By Isobel Chiang, 06/05/2019. In a little over one month, I leave for India to conduct field research on the Chinese diaspora living in Kolkata. I will be focusing on Hakka cuisine as a lens to interrogate migration, ethnicity, power, class, and multiculturalism — topics that acquire particular relevance in Kolkata neighbourhoods like Tiretta and Tangra (Kolkata’s Chinatowns), where Chinese and Indian nationalities live amongst each other as part of daily urban life.
My project will be guided largely by the following questions: Nearly 60 years after the Indo-China war, how do these two cultures co-exist? Do they grate against each other within the crowded streets of Kolkata? Or is life harmonious? Because it’s unrealistic to study India’s Chinese community in its entirety — this would extend beyond the scope of any research grant, and would likewise be erroneous, as if assuming a monolithic Indo-Chinese existence— I want to examine Hakka food specifically. For the Indian Chinese population, to what extent is food an instrument of communication and co-existence? To what extent is it used to exclude and breed post-war mistrust?
From my research, I have found that the history of the Chinese diaspora in India is one of perpetual migration: there are the immigrants who moved to Kolkata and stayed there, and then there are those who, during the Indo-China war, immigrated yet again to countries like Canada, America, and Australia. In the words of my grandmother, these migrations layer on top of one another like scar tissue, and life in Toronto or Queens or Melbourne never fully squares itself with the place left behind.
The first few days of my trip will require a fair amount of acclimating, having never been to India before. I hope to begin my research as a quiet observer: what do Tangra and Tiretta look like? What do they smell like? What kind of schedule, if any, do the residents seem to be on? What colours do I see? Are the buildings old, new, decrepit, gentrified? A mixture of all four?
Afterwards, I plan to go deeper with my field research— I’ll start talking to business owners, residents, church-goers, and tourists, and visit cultural institutions like the Chinese Kali temple, the Chinese cemetery, the Pou Chong sauce factory, and various Chinese restaurants.
With one month before my departure, I feel preoccupied to say the least. Some of my preoccupations are immediate and have to do with the logistics of travelling to a country I’ve never been to before: what do I pack? How do I avoid getting sick? Where do I stay? Just how hot is it going to be?
My other preoccupations are much broader and much harder to prepare for, let alone answer. There are no guidebooks, no Lonely Planet recommendations. As an outsider looking in, what is the most ethical way to write about a culture that is not my own? How do I embed myself within a culture, yet remain aware of the “I”— the narrator that still lives a world away in Brooklyn? What will this process of embedding look and feel like?
While my father was born in Kolkata and is of Chinese descent, this is my first time in the country. I don’t speak the language; I don’t know anyone there. Kolkata is where my family is from, but it is not where I’m from. This discrepancy, both humbling and exciting, represents a larger research question, perhaps a lifelong one, but nevertheless it’s a question I’ll be thinking about a lot over the next few months.