Ni hao, India
India’s growing Chinese community inches closer to a new place it can call home,
Everymonth, QiguoMarkSu, executivechefat S hang Palace, a Chinese restaurant at the Sh an gr i-La Hotel in Ben ga lu ru, import sat least 2.5 kg of Sichuanpe pp er corn(huâ
jiâo) for his loyal dine rs. A quite common spice in his home country, it is harder to source in India .“It is one of the ingredients that make a Chinese meal authentic ,” saysSu,a native of C hi na’ sSichu an province. The conversation veers towards the custom sand etiquette of Chinese dining .“It isn’ t really part of Chinese culture to be served food. We like to do that ourselves ,” says Su’ s colleague and translator, Athena Chen, assistant manager( guest relations) at the hotel. Behind them, a girl, barely five, is running around barefoot on the carpeted floor. She doesn’ t respond to English. When Chen offers her a dumpling, addressing her in Mandarin, the child perks up.
Even on a weekday, a good chunk of Su’s regular guests is Chinese. Shang Palace is one of the places they frequent for authentic cuisine from their homeland, besides Memories of China (Vivanta by Taj) and a restaurant called New Leaf in Indiranagar.
“If you walk into anyone of these places, you’ re bound to see one or more familiar face ,” saysJunjieLi, referring to the small, well-knit community of Chinese exp at sin Ben ga lu ru. Li is the proprietor of We Cool Imports, an e-commerce start-up that special is es in electronic products. Married to an Indian from Sikkim, he is one among the growing numberof Chinese who’ ve newly made Ben ga lu ru their home.
Li belongs to what might be termed the first generation of the second wave of Chinese immigrants in India. The population of those who came in the first wave( in the late 18 th century )— like the ones who once thrived in pockets likeKolk at a’ s Chinatown—is dwindling. The new entrants are young, enterprising Chinese men and women who want to tap into the promising Indian market. Bengaluruin Karnataka, Guru gram in Ha ryan a, Chen na ii nT a mil Na du, Sri City in And hr a Pradesh, and Mumbai and Pu ne in Maharashtra are some of the places they are ho ming in on. If Ben ga lu ru’ s tech ecosystem and weather are attractive, And hr a Pradesh’ s clear policies for businesses are the pull.
Today, Ben gal ur uh as at least 500 Chinese exp ats who’ ve been living here for four-odd years. In all, about 1,000 float in and out of the city for work. While Guru gram has 1,0001,200 Chinese exp ats, a rough estimate puts Chen na i’ s number at about 1,000. Thanks to it being an industrial and port city, Chen na i’ s Chinese population also features those who have interests in And hr a Pradesh, especially Sri City, a fast-growing business hub. Overall, there are easily over 5,000 Chinese currently living in India.
Here on work and business visas, some want to make India their home for good. A few have even married Indians and taken the Overseas Citizenship of India or received X visas( which allow long-term residence ). Most have adapted to the need sofa growing Indian economy.
Lucy Mei han Lin, for example, landed in Bengal ur ula st January as the co-founder of Z an Deal, an online marketing analytics start-up. It didn’ t take her long to spot the huge possibilities that lay in connecting Indian start-ups with investors and partners in China. These days, as she battles K ora man gala’ s traffic and hops between cafés and restaurants for meetings, Lin lives out the dream of becoming a formidable foodie .“All my fat is mutton bi ryan if at ,” she declares.
The story of the Chinese in India is one that is slowly developing. It is also a quiet narrative. This is a community that is cautious, sometimes shy, and at times constrained by language. Or, as many of them say, survivors of bad press. “There are security concerns about our borders, issues with visas, protests against Chinese products, but really, there are far more similarities between our countries than differences ,” saysLiJian, the head of Guru gram-based Dr a Ph ant, a business accelerator, and founder of the Chin India Chamber of Commerce and Industry.
J ian initially came to Ag ra as an exchange student to study Hindi. Nick named“Am it” by his Hindi teacher at Peking University much before he landed in India, Jian’s business consultancy Dr a Ph ant( am ash up of the Chinese dragon and Indian elephant) boasts of Chinese clients who’ ve brought in $154 million to India.
The primary reason for the uptick in interest in India, says Forrest Chen Yukun, is because the market in China is saturated, especially for e-commerce businesses. A techie from Sichuan, Yukun sold his first company, Umeng, to Alibaba in 2013. Three years later, he landed in Delhi to start NewsDog, a Tencent-backed content aggregator app specialising in regional languages. Yukun recently moved base to Bengaluru and says his team, especially his Chinese colleagues who often travel between the two countries, are happier here because of the weather.
Till three years ago, hordes of Chinese students would come to the city to study computer applications at Bangalore University .“At one point we had two sections exclusivelyfor them because we had almost 120 Chinese students ,” says He man th Up pal a, head of the computer education department at Day an and aS agar Institutions, Bengaluru.
While that trend has eb bed, some of those students have stayed on. GaoXiancheng, co-founderofthe New Leaf restaurant, andJunjieLiof We Cool Imports are among them. In addition to Alibaba (which has invested in Paytm) and Tencent (in Flipkart and Ola), a host of other Chinese investors with deep pockets are looking to invest in India. This includes Ganesh Ventures, an India-focused fund backed by investors from Europe, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Mainland China. It plans to invest $250 million in Indian start-ups and open offices in Gurugram, Bengaluru, Hong Kong and Beijing.
