was visiting Kolkata to celebrate Chinese New Year
A clot in the brain was detected and he was treated with anti-epileptic and anti-edema drugs. But they failed to prevent the clot from bleeding
Doctors had to remove his skull bone to reduce the brain pressure
    His daughter flew in from Toronto and wanted to take him back. Could not afford to hire a chartered flight. Decided to fly him business class
    All medical arrangements were made on board and at all transit points. A doctor and a nurse accompanied him throughout
 

Anxious moments

On flight to Brussels, Ivan Lin started feeling uneasy. The doctor administered clot-dissolution injections twice to stabilize him 

Ivan Lin Chung (left) receives the 2013 Most Outstanding North American Chinese Achievement Award at Newark, California from Democratic California State Assembly Member from the 28th district Paul Fong 

PS :  He Was One Of The Chinese Who Had Left India After 1962

                                                                                                                              Prithvijit Mitra  TNN

From Border to Border

邊界移動兩百年

From Border to Border

影片簡介Synopsis

印度的加爾各答，有多元的族群與文化，還有其他印度城市所沒有的「唐人街」與「中國早餐」。家鄉動盪貧困的華人，從兩百年前開始遷徙的路徑，他們漂移過海，長途跋涉，抵達在英屬印度時期的「黃金地」加爾各答 。

在印度種姓制度下，製鞋、洗衣、鑲牙、製革，被歸為賤民階級的工作，成為華人的維繫生存傳統職業。今日加爾各答現存的中國區，從印度社會投射的想像中，既是英屬印度光輝的時代殘跡，偶爾闔家光臨的異國餐館，也是讓人繞道閃避的貧民窟。長年身處社會邊緣，身分與權益不明確的華人，世代築起高牆，牢固隔閡著印/華間的偏見與關係。

《邊界移動兩百年》以八個章節，探見印度華人兩百年間的「來」與「去」，影片呈現老中青三代印度華人身處時代邊緣的記憶碎片，對照歷史影像紀錄、印度左翼導演Mrinal Sen《藍色天空下》電影見證的1930年代，拼貼出印度華人在時代洪流中消聲的歷史，今日的生活處境與心理狀態，以及變動中的未來。

Taking place in Calcutta’s Chinatown, From Border to Border recalls the complicated relationship that continues to divide India’s ethnic Chinese and mainstream Indian communities. Supposedly marked by social exclusion and self-segregation, the ethnic Chinese community has remained a mystery despite generations of living in India. Through a collection of oral narratives, Chung Shefong and her film crew carefully uncover the intriguing yet troubled history of India’s Chinese community. Starting from the Chinese community’s arrival in India in the 1800s, to the effects of the 1962 Sino-Indian border conflict, to their recent mass emigration, From Border to Border puts voices to faces as interviewees retell their histories and describe their experiences living with generational discrimination and alienation, cultural preservation and familial expectations.

台灣 Taiwan 2013｜106 min｜Color HD

語言 Languages  華語、客語、粵語、英語、印度語 Chinese ( Mandarin, Hakka, Cantonese) English, Hindi

字幕 Subtitles     繁體中文、英文 Traditional Chinese or English

導演 Director     鍾適芳 CHUNG, Shefong

製作 Produced by

大大樹音樂圖像 trees music & art

監製與版權所有 Copyright

台灣客家電視台  客家委員會Hakka TV, Hakka Affairs Council, Taiwan 

                 

Water Drop TeaHouse

The Chinese have been in Kolkata for more than 230 years.  Their numbers have been decreasing as many of them have been leaving for other lands. There are efforts to start a revival, although it seems impossible. However some Chinese and well wishers are trying to put our shoulder to the wheel to make good our stay in the land of our birth.

                                                                    The Teahouse

In West Bengal one the most famous and popular activity is having tea. This friendly pastime is a medium for gathering together for bonding or as a prelude to more serious business.

We welcome the initiative by the disciples of Fo Guang Buddhist Temple for opening the Water Drop Teahouse.

This Teahouse is a humble offering to the citizens of Kolkata to experience the taste of Chinese culture and share the treasures of Chinese living in India.

Currently, the Teahouse is opened only on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays from 15.00 hours to 18.00 hours.

We would seriously advice you not visit it after 17.00 hours as supply may run short.This is a strictly vegetarian joint.

Some of the items include :

Fruit Tea, Indonesia Traditional Herbal Tea, Lotus Tea, Herbal Tea ( Chrysanthemum Wolfberry etc..),Jasmine, Dry Raisen, Red Date Tea.

