My memoirs with Chinese comrades and colleagues

Hi ILites

I had opportunities to work and live with Chinese in my abroad assignment.
I mean Malay Chinese, Singaporean Chinese, HK Chinese, Oz Chinese and Main land Chinese. Every one were different from others, That’s the reason for segregating them into a long list.
Let me showcase some of their thoughts about our mother land.
One of my assignments had a multicultural team members and multidimensional problems in the project perspective just because of different gaps. But the best thing about it was we had daily status meetings where we used to fight together for quality of the deliverables like cats and dogs and come out like comrades in a very cool manner. This was because we end the meeting with a casual chat where we get chances to show case our culture and others appreciate it. very often we used to speak about Buddha where they thank for India sparing such a spiritual person. Then we usually have chat about The Taj Mahal. They used to ask me whether I had visited. They would share their views and liking to visit it at least once in a life time. Always they speak about Indian cuisine and A HK women used to say that in UK than Chinese restaurants, Indian restaurant are more in number and popular. I used to say that Ethnic Indians are the majority of the settlers in UK than any other foreigners. Other colleague who is a Irish used to promote this statement saying that Indian restaurants are the most popular in Oz land too.

My room mate was a Chinese in early 50's. He was a Malaysian Chinese and left Malaysia in his early 20's to Europe and now shuttles across Europe, Asia and Australia as his business demands. He used to say that he has seen few Indian Hindi movies at least 10 times. He often hums "Pattu pada va Parthu pesa va " tamil song and few Hindi songs too. He used to ay that his teenage dream was to marry a Indian girls (I used to say myself "Hey Indian girls are the most beautiful girls in the world is a proven fact yaar"). He also used to say that all differences and war came between us was because of Dalai (I am not sure how true it is). During his early teen he used to have fun of ethnic Tamilians who drove cycles by saying "Thambi un cycle wheel puncture, Kathu illay paru". (Brother your cycle is punctured, see there is no air) and then drives fast to escape from their reaction. He also knew to count in Tamil till 15.

Once I met a Malay Chinese who was so fluent in speaking Tamil. I was completely amused. I couldn’t believe, I was dumb struck.

A very memorable event which make me smile even today when I get a memoir of the reaction a Mainland Chinese colleague produced when he heard that there are lots of arranged mariages in India than Love marriages. He first thought I am lying him when he first heard from me. He even went ahead to check my statements with many of my Indian colleagues in the company. I told him as follows. That most marriages in India are fixed by our elders in the family. Where in the past most of the brides and grooms would not have even uttered a word to each other before marriage and now a day as the technology has grown every one has chances to speak with each other. He suddenly stopped me and asked whether they live-in together. I replied that It is not part of our culture and we mostly don’t even dream about though the westernization has effect on few people who are okay with that and they are just Nano percent of the population in India. He asked how you know what your fiancé likes and how she cooks and there was lots of questions. I told him that our elders enquire about the prospective spouse family and do some checks on the horoscope and that’s it they decide about the marriage. I assured this is the way marriages happen among the common man, excerpt for now where people who get a chance to speak to their prospective brides and grooms. He then asked me, how are the number of divorces then low in India? I said it happens because we understand each other better and we adapt.

I was proud in each of the above instance that I am a Indian but I felt low when I self realized that I knew very little about Chinese Art, Living and Culture and couldn’t appreciate them as I didn’t enlighten myself in the past

Cheers,

Yes...many foreigners are so in awe of the Indian culture and traditions, sometimes i feel they know more than us about India.

Roopa.

Dear Svylrx,

We tend to know more about our country only when we live abroad. We feel proud about our culture and values................ I always feel proud to say aloud that I AM AN INDIAN. Really enjoyed the post................

luv and prayers always............
divya..........

hi svrlax,

your observation is very true..lots of chinese people have told me that they think indian women are very beautiful...especially they love our sharp nose and big eyes...even strangers compliment my baby for her big eyes and long eye lashes...they keep asking me questions abt why me and my baby wear bindi, the meaning for wearing it, why i shave my baby's head (mottai), why baby wears so many jewels like gold bangle, silver anklet etc...when we went to a hair dressing saloon here in HK, the lady over there was terribly scared to do mottai for my one yr old baby...it was so funny....i reassured her that nothing will happen and in india we always do it for babies without any problems...but chinese are a very hard working and simple people with family values similar to ours...

Hi,
It always happens to me. I am the only Indian in our R & D division, so most of the curious people used to ask about india and the culture.....and omst of them adore Indian culture while a few have very bad image about India as they have seen some dowry deaths in BBC and they used to ask me blah.blah.....things related to mainly marriage stuffs.
Almost everybody in my office loves Indian food.....asked me to bring some or other things also......they love the aroma and next comes the colorful indian dresses.......most of the ladies die for these kurtis.......
So...... I feel its been gr8 to be an Indian......
Regards.