http://www.uglychinesecanadian.com/?p=3976
Follow the link above to see video on Chinese living in Kolkata (Calcutta). Interesting for a few reasons below.
Note 1:
It is interesting to know that the Chinese in India are so much like the Chinese elsewhere in the world except for a few things: they speak like Indians and they like tandooris. Even when they have moved on to Canada, the Chinese that went there from India still sing their Indian songs and crave for the chicken tandoori they grew up with. May be the 'dust of history' is indeed not easy to remove.
When asked by Lee Kuan Yew why India could not do away with the problem of castes in India, Indira Gandhi said that it was not easy as we are all 'covered by the dust of history'.
Similarly, a Chinese songwriter wrote, 'our ancestors engraved it in our hearts long ago' (apes lost in history excepted) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=77WQj18rDA4&feature=related
Note 2:
Recently, there was a big hoohah in Singapore about some recent Chinese immigrant complaining to the authorities about the strong curry smell from their Indian neighbour's cooking. They had to go for 'voluntary arbitration' and the Indian family agreed to cook curry only when the Chinese family are not at home! I suppose those Chinamen would bang on their Chinese gong when they go out.
If I was the arbitrator, I'd suggest that Chinaman go live in Kolkatta for a few years instead. Or, like what neighbours I used to grow up with in Malaysia did, the Indian family should regularly give those Chinamen some of their curry treats and vice versa. Then those Chinamen would be craving for curry wherever they go after that! (Actually there are easier solutions. E.g. both houses can install a set of exhaust fans or they can buy their own 1-acre properties but that would be less 'integrative').
This is a real story. About 25 years ago, when I was a young Andersen employee working on a project in Jakarta (Indonesia) my company assigned a similarly young Australian kid from Sydney to the project. Back then in Indonesia of Suharto (the animal that killed hundreds of thousands of ethnic Indonesians that supported Sukarno, and large numbers of Chinese when he was in power), nothing foreign was allowed. So no western food like MacDonalds etc outside of foreign owned hotels. Thus everyday, lunch was Indonesian fares that inevitably came with sambal (a mix of chilli and prawn paste). Although the sambal was too much for him, the Aussie had no choice but to start having them. Within the first week, that Aussie was down with stomach problem (as the case with most of us). After his component of the IT system went live a year later, the Aussie was assigned to Mauritius. But a month later he was back for a week to look into some problem in the component that he built. When it was time for lunch on his first day back, he said he really missed those Indonesian sambal and he must go and have it for lunch! The rest of us had a good laugh.
It was a nice story and one can say it is an example of how food can make the world a better place for humanity.
But can you imagine what happens when you have people who think that some one else's food or cooking are beneath them and therefore not even touchable as is the belief of some idiotic people in some parts of the world? Worse thing is when that belief is pat of their religion. Then you have a world where idiots go round feeling full of themselves (like Omar Khayyam said 'they got the secret') but wondering why other people cannot get along with them! Yah, other people have to be nice to you not just on your terms but by doing so to also accept the implication that their cooking of thousands of years are untouchable or dirty? Very unlikely, esp if that culture has little to show or contribute to the rest of the world. Worse when others know that more of their cookings were copied from the Indians rather than the religious master race they think they are aping...
Note 3:
The Chinese in Kolkatta seem to be Hakkas, the dialect group that people like me belongs to. In Chinese, 'Hakka' literally means 'guest family'. That name came about because they were considered as non-locals wherever they ended up at in China i.e. they were guests to the other Chinese.
Their place of origin is unclear but are generally thought to be from the northern part of China i.e. north of the Huang He (Yellow River), the cradle of the Chinese civilisation. Although commonly considered today as a part of the Han (main Chinese) race group, some people think they were related to the Xiongnus (a Mongol or Turkic people) that used to invade northern China more than 2,000 years ago.
Over time, they were dispersed all over China as a result of the never ending wars that happened in northern China - that was why the Great Wall was built over northern China by successive Chinese empires.
[According to history, to get rid of the Xiongnu's perennial threat to China, the Han emperor Wu Di sent a huge force to whack the Xiongnus about 2,100 years ago and drove them westward into today's Central Asia, and never to threaten China again. May be the Hakkas were Xiongnus caught inside the Great Wall and had no choice but to go south instead of west....] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emperor_Wu_of_Han
Today, the Hakkas are generally found in Southern China, Southeast Asia and forms a significant part of the oversea Chinese pouplation. My grandparents came from a village town near Guangdong called Zeng Cheng (about 60 km north of Shenzhen Bo An airport).
In the past, wherever they 'set up camp' in China the Hakkas would build houses that form round fortresses as protection from attacks by the other locals who understandably felt threatened by their 'invasion'. Even in China, they lived out of the grace of the other Chinese, thus the term for them was somewhat fitting.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hakka_people
That is perhaps the reason why Hakkas form a significant part of the oversea Chinese population. Wherever they go, they are 'guest familes' anyway. So what the heck...
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Sent: Thursday, August 25, 2011 9:53 AM
Subject: Fw: Chinatown in Kolkata ,India
The Legend of Fat Mama
“The Legend of Fat Mama” is a bittersweet story of the Chinese community in Kolkata, India, intertwined with the nostalgic journey in search of a woman who once made the most delicious noodles in the city’s Chinatown district. Kolkata once had a thriving community in its Chinatown, engaged in different trades, like medicine shops, food and shoemaking.
Though a small number of Chinese still live there, many of them left India in the aftermath of the 1962 India-China war. Thriving street food, disappearing family-run eateries, mahjong clubs, a Chinese printing press that has shut down and its handwritten counterpart that continues to deliver the news every morning, and the first all-woman dragon dance group preparing for the Chinese New Year make up the Chinese heritage in Kolkata.
About the director:
Rafeeq Ellias is an internationally known photographer. As a cinematographer, he has shot three documentaries: ‘The Nectar of Immortality’, a Channel Four film on the Kumbh Mela; ‘Slum Mumbai’, on Mumbai’s pavement-dwellers; and ‘Steps in Time’, on the Asiatic Society, Mumbai. ‘The Legend of Fat Mama’, made for BBC World, was Ellias’ first documentary as director and scriptwriter.
“The Legend of Fat Mama” won the Best Anthropological/Ethnographic Film at the 52nd National Film Awards.
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