Xing Zhang Boeken

The book delves into the history of Chinese-medium schools established in Calcutta during the early 20th century, highlighting their role in preserving Chinese cultural identity among immigrant families. It explores the community's efforts to provide education for children and the significance of curricula from China. Additionally, it examines internal political dynamics and the effects of the 1962 India-China conflict, which led to the decline of these schools by the 1980s. Through interviews and new sources, this study offers a comprehensive view of a unique cultural community.

Documented evidence for the vibrant Chinese community of Calcutta begins in the eighteenth century. Though the Sino-Indian war of 1962 and the aftermath sadly depleted its numbers, the community not only continues as a living presence in this multi-cultural, multi-ethnic and multi-religious city, but through migratory movements also has 'offshooots' outside India, particularly in Southern China and in Canada (Toronto), which remain connected in various ways with the Calcutta community, including through bonds of endogamy. However, much about the Calcutta Chinese remained little known due to language barriers and inaccessibility of sources. This study is the first to offer a comprehensive overview based on Chinese (both Mandarin and non-Mandarin), Bengali, Hindi and English sources, and access to documents, some of them hitherto classified, in India as well as China. It also examines by what means the community retained its 'Chineseness' inspite of its relative smalleness and being embedded in an alien environment, in the course of which examination the issues of 'identity' and 'Chineseness' as such are also critically evaluated.