When Two Ancient Cultures Fall In Love | M.R. Narayan Swamy

BOOK REVIEW

Rebels, Traitors, Peacemakers: The Stories of Love and Conflict in Indian-Chinese Relationships

by Shivaji Das, Yolanda Yu

Penguin Books
Pages: xv + 214
ISBN-10 : 9815127144
ISBN-13 : 978-9815127140

What happens when the lives of people from two great civilizations collide?

It could probably result in an ugly and perhaps bloody encounter if they met on the disputed Sino-Indian frontier. On the contrary, love could blossom if young men and women from China and India got magnetically attracted to one another.

You don’t believe it? Well, this unique book is a collection of confessional stories of mostly young men from India or of Indian origin who married young women from China or of Chinese origin, at times against the wishes of one or more families. When love is in the air, clearly the worst of mutual suspicions and lack of knowledge about the other society cannot torpedo Sino-Indian love.

Clearly, it is a trend that took birth not too far back. But it is growing. According to authors Shivaji Das and Yolanda Yu, who themselves are one such pair, while interracial couples in general have been documented to have a higher rate of separation than average, the Indian-Chinese couples seem to stick together – a characteristic (fidelity and loyalty) often cited by one to praise the other.

Udaipur-born Nitin Masih never planned to live outside India but met and fell in instant love with Luo Feiyang (Luoluo) when she took a room in a Bangkok hotel where he was the Duty Manager. He didn’t know Mandarin and she knew no English. But how can language be a stumbling block when you are infatuated by one another? Thanks to the translation function on WeChat, they spoke every day, began to like one another more and more, and tied the knot. They now live in Chongqing, China. It helps a lot that Nitin is in love with China too.

Rebecca Yip (and later) Ghosh, British-Chinese, and Arnav Ghosh, Indian, both in their 30s, fell in love while studying in Hong Kong. After they overcame the storm their relationship stirred in Rebecca’s family early on, things fell in place and they married – a registry wedding in Hong Kong and in Bengali style in India. Rebecca is mighty pleased that Arnav’s parents treat her like a daughter. Her perfection in English is a boon. Arnav quickly learnt Cantonese too. Not only do they live happily in Scotland, but they have their own YouTube channel posting videos about themselves and sharing tales of how an Indian and Chinese couple can live together. The channel has grown from 700 to over 35,000 subscribers! If they miss anything, it is Asia, and they want to settle down in a country like Singapore.

Believe it or not, it was yoga which brought together online Xiaoqing from China and Tamil-speaking Girish from India. In just 45 days they concluded that they were made for each other. Xiaoqing flew quickly to India where they married in Jaipur as part of a mass wedding organised by Sahaja Yoga. They were lucky because both families accepted the young couple. (“All my uncles now say that she is better than an Indian girl and that we couldn’t have asked for more.”) They are now proud parents of two lovely daughters, one eight and another five.

Of course, these stories should not make one believe that all love affairs between Chinese and Indians are success stories. There have been multiple issues in some marriages. Some couples have drifted apart. But that so many young Indians and Chinese feel they have met the life partner of their dreams is itself very significant.

For one, both in China and India marriages between their (Indian/Chinese) young are frequently looked down upon. After all, it seems strange that two people from the two most populous countries seemingly in perennial conflict could fall for another and decide to live together. Some young couples have had to battle disapproval and rejection of their families and communities. In rare cases, some were dubbed ‘traitors’ and ‘spies’. There were issues both tragic and comic. Diverse food habits and religions as well as cultural misunderstandings did not help either. As one of the 32 Chinese women interviewed in the book says, while India (Indians) and China (Chinese) often look down on each other, the developed world looks down on both, never mind their ancient civilizations and their now strong economies.

Co-author Shivaji, who lives in Singapore with Yolanda, admits coming across many anti-Chinese messages and memes both during Covid and the India-China border clashes. He got anti-China WhatsApp messages naming Chinese people as viruses. But in what is one of the most profound admissions in the book, he underlines the many similarities between the two societies and people.

“I see a traditional Chinese mindset as a carbon copy of the Indian one – male privilege, mandatory reverence for elders, an idea of racial purity, and family over everything else, Even the modern Chinese mindset is not too different from an Indian’s – populist-nationalist, strong inferiority complex, blames the ‘West’ for all ills, and reveres praise from the least credible ‘Western’ source. And while unlike Indians, most Chinese are not religious, they are no less superstitious than Indians.”

Carmen Tan, a Chinese-Singaporean in Singapore who is in a relationship with Prateepan Varatharajullu, an Indian-Singaporean who lives in Ireland, has a message for interracial couples: trust your instincts and follow your heart, regardless of what anyone else thinks or says. “By doing so, you can create a relationship built on foundation of love, respect and mutual understanding.”

The book makes a beautiful read – more so at a time when relations between India and China are an unending tale of troubled affair. But the stories here are not just above love and affection; they are also an unintentional sociological study of two of the world’s largest societies whose people, despite being neighbours, are separated by a mental frontier more deadly than their real one