India beyond the Great Wall

PALLAVI AIYAR

How India's soft power is making inroads into China.

Dancing with Elan: Interest in Indian classical dance is increasing gradually.

"OM SURYAYA NAMAHA". The chant reverberates deeply as the two-dozen-strong group inhale and exhale in unison while going through the fluid motions of the Surya Namaskar. Mohan Bhandari, a yoga teacher from Rishikesh, paces up and down the room, correcting postures and whispering encouragement. But this yoga class is taking place thousands of kilometres away from the banks of the Ganga. Other than Mohan, every person in the room is Chinese.

In today's hyper-connected, globalised world, where images and fashion are translated across continents in the blink of an eye, the Himalayas are no longer the formidable boundary markers they once were. Thus, while fashion pundits might continue to argue over whether Brown is the new Black, in Beijing it is increasingly becoming evident that Yoga is the new Tai Chi.

In the three years since Mohan first arrived in Beijing to set up a yoga school, "Yogi Yoga" (as his company is called) has expanded from a single centre with Mohan as the sole teacher to 31 centres in every major Chinese city, employing 21 Indian teachers from Rishikesh alone.

Making inroads

And it's not just yoga that has captured the Chinese imagination, but Indian dance, food, fashion and even Hindi T.V. serials. Growing alongside bilateral trade and a sweetening of the long sour political ties, Indian soft power is making inroads in China contributing to a far more positive and attractive image than the average Zhou had of its southern neighbour even a few years ago.

Prior to the then Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee's visit to the mainland towards the end of June 2003, I spent an afternoon randomly quizzing Beijingers from different backgrounds about their perception of India. The answers ranged from the weird to the wary. Religion, poverty, natural disasters: these were the images evoked repeatedly. At other times, there was a long silence, as people thought desperately to say something about India, to no avail. Three years later, brand India is definitely undergoing a makeover.

"Compared to India, China has lost its unique traditions," bemoans Phoenix Yang, a 24-year-old research assistant from Beijing. She is a self-declared "fan" of all things Indian, wears the Rajasthani-style embroidered skirts that are increasingly available in boutiques across the Chinese capital and visits Indian restaurants as frequently as her budget allows.

While in the U.K. and U.S., Indian food has been somewhat of a mainstream staple for a while, in China it has been slow to catch on. According to Mehrnoush Pastakia, Beijing's longest standing Indian restaurateur, there were barely three or four Indian eateries in the Chinese capital when he opened his first restaurant, almost a decade ago. Moreover, the clientele used to be almost exclusively expat. "I think the Chinese have a very strong indigenous food culture and suffered from many misconceptions about Indian food, like its excessive spiciness," he explains.

Winds of change

But cardamom-scented winds of change are blowing. In the last two years itself, more than half a dozen new Indian restaurants have opened their doors in Beijing and an increasing number of their customers are affluent, gastronomically adventurous Chinese.

No one is happier with this trend than Antony Munuswamy, a Tamilian who opened his first eatery in the Chinese mainland in 1992. Today, he rules over an empire of 22 restaurants in 10 different Chinese provinces and employs some 250 Indians as cooks and managers. Indian Kitchen, as the restaurants are called, is possibly the most recognisable Indian brand in China. Perhaps what's most remarkable about these restaurants is that the majority of them are located in provincial cities far away from the expatriate centres of Beijing and Shanghai, making samosas and pakoras familiar words in even second-tier cities like Changchun and Changzhou.

In every translation, and food is no exception, a certain degree of deviation from the original is unavoidable. Just as in India, Chinese food has come to include paneer manchurian and like hybrids, Indian food in the mainland tends to feature beef curries and Xinjiang-style kebabs.

"I love the way Indians cook beef," gushes Zeng Wei, an executive with a biotech company, who regularly lunches at Pastakia's Taj Pavilion restaurant. "Although Chinese people are only now beginning to get to know about Indian food, I think one thing we (Chinese and Indians) have in common is that our cultures are very focussed on food," she concludes.