Dumplings : (momo), Sushi, Mushroom Cheese Sandwich,
Rice : FGS ( Lucky ) Special Rice, Spring, Special Package Rice, Indonesia Turmeric Rice, Golden Fried Rice, Mahogany Fried Rice.

Fried Noodle, Fried Rice Noodles. In addition there are soups such as Tomato, Sweet Corn and Hot and Sour soup.

This is but offering by the Temple's disciples and therefore all charges are treated as donation.

If you want to have the unique  experience do drop in at :

The Waterdrop Teahouse

Fo Guang Shan Buddhist Temple,

8 / 1  New Tangra Road,

 Kolkata -700046

Contact number : (033) 3292 3031 

The Chinese Connection

Travel 3Sixty

(The official inflight magazine of the World’s Best Low Cost Airline AirAsia)

February 2014

Page 80

South Asia’s only Chinatown is located in Kolkata,the capital of the state of West

Bengal in India,and this sizzling spot brims not just with hot Chinese food but a

delectable wealth of history.If you’re a connoisseur of exotic food and happen to be in

Kolkata, make a trip to the Old Chinatown in Tiretta Bazaar (named after an Italian

architect and town planner) located down Bentinck Street, where Chhatawala Gully meets

Sun Yat-sen Street.Since everything is freshly prepared, and sold by eight o’clock in

the morning, one has to be there at the break of dawn.

Chopsticks start clicking before the cock crows or the city buses start rolling out.

Chinese ladies with their straight black hair pinned up in tight buns set up stalls to

sell soup from large tureens,momo (pork, chicken and shrimp dumplings)with pau (steamed

buns), fish balls swimming in light gravy, and ‘moon cakes’ (a traditional baked

dessert) stacked on large trays, as well as numerous varieties of mouth-watering dim

sum.Dim sum and momos are in high demand at Tiretta Bazaar.

Among the crowd here are young journalists, call centre staff and policemen– night owls

most of them. The ambience is that of a classic oriental food court: Noisy and crowded,

with delectable aromas wafting through the air.

A local patron, who looks a thousand years old, assures me that the food, cooked home

style, is delicious. I tried a bowl of soup, a pau and some pork momos, and fell in

love.

MAPPING CHINATOWN

Tiretta Bazaar, a stone’s throw from the city’s police headquarters at Lalbazar,retains

a buzzing Chinatown vibe. I see an old man ambling along Sun Yat-sen Street.My

photographer Bijoy Chowdhury, who is familiar with the area, whispers, “Here comes

Paul Chung, a walking encyclopaedia on the Chinese in Kolkata.”

Soon, we are chatting with Chung over jasmine tea and learning about the Chinese of

Kolkata. “The Chinese started coming to India along the Silk Route in the second

century.Buddhist monk Faxian (Fa-Hien) came to India in the fifth century to study

Buddhist scriptures. Then, in the early 15th century,Admiral Zheng He arrived in Bengal

on his sixth voyage. The Sultan of Bengal gifted his pet giraffe (brought from Somalia)

to the admiral,” explains Chung.But things only started happening after the arrival of

the English East India Company.

According to Chung, Tong Achew, a tea trader from Guangdong, landed at Budge Budge

(a suburb of Kolkata today) in the late 18th century. The then Governor General Warren

Hastings granted Tong land to set up a sugar cane plantation and sugar factory.Folklore

has it that Tong wooed Hastings with a packet of tea, and Hastings offered him a plot

of land 10kms from Budge Budge, provided that the Chinese could mark the area of the

land within 24 hours. Tong marked out 650 bighas(a little under one square kilometre)

of land on horseback! He then imported 110 workers from South China to run his

plantation and mill. “These workers,” Chung continues,“are the ancestors of most of the

Chinese population of Kolkata.”

ACHIPUR, KOLKATA’S FIRST CHINESE SETTLEMENT

Tong Achew’s name lives on in Achipur, the site of his sugar cane plantation. Located

33 kms from Kolkata, Achipur can be reached by a bus service, which operates from

Esplanade in the heart of Kolkata, and stops at a place called Chinamantala meaning

‘the place of the Chinaman’.

On the Sunday after the Chinese New Year, Kolkatan Chinese make a pilgrimage to Achipur

to pay tribute to the man who started the first Chinese settlement in India over 230

years ago. The sleepy hamlet comes alive with the beating of Chinese drums and

Cantonese being spoken, and the Achipur temple is filled with Kolkatan Chinese offering

prayers to Chinese deities. While candles and incense sticks lend the place a divine

aura, a tempting spread of delectable food items sets a festive

spirit. Here, you can hear the older people exchanging greetings softly:“Yĕxŭ shàngdì

ràng mĕigèrén dōu jīngshénjuéshuò” (May God keep everyone hale and hearty) or“Kĕ

zàihépíng Táng Achew de línghún ānxi!”(May Tong Achew’s soul rest in peace).

