The Search for Chinatown

Never ask a Kolkatan taxi driver to take you to Chinatown. If you do they will assure you that they have heard of it and know where it is, convince you to get in the cab, and then drive you to a neighborhood that is not Chinatown. When you get out of the cab they will give directions that are incorrect and in fact lead you farther away from Chinatown. Eventually, you will find yourself asking a crowd of people on the street where Chinatown is, only to discover that it is six kilometers in the other direction.
To be fair to the cab driver, Chinatown is not a popular tourist destination. The Lonely Planet describes it as “ragged” and “little,” but it also mentioned some cool Chinese temples and massive garbage dump with houses built into the garbage, so after finishing our visit at the Victoria Memorial, Kolkata’s most famous tourist destination, we decided to get in a cab and head across the city in search of Chinatown.
Half an hour later we found ourselves being told by a crowd of men that Chinatown was still six kilometers away. After consulting our map, however, we realized that this crowd of men was as wrong as the cab driver had been. Chinatown was not even close to six kilometers away, and thus we decided to go back to the main road and take one of Kolkata’s ancient trams to our desired destination.
When we arrived at the main road there was no tram to be found, and so discouraged by our previous experience with cabs we decided to walk. As we began to make our way along Kolkata’s congested streets we quickly noticed that we were very far off the tourist track. Thus, we did what we do best in India and blended in, spoke Hindi and enjoyed the life on the streets.
Our act as non-tourists lasted only a couple blocks, however, because we noticed communist posters (the state of Bengal has a communist government) hanging on the sides of the streets and had to stop a steal some because, honestly, who doesn’t want a poster with a hammer, sickle and Bengal tiger for their dorm room wall. Much to the confusion of the various vendors on the street we went to where the rope holding the posters was lowest, stood on our tip-toes and tore a couple off the line.
Only minutes after grabbing our new wall hangings, we discovered heaven, in the form of a street vendor’s stall. Much to Andrew and my chagrin most street vendors in Banaras are relatively vegetarian and will only cook eggs (we had bad experiences with the couple who do make meat), but right in front of us was a street stall with every kind of meat you could imagine. Confused about where to start, we took what the man offered us, Kolkata’s street food delicacy: the egg roll (this consists of bread with an egg fried on one side rolled up like a burrito around vegetables sauce and, if you chose, chicken). After devouring one each, we began to sample the vendors selection, until we had consumed solid quantities of chicken pakora and chicken momos. With full stomachs, we set off to resume our search for Chinatown.
After walking for a while and not encountering any street signs or landmarks that could have steered us in the right direction, we decided to ask a policeman for directions. After registering his surprise at our knowledge of Hindi, he informed us (incorrectly) that Chinatown was still six kilometers away and that we would have to pay a taxi driver 150 rupees to take us there. Realizing that he was incorrect, we politely declined his assistance and made some jokes in Hindi before walking away.
Further down the street we decided to ask a paan-wala for directions. Unfortunately, the paan-wala like everyone else had never heard of Chinatown and told us it was far away. Just as we were about to move on, we heard a voice behind us yelling “mujhe rasta maloom hai” (I know the way) and turned to find a drunk man staggering towards us. He began yelling directions, gesturing wildy at us and told us to follow him. Needless to say we decided not to follow him (a mistake as we later discovered that he was taking us in the right direction) and resumed our walk going the opposite way.
Eventually, when we were on the verge of giving up, we found a street sign and were able to locate ourselves on the map. Realizing the drunk man had been right, we began to walk purposefully in the direction he had indicated asking everyone “kya aap Sun Yat Sen Street jante hain?” (do you know Sun Yat Sen street) until we encountered a man who told us we were standing on it.
From there the journey was easy, just around one more corner and there was Chinatown, in all its glory, right in front of us. The only problem was Chinatown appeared to consist only of an open square with a few chairs and stage set up for a Chinese New Year celebration and a closed restaurant. Dismayed we quickly ran around the next corner to see the wondrous garbage houses and the rest of town, only to see a couple small shacks no different from tens of houses I pass on my bike ride to Hindi class everyday in Banaras. After snapping a picture or two of our surroundings, we took note of the fact that it was time to head back and meet the others and decided to take a cab back to the hotel.
While the state of our destination, or lack thereof, originally disappointed us, a further assessment of the day led us to deem it a success. The walk had been excellent, we had seen a neighborhood most tourists in Kolkata never see, eaten the best street food we have found in India, got communist memorabilia, and even though it was unimpressive, we had found Chinatown despite the conspiracy perpetrated by sober Kolkatans to keep it hidden. In short, it was an excellent adventure, and, despite my previous advice, the next time I go to Kolkata I am definitely going to ask a cab driver to take me to Chinatown, but only after making sure that he doesn’t know where it is.