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The return of the Hong Tou A-San

Pallavi Aiyar

The Sikhs — known for their red turbans — are back in China.

BACK IN BUSINESS: Surinder Singh, doorman at the Wenzhou Dynasty hotel. — Photo: SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT

THE TRIP from Yiwu to the city of Wenzhou, proved longer than anticipated. We had left shortly after an early breakfast and it was past noon by the time our bus pulled up at the Wenzhou Dynasty hotel. As I blinked away the sleep that had crept in en route from my eyes, while giving my legs a much-needed stretch, a burly sardar complete with flaming red turban shimmered into vision.

Located in the deep south of China's Zhejiang province, Wenzhou might be the metallic shell lighter capital of the world, but it was hardly the most cosmopolitan of places. Uncertain as to whether travel weariness was inducing hallucinations I blinked with increased vigour. The only noticeable effect on the solid sardar was that his face lit up with a brilliant smile and he began to speak — in Hindi.

"Can I help you with your bags madam? Are you from India? How long will you be staying?" the questions bubbled and gushed as he took over my suitcase and handed it to a bell hop. He was in fact the most ubiquitous of figures from Hong Kong to Singapore, though rarely seen in China — the Sikh hotel doorman.

Were I to be in 19th century Shanghai the appearance of the said gentleman would have caused not a second thought. Until the communist accession in 1949, there were hundreds of Sikhs in that city. Colloquially known as Hong Tou A-San — a reference to their red turbans (hong means red in Mandarin while tou refers to the head), they were either part of the police or served as watchmen at banks and hotels.

In the decades that followed the founding of the People's Republic of China, the country's Sikh population virtually disappeared. As Hindi-Chini Bhai Bhai transmuted into Hindi-Chini Bye-Bye, the mutual animosity that followed the Sino-Indian border war led to Indian faces in Chinese cities becoming notable only for their absence.

Rise in number of Indians

Not so, anymore. Given the thaw in the long, frosty winter of bilateral relations that the new century has ushered in, the boomtowns of Shanghai, Shenzhen, and Beijing are once again thronging with visitors from south of the Himalayas. According to the China National Tourism Administration, in 2004 China had 390,000 visitors from India, up 44 per cent from 2003, the largest increase of visitors from any country.

And accompanying the resurgence of neighbourly bonhomie is the return of the Hong Tou A-San at the doors of hotels from Wenzhou to Beijing.

Surinder Singh, the doorman at the Wenzhou Dynasty hotel, is a case in point. He tells me that he has been in Wenzhou for four months now and is on a year's contract. We agree to meet again later in the evening for a longer chat.

My companions, China-based journalists from around the world, spend lunch discussing the unlikely places where they have spotted Sikh doormen in recent months. Beijing, says one observant scribe, has had a couple of Hong Tou A-San for several years, welcoming guests at the Presidential Plaza Hotel in the city's west. Sightings in Shenzhen, Hangzhou, and Shanghai are also mentioned.

That evening as I wait in the hotel lobby for my assignation with Surinder Singh, I am startled to be approached by a snazzily appointed stranger instead.

This it turns out is in fact no stranger but a jeans-clad Surinder Singh himself, sans doorman outfit and to my considerable surprise, sans turban. Surinder, it transpires, while not a complete impostor, in that he does come from a Sikh family, had cut his hair off years ago, but the hotel insisted that he would lack a certain je ne sais quoi without a pagdi, which he thus continued to don during work hours.

We sit down on overstuffed velvet sofas and he repeatedly tells me how happy he is to meet an Indian, so unexpectedly and so far away from home.

I discover that the 27-year-old former wheat farmer from a village close to Amritsar is desperately lonely. Worse still he lacks the ability to share his unhappiness with anyone being unable to speak either Chinese or much English.

A high-school graduate, Surinder heard of the job opportunity at the hotel through a friend who had been an employee in the same establishment. The job pays 4,000 yuan ($500) a month plus board and lodging, considerably more than Surinder could make helping his parents till their tiny plot of land back home.

But with only four months having passed since his arrival in Wenzhou, he is already thinking of packing his bags and returning to India. "I just need to save up enough for a ticket," he says bitterly. Surinder finishes work at 4.30 in the afternoon everyday at which point hours of unrelenting boredom await him. Unable to talk to anyone he spends the time in his room, watching TV and salivating over memories of sarson ka saag. "Madam, the food problem here is too much for me. I just can't take it any more," he despairs. Understandably, the Chinese proclivity for chicken feet and fish heads has not gone down well with him.

His happiest time is on Sunday when he is occasionally able to meet up with the only two other Indians in Wenzhou that he knows of, one a yoga teacher from Delhi, the other a cook at Wenzhou's sole Indian restaurant.

He clutches my hand like a drowning sailor when I take my leave, but the next day his smile is as brilliant as ever as he waves our departing bus goodbye.

Back in Beijing, I pay a quick trip to the Presidential Plaza hotel to chat with Beijing's longest standing Hong Tou A-San, Mohammad Ismail from Mumbai, who has been opening doors for hotel guests in China's capital since 2000.

He tells a tale very different from Surinder's. Having picked up a smattering of Mandarin and making a comfortable $800 a month, Ismail says he plans to stay on in Beijing indefinitely. He has even grown fond of the food, particularly the seekh kebab-like fare from Xinjiang.

Like Surinder, Ismail's on-duty hours are spent sporting a turban. "It makes me look authentic and identifies me as an Indian. Otherwise I could be from anywhere — Pakistan or even Afghanistan," he says.

"Sometimes when really old, over 70-years-old, Chinese walk by, they are very happy and tell me that they remember seeing Indians like me on the streets in their youth," Ismail smiles.

Given that Indians in China have had a substantial presence since the Tang dynasty when Buddhist monks regularly crossed the Himalayas, founding temples and imparting wisdom, the gradual return of the Hong Tou A-San only seems fitting.

A few years down the line and even outposts like Wenzhou may begin to boast the kind of substantial desi community that would allow future Surinder Singhs easy escape from the travails of ingesting chicken feet.

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