The temple houses the male and female deities Khuda and Khudi, distinctively Chinese in

appearance. The low ceiling,the pillars and the walls are decorated with Chinese

calligraphy, while the prayer halls are lit with candles.

Chinese fortune tellers make a brisk business here, and people light candles and

incense sticks to pay tribute to Tong Achew at his red horse shoe-shaped burial site

overlooking the Hooghly River.

KOLKATAN, BORN & BRED

While the Chinese in Kolkata have retained their culture and traditions, many of them

feel an affinity to the city and to Bengali art and culture. Paul Chung feels that

there are many similarities between Chinese and Bengali traditions. Both Chung’s

daughters have married Indians – one of them a Bengali. When I ask Chung if he’d like

to spend his last days in China, Chung says, “My motherland is India; I

am an old Calcuttan (Calcutta was the old name of Kolkata). I was born here. Why should

I leave the city? Yes, I go to China, but only as a visitor.Wherever I go, I return to

my home in Calcutta.”

Love for Kolkata rings in the voice of shopkeeper Stella Chen, who I meet when I

pop into her Chinese provisions store, Hap Hing on Sun Yat-sen Street. Chen tells me,

“My grandfather came here over one hundred years ago. I have an umbilical attachment to

the city. My father opened this shop in 1934.” The store, where a single tungsten bulb

hangs from the ceiling emitting more gloom than gleam, is a piece of China, right here,

in Kolkata. You can find exotic green tea, pickled plums, rice noodles, orange peels,

sun dried mushrooms, and pink-edged prawn wafers,as well as a unique assortment of

Chinese medicine – from the ever popular Tiger Balm to strange medicated oils and vials

of secret panaceas. It is charming that Chen prefers to use a suan pan(Chinese abacus)

rather than a pocket calculator

Even the younger generation, forced to migrate due to economic reasons, miss Kolkata.

At Chen’s shop, I meet her nephew Michael Lou, a dental surgeon in Montréal,who is

visiting Kolkata where he spent his childhood. He says, “Look, we may have left

the city to seek greener pastures, but Kolkata lives on in our minds forever.”

Back on the street, I am pleasantly surprised to hear a young Chinese man cheerfully

sing a Bengali song: Tumi je amar... chirodiner-i(You are mine forever). I come to know

that his name is Dominic Lee. His friend Joe tells us, “Dominic is madly in love with

this city.”

A SWEET TRIBUTE

Locals believe the word chini meaning sugar is thought to have been inspired by Tong

Achew, a Chinese trader who set up a sugar factory in Kolkata and mapped

out the boundary of the first and only Chinatown in South Asia.This Bengali word for

sugar is unique among languages descended from Sanskrit.The word for sugar is sharkara

in Sanskrit,sacchar in Latin,zucker in German,sucre in French,sakhar in Russian and

shakkar in Hindi – all with Proto-Indo-European roots.

VISITING NEW CHINATOWN

As lunch time approaches, we head to Tangra,the New Chinatown on the eastern fringe of

Kolkata. In the past, Tangra was nothing more than a cluster of foul smelling tanneries

– now closed down and relocated. Although the hint of an odour lingers on occasion,

Tangra is now a centre for authentic (typically Hakka style) Chinese cuisine. The

ornate gateway to New Chinatown, with its beautiful Chinese characters, is evocative of

days gone by.

At a typical big ticket Chinese eatery in Tangra, the food and the service are both

without parallel. Here, I meet Monica Liu, the owner of a chain of restaurants

including the immensely popular Beijing Restaurant. She serves delicious food that she

cooks herself, and declares, “Kolkata keeps its doors open to outsiders. I have a very

special respect for this city.” Arguably, the biggest name in Tangra is the elaborately

laid out Big Boss restaurant. Its owner Xie Ying Xing left his tannery business

and built the restaurant on Matheswartala Road. An astute restaurateur, he realised

the importance of adding a touch of spicy Schezwan flavour to his fare as a concession

to local tastes. To this end, he introduced various vegetarian delicacies. Giving a

twist to paneer, a soft Indian cheese, somewhat similar to the Greek feta, Xie created

dishes like Kung Pao-style paneer to woo Kolkata’s significant vegetarian population,

comprising the Marwaris and the Gujaratis.

The Chinese in Kolkata today work in diverse fields as tannery owners, sauce

manufacturers,shoe store owners and restaurateurs. A number of them run beauty

parlours, and the younger generation is again taking to dentistry – a

traditional occupation. They’re a driven people, ambitious and determined.

