Chinatown, Kolkata
Coordinates: 22°32′46.29″N 88°23′10.05″E / 22.5461917°N 88.3861250°E
Tiretta Bazaar, is a neighborhood in the eastern part of the city of Kolkata. The locality was once home to 20,000 ethnic Chinese Indian nationals; now the population has dropped to approximately 2,000. The traditional occupation of the Chinese Indian community in Kolkata had been working in the nearby tanning industry as well as in Chinese restaurants. The area is still noted for the Chinese restaurants where many people flock to taste traditional Chinese and Indian Chinese cuisine.
During the time of Warren Hastings, the first governor-general of British India, a businessman by the name of Tong Achi established a sugar mill, along with a sugar plantation at Achipur, 33 kilometres (21 mi) from Calcutta, on the bank of the Hooghly River near the town of Budge Budge. A temple and the grave of Tong Achi still remain and are visited by many Chinese Indians, who arrive from the city to celebrate Chinese New Year.
One of the earliest records of immigration to India from China can be found in a short treatise from 1820. This records hints that the first wave of immigration was of Hakkas but does not elaborate on the professions of these immigrants. According to a later police census, there were 362 Chinese in Calcutta in 1837. A common meeting place was the Temple of Guan Yu, the God of loyalty, located in the Chinese quarter near Dharmatolla. A certain C. Alabaster mentions in 1849 that Cantonese carpenters congregated in the Bow Bazar Street area. As late as 2006, Bow Bazar is still noted for carpentry, but few of the workers or owners are now Indians of Chinese origin.
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