Chinatown, Kolkata

Coordinates: 22°32′46.29″N 88°23′10.05″E / 22.5461917°N 88.3861250°E

Chinese New Year 2014 Celebration in Kolkata
The Chinese New Year celebrated in Chinatown
An opium den in the China Town, Kolkata, 1945
Chinese New Year Celebration, Kolkata
Chinese New Year Celebration, Achipur, near Kolkata
The Chinese New Year celebrated in Kolkata

Chinatown (Bengali: চায়নাটাউন, কলকাতা), in the eastern part of the city of Kolkata, is the only Chinatown in India.[1] The locality was once home to 20,000 ethnic Chinese; now the population has dropped to approximately 2,000.[2] The traditional occupation of the Chinese community here had been working in the nearby tanning industry and the Chinese restaurants. The area is still noted for the Chinese restaurants where many people flock to taste traditional Chinese and Indian Chinese food.

History

During the time of Warren Hastings, the first governor-general of British India, a businessman by the name of Tong Achi established a sugar mill, along with a sugar plantation at Achipur, 33 kilometres (21 mi) from Calcutta, on the bank of the Hooghly River near the town of Budge Budge.[3] A temple and the grave of Tong Achi still remain and are visited by many Chinese who come from the city during the Chinese New Year.[3]

One of the earliest records of immigration from China can be found in a short treatise from 1820. This records hints that the first wave of immigration was of Hakkas but does not elaborate on the professions of these immigrants. According to a later police census, there were 362 Chinese in Calcutta in 1837. A common meeting place was the Temple of Guan Yu, the god of loyalty, located in the Chinese quarter near Dharmatolla.[4] A certain C. Alabaster mentions in 1849 that Cantonese carpenters congregated in the Bow Bazar Street area.[4] As late as 2006, Bow Bazar is still noted for carpentry, but few of the workers or owners are now Chinese.

According to Alabaster there were lard manufacturers and shoemakers in addition to carpenters. Running tanneries and working with leather were traditionally not considered respectable professions among upper-caste Hindus, and work was relegated to lower caste muchis and chamars. Nevertheless there was a significant demand, for high quality leather goods in colonial India, which the Chinese were able to fulfill. Alabaster also mentions licensed opium dens run by native Chinese and a Cheena Bazaar where contraband was readily available. Opium, however, was not illegal until after India's Independence from Great Britain in 1947. Immigration continued unabated through the turn of the century and during World War I partly due to political upheavals in China including the First and Second Opium Wars, First Sino-Japanese War and the Boxer Rebellion. Around the time of the First World War, the first Chinese-owned tanneries sprang up.[4]

Tiretta Bazar

The Chinatown is divided into two portions, Old Chinatown (Tiretta Bazar) and New Chinatown (Tangra).[5]

Chinese Breakfast is available in Tiretta Bazar in Central Kolkata every morning.[6]

An initiative, Cha project is designed to preserve Tiretti Bazaar, but will also develop Tangra.[7]

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ Taipei Times article
  2. ↑ Kolkata's vanishing Chinatown - CNN, 17 Aug 2012
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 Datta, Rangan (2006-03-19). "Next weekend you can be at ... Achipur". Telegraph. Retrieved 2006-09-26.
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 Haraprasad, Ray (2006-08-23). "Chinese". Banglapedia. Retrieved 2006-09-26.
  5. ↑ http://www.dw.de/indias-dwindling-chinatown/a-17165098
  6. ↑ Ray, Arundhuti. "Kolkata's Chinese Breakfast". National Geographic Traveller. Retrieved 6 February 2014.
  7. ↑ http://www.thechaproject.com/

External links

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