TRUE TO THEIR ROOTS

With the steady economic decline of Kolkata,which began right from the end of the

British Raj, the Chinese population in Kolkata has declined in number, which is quite

evident in the drop in sales of India’s only Chinese-language newspaper:The Overseas

ChineseCommerce in India.Today, the small but fiery Chinese community in Kolkata

strives to hold on to their proud legacy and remember their roots.

 Sunday,Feb 16,2014,Kolkata


Tai Chi More Effective Than Yoga ?


After years of being exalted as an exotic form of martial arts, Tai chi is now seen by the medic world has an answer to most physical grievances. Week after week, researches are bringing to light the many healing benefits of this form, which includes it being beneficial to people suffering from osteoarthritis, diabetes, musculoskeletial pain triggered from working on computers. It is also being looked upon as an alternative option to yoga.

Tai chi is a series of bodily movements that's performed in a slow and graceful manner, each movement flows to the next without a pause. The technique was first introduced by a Taoist monk who got his inspiration from watching a crane and snake at war. Says Sensei Sandeep Desai, "Tai chi is largely under-utilised here! I've been teaching Tai chi for more than two decades, and I see only those who are spiritually inclined trying to learn this form. But Tai chi is more than just a form that helps you spiritually or helps you attain flexibility. It's an internal form of martial arts, deep and profound. It is not meant for instant gratification or instantaneous results."

Purnima Shah feels that Tai chi helped to bring an attitudinal change in her when dealing with chronic back problems. "It instilled a more positive attitude, and helped me divert my mind from the pain. The pain has reduced to large extend, and my body is no longer stiff, " she shares.

About Tai chi being seen as a better form of yoga. "I have specialised in both tai chi and hathyoga. The stretch in tai chi is not done at the cost of causing discomfort. This is significant, as when you stretch beyond a certain point, the body goes into a shock and recoil state, this is bad in the long run. Tai chi does not encourage that, and usually follows the movements of a cat. Sleep and stretch just enough to be able to spring back into action," explains Desai.

With varied benefits like efficient breathing, flexibility, balance, calm and reduction of stress hormones with minimum effort, it's not surprising that tai chi is taking over yoga.

Types of Tai Chi

Chen Style Tai Chi
Chen style Tai Chi Chuan is the oldest form of Tai Chi from which all the other styles derived. Chen style is known for its lower stances, silk reeling, jumps, stamps and Fa Jing encapsulated within a smooth flowing powerful form.

Yang Style Tai Chi Chuan
Yang Style Tai Chi are arge and relatively simplified movements and is the most popular styles practiced in the world today.

Sun Style Tai Chi Chuan
Sun-style Tai Chi is recognised by its small high postures with flowing movements forwards and backwards accompanied by connected arms movements.

Lee Style Tai Chi
Lee Family Tai Chi can be traced back to Ho-Hsieh. His teachings looked at all aspects of Chinese health and martial arts.

Guang Ping Tai Chi
This form incorporates a solid differentiation between yin and yang, as well as a number of well-defined silk drawing movements. Made up of 64 movements which relate to the sixty four hexagrams of the I Ching.

8 Diamond Form Tai Chi Chuan (8 Energies)
8 Diamond Form Tai Chi Chuan Form is based on the foundations of the eight key energies: peng, lu, ji, an, leigh, tsai, kao, zhao. These energies are fundamental to the practice and development of any Tai Chi Chuan Form and any Tai Chi Chuan practitioner. This form is short, simple and has a lot of depth.

Sunday, March 16, 2014

Small  is  beautiful

Peter Chan, an ethnic Chinese born and brought up in Calcutta, is one of the world's leading bonsai experts and gives Prince Charles gardening tips. Sajeda Momin meets him

When he was a young boy, he grew potted plants picked up from the footpaths of Sealdah in the balcony of his Entally home in Calcutta. Today, he gives gardening tips to Britain's Prince Charles. Peter Chan — an ethnic Chinese born and brought up in Calcutta — is one of the world's leading experts of bonsai, the ancient Japanese art of growing miniature plants.

You can take a Calcuttan out of Calcutta but you can't take Calcutta out of him. As we sit chatting in his beautiful Surrey home, about 100km south of London, on a cold and wet afternoon, his old hometown crops up again and again in our conversation.

Chan, now in his 70s, has vivid memories of the city he left over 50 years ago. "I have always felt more Indian than Chinese and continue to do so," he says, showing no trace of bitterness towards the country which branded him and thousands of other ethnic Chinese as traitors during the 1962 India-China war and herded them out of their homes.

