Xin nian kuai le!! (HAPPY NEW YEAR)
February 7th, 2008 - by 2point6billion.comHAPPY NEW YEAR !!!
People gather to watch a lion dance performance during Chinese new year in Kolkata’s Chinatown. Kolkata in east India boasts the country’s largest Chinese population. Indians and Chinese together brought in the year of the Earth rat.
The year of the golden Pig which finished yesterday was truely a golden period for China’s superpowered growth. In 2007, the economy grew by 11.3%, the fastest rate in 13 years, stock prices on the main Shanghai bourses hit a record high of 6,000 having risen six fold in two years, foreign exchange reserves surged over $1.4 trillion thanks to booming exports and PetroChina became the planets most valuable company - one of five Chinese firms in the world top 10.
In contrast, the year of the Earth rat starts with more expectations as the west looks to China to anchor it against recession. Inflation is at a 10 year high, share prices have fallen 25% from their peak last year, export growth is under pressure from a rising currency and the coldest winter for half a century has paralysed large parts of Central and Southern China. ~ lets just hope the worst is already behind us and the Olympics later this year bring China and all our readers a lot of warmth, wealth and happiness.
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February 7th, 2008 at 6:27 pm
thanks for the article. picture looks great. tempted to go to cal for new year. i went to only chinese temple in town last night. felt warm to speak in chinese with some chinese indians who came to gather for new year. but hardly could any chinese indian of my age speak any chinese. even in the new year, one could feel it is a dwindling community. met an old uncle who always called china “zu guo” (motherland) and obviously so proud he was a chinese and could speak perfect chinese. a group of college students studying mass media was shooting a documentary about chinese community in mumbai. they told me most of chinese they interviwed tended to emphasize they were indians because they still had that sense of insecurity reminding them of 1962.
February 8th, 2008 at 8:02 am
Yeah pretty cool they have Chinese New Year celebrations in Calcutta! You wrote before it had India’s biggest Chinatown…
February 8th, 2008 at 5:56 pm
I know what you mean about the warmth of even hearing someone speak Chinese in India. Last night i was in a bar with some of my friends and right next to us sat 4 young chinese adults. It was soooo great to hear them speak Chinese in Mumbai! - what was even better was that I could actually understand them!! - It is unfortunate that many Indian Chinese have left their roots behind and do not bother to keep in touch. Its also unfortunate that many still live in a sense of insecurity.
February 11th, 2008 at 7:19 am
Those interested in the history and experiences of the Chinese Indian community in Kolkata might want to take a look at the forthcoming issue (43.4) of China Report: A Journal of East Asian Studies (Sage Publications). This special issue, devoted to the links between Kolkata and China, has three article on the Chinese Indian community: Jennifer Liang’s “Migration Patterns and Occupational Specialisations of the Kolkata Chinese,” Ellen Oxfeld’s “Still Guest People,” and Payal Banerjee’s “Chinese Indians in ‘Fire.’” It also contains two reviews of relevant books (Julien Berjeaut’s Chiniois a Calcutta, Ellen Oxfeld’s Blood, Sweat, and Mahjong, and Kwai-Yun Li’s The Palm Leaf Fan).
A Web site on the Community will also be available to the general public soon.
One question: Were the young Chinese in Mumbai speaking Mandarin or Hakka? Very few, if any, young Chinese Indians speak Mandarin.
February 15th, 2008 at 4:17 pm
wow. jennifer liang, my friend…
young chinese who did speak chinese I met in new year eve spoke hakka. not many youngsters had come though
February 18th, 2008 at 10:14 am
the young chinese spoke Mandarin - thats why I could understand them.
March 29th, 2008 at 12:18 am
I couldn’t understand some parts of this article n kuai le!! (HAPPY NEW YEAR) | 2point6billion.com, but I guess I just need to check some more resources regarding this, because it sounds interesting.