For many of the exp ats, India is more than just a business opportunity. TheHindi-speakingJian, aself-confessed fanof Rani Mukerji, andhiswife, FeiyunZhao, hadanIndian wedding ceremony two years ago .“I have devoted my life to India and it only made sense to have Indian rituals ,” he says.
But understanding a foreign land’ s history and culture isn’talwayseasy. One ex pa tasks me to explain if India’ s ca ste system is as prevalent as she’ s been told. That conversation will take longer than a working lunch, I say.
Then there is the difference in work cultures .“It took me sometime to re ali se that when Indians say they’ d email in an hour and then didn’ t till a day later, that wasn’ t areas onto not trust them. It wasn’ t meant as an offence ,” saysCharu Purohit, co-founder and director of Ben gal ur u-based AC N Globiz, a one-stop solution for foreign businesses looking to venture into India. Married to an Indian from Jaipur, P ur oh it’ s birth name is Chen Ping. Her sister-in-law rechristened her Ch a ru. Now even her Chinese contacts know her by her Indian name.
“In China wet end to do things immediately. We want everythingnow,” saysPurohit. Inaway, shesays, Indiahas taught her to relax. P ur oh it is also the founder of the Bangalore Chinese Chamber of Commerce, a body registered in 2016.
In the absence of an ecosystem that caters specifically to Chinese business people, bodies like J ian’ s Chin India Chamber of Commerce and Industry and P ur oh it’ s Bangalore Chinese Chamber of Commerce perform important roles. The Chen nai China Chamber of Commerce will be launched in just a few weeks.
“We have about 50 members in Ben ga lu ru ,” says Purohit. The Guru gram-based Chin India Chamber of Commerce and Industry has close to 300 members from across the country, but J ian says only about 20 of them are active .“We plan vacations together almost every three months, and the get-together sh el pus when we feel homesick,” saysPurohit. Workshops, suchasthoseon company compliance and labour laws, area significant function of these bodies.
Walk around Bengaluru’s Diamond District, a semicommercial, well-connected area where many expats live or have offices, and one can hear India’s Goods and Services Tax being discussed inMandarin. “The idea is to stay updated and clear about India’s laws and regulations,” says Purohit. She is also part of a city-specificWeChat group of 38 Chinese women married to Indians based in Bengaluru. (WeChat is to China what WhatsApp is to India.) These groups also provide for translators.
The demand for translation services has increased over thepastfewyears, saysNaziaVasi, founderofInchin Closer, a Mandarin-language teaching institute in Mumbai. When Va si started the institute eight years ago ,“people didn’ t know what Mandarin was ,” she says .“I had to market it as a Chinese language. Not anymore .”
Vasi is witness to how business has brought the two countries together. Earlier, the demand was for trade documents to be translated, or for translators for Chinese delegations. “Today, it has taken on a holistic, cross-cultural dimension,” she adds, giving the example of the increasing demand for Mandarin subtitles for Bollywood movies.
Otherthings, too, havechanged. Forinstance, friends from back home would initially ref rain from visiting beauty parloursinIndia, saysPurohit. “There was always the scare of skinallergies. Butnowwe’ve either become used to local products or just international brands at Indian par lou rs .”
One important thing, however, ismissing: quality Mandarin-teaching institutes for children .“It’ s not just about thelanguage. Wewantour children to understand Chinese culture as well as Indian traditions ,” saysPurohit, am other of two. So, unless one of the parents is Indian, the childrenand study in China.
P ur oh it is keen that the two countries understand each otherbetter. So, sheislaunching a Chinese a pp that will, through videos, document a Hindi tutor coachingher. Itwillalsohave her reading from Indian news portals to give her audience an “unbiased and clear” understanding of India.
“The media on either side don’ t provide‘ good’the other country ,” saysJian, who backsplatforms in the hope of fostering openness and communication. Iamwireand Entrackr, ChindiaGuruand Zhudao are some of these platforms. WhileEntrackr, an English-language platform, focuses on tech-and startup based stories from both countries, Ch india Guru offers Chinese content on Indian subjects such as Indian street food, man goes and even boat ride son Kashmir’ s Dal Lake.
Away from these concerns, Lin, Bengaluru’s unofficial Chinese food guide, directs me to New Leaf. Xiancheng, the restaurant’s co-founder, describes the place as a “spice paradise” because of its traditional hotpot offering. “Half of our clientele is Chinese, but we are increasingly getting guests from Korea and Japan as well,” he says. “We also have lots of Indian hotpot lovers.”
The tables are designed to support a hot pot setup where the soup boil sin front of you. At one table is a group of three four Indian kids, all under 10.“Don’ t put your hands in there ,” says the young K anna di ga woman accompanying them.
At an adjoining table is a Mandarin-speaking family, comfortably dipping chopsticks into the hotpot and picking out the meat and veggies. Pork, fish, mutton, octopus, squid, shiitake mushroom, kelp, tofu, black fungus, sweet potato and carrots, all get cooked flavourfully in the soup. “I wish I had discovered hotpot earlier,” an Indian guest tells me.
Meanwhile, as he polishes off a plate of appam and fish curry at a Kerala restaurant, Yukun says the dishes remind him of home. Perhaps, as Jian says, we really are more alike than we think.