He and his four elder sisters escaped the camps set up in Deoli (Rajasthan) that many Indian Chinese were interred in. As their Hong Kong-born mother was a British national, Chan and his sisters were able to seek refuge there in 1963. But he felt he didn't "belong" there and soon moved to Britain, he says, looking out at the seven and half acres of beautifully landscaped gardens that he now owns.

It was Chan's grandfather who first came to India in 1890 and settled down in Calcutta. "He and his younger brothers set up the family carpentry business K.T. Hing Bros which mostly manufactured carriages for trains, but also made the furniture for King George V's durbar in 1933," he says proudly. Chan's grandfather also ran a cinema in Calcutta's Chandni Chowk which showed Chinese films and even brought actors from China to stage plays.

As the family flourished Chan's father, who studied engineering in Milwaukee, US, started working for Clyde fans. But tragedy struck the family when he was killed during the Calcutta riots of 1947, possibly caught in cross-fire on his way to work. "I was seven. My mother was widowed and penniless and had to bring us all up. It was my eldest sister, Eleanor, who worked as a secretary and paid for us all to go to college."

Though gardening was his passion, Chan followed in his father's footsteps. After studying at the Calcutta Boys School and then St Xavier's, he studied engineering at IIT, Kharagpur. "IITs in India were considered institutes of excellence. Yet when I came to the UK, I was told my IIT degree was not recognised," Chan says.

He finally got a break when an interviewer at the British Electric Board realised his potential and hired him. By the age of 29 Chan was a senior engineer.

Bonsai came to Chan only in his later years. Well-settled with his wife Dawn, an Englishwoman, and their two children, he began to spend more time on his passion for horticulture. "I was fascinated by bonsai and how these miniature trees could live for centuries and so began to do more and more research on them," he says, sipping tea, and surrounded by his beloved bonsai.

Chan, who learnt the art mainly through books and by experimenting at home, published his first book Bonsai — the Art of Growing and Keeping Miniature Trees in 1985 and it became a bestseller. Since then he has written eight books including Bonsai Secrets — the bible for bonsai lovers around the world.

In 1986 he bought a beautiful plot in Lingfield, Surrey, and set up home and Herons, Britain's premier bonsai nursery. "There were herons on the lakes here and in Chinese mythology herons are the harbingers of good luck so I kept the name."

The nursery is a treasure trove of miniature plants. The outdoor flowering plants include pyracantha shrubs with white and red flowers, rhododendrons, wisteria trees and chillies. Among the fruit trees are crab apple, edible fig, mulberry and pomegranate. The indoor varieties include tropical and semi-tropical plants such as the Chinese elm, jade, pepper tree and orange which actually bear small, perfectly edible fruits.

Helped by Dawn, Chan began to take his bonsai to the UK's most prestigious flower show, The Chelsea Flower Show. Soon he had started winning gold medals for his exhibits. He has a record-breaking 21 gold medals from the Chelsea show, most of them presented to him by Queen Elizabeth II.

"She is extremely gracious and would always come and admire our Japanese garden and bonsai displays," Chan adds.

Prince Charles, another royal gardening enthusiast, invited Chan to his country retreat at Highgrove to learn about bonsai. "He is a lovely person, very interested in gardening and the environment. He wanted me to help him design and set up a Japanese garden at his home, which of course I was more than happy to do," Chan says modestly.

The heir to the British throne may be the most high profile of Chan's students, but he is not the only one. Chan travels the world holding workshops, classes and one-on-one lessons on maintaining bonsai.

"I have been to India many times for workshops," he says. "My pupils there tend to be the wives of the rich and famous, who have the fascination and the money to cultivate bonsai as a status symbol."

It is certainly an expensive hobby as an average bonsai plant at Heron's costs about £200 (approximately Rs 20,700). The cheapest plants are for around £45 (Rs 4,660) while at the top-end some rare and old miniatures are priced at about £40,000 (Rs 41.4 lakh).

Three decades on, Chan has no complaints. "At IIT I had wanted to change from engineering to architecture but wasn't allowed. But life has come full circle and my desire has been fulfilled by landscaping beautiful Japanese gardens," Chan says. "I am a lucky man living in these silken surroundings," he adds, gazing over his little bit of heaven.

Short and sweet

Tips on bonsai

• You can make bonsai out of any plant

• Bonsai does not have to be expensive

• Calcutta's climate is ideal for ficus, jade, juniper

• Don't forget to water the plants daily — since they exist in pots, they need regular water

• In summer keep them in the shade; the rest of the year in full sun

• Prune regularly