To work off the kilos that ghee-heavy curries pile on, the Chinese are turning to yoga. The success of Mohan's "Yogi Yoga" brand is only the tip of the iceberg. Almost all of Beijing's several dozen gyms now offer yoga classes and Mohan is facing some stiff competition.

Prices at the capital's various yoga schools are steep — between $10 and $20 per session — but the crowds keep coming. "I thought about taking up Tai Chi, but I think it's more suitable for older people," says Liu Hong, an advertising executive who takes regular yoga classes at her local gym.

"People here (in China) are increasingly leading stressful lives and they need spiritual release and relaxation," explains Mohan. Yoga seems to be the perfect solution. "After doing yoga for 10 months, I no longer get unnecessarily angry like when I am stuck in a traffic jam," smiles Tony Qi a 38-year-old businessman and one of the few men who has taken to yoga in China.

Serial reach

While visiting the southern city of Wenzhou a few months ago, I met with Sanjay and Rohit, two yoga teachers from Mumbai who along with a hotel doorman from Punjab formed the sole Indian population of the city. They were lonely and starved for entertainment but they said that every evening they could catch instalments of the ZEE TV soap opera "Koshish Ek Asha" dubbed in Chinese, which provided them with some relief.

Investigations revealed that the serial has been playing on 15 provincial TV stations since 2005. According to Xiao Baohua — the Director of Nu Er Hong Telefilms, the company responsible for importing the serial into China — "Koshish... " (or "Yin Mo Hunli" as it is known in Mandarin) is the first Hindi soap ever to have been shown on Chinese TV. He says the response to it exceeded all expectations achieving viewership levels usually only associated with Korean imports, which are popular among Chinese youth.

Indeed Internet chat rooms are abuzz with fans discussing the travails of Kajal and Neeraj, the serial's protagonists. "Kajal has all my support. She is a great and brave woman. But her mother-in-law deserves to be killed," says one impassioned netizen.

While Hindi serials might be new to China, Hindi movies have a long history dating back to the early 1980s, when films from the Raj Kapoor era were amongst the first foreign movies to be shown in the mainland. Although the last decade has seen Hollywood march inexorably on to the number one spot as far as the foreign film market in China is concerned, Hindi movies continue to generate considerable nostalgia among the 35-55 years age group. This is one reason why Indian dance schools are flourishing in Chinese cities.

Every weekend, dozens of eager parents flock to the C&M International Arts Education centre in Beijing, dispatching their six to 12 year olds for Bharatanatyam and Kathak lessons from artiste Su Baohua. Su, who studied dance in Kalakshetra, has been teaching Chinese kids tillana with élan for over a decade. She says that when she first started to teach, the majority of parents came to her after having watched the gyrations of Asha Parekh in "Caravan", which had been a smash hit in the mainland. By contrast today, many of China's well-heeled double-income, one-child families are interested in the classical forms of the Indian dance repertoire.

Classical fervour

"Awareness of Indian classical dance has been slow to come, and compared to film dancing it is still not very high. But gradually it is increasing," Su observes. Nine-year-old Zhang Yi Tian who has been studying with Su for over four years says she practises her allaripu for half an hour a day. "I love the clothes and make up. I hope I can study in India one day," she lisps. Her mother adds that she believes the $12 per class price tag to be worth it because Zhang's dance skills will help her get admission into a prestigious high school later on.

Clearly, China's new yen for things Indian lies chiefly in their novelty. The Chinese thus gravitate to those fragments of Indian culture that are colourful and fragrant, be these the incense sticks burnt during yoga meditation or the aromas of masala chai. The complexity and historical weight of Indian culture may not be fully appreciated here but the fact that India's cultural currency is discernibly on the rise is nonetheless significant.

For decades the mental map of the average Chinese has had a blank spot to the south of the Himalayas. Gradually this spot is taking on shape and colour even without the presence of a substantial Indian diaspora. For Indian cooks, yogis and dance teachers this can only be good news.

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