I think it’s interesting that two such different cultures border each other. Basically, I want to know about everything that goes on at the border.
Is the border fairly open? Superbly closed? Military tensions?
Do you have towns in China and India that are a mix of the two cultures? (Like near Mejico in the US.) Are there towns in China where Indian languages are spoken? Towns in India where Chinese is spoken?
Do Indians and Chinese cross over to work? To party? To get some curry or stir fry?
I’m not the most informed person to answer your questions, but I’ll give it a shot.
I’m not sure. However, the one time I went to the border of India and China we had to take special permission from the Government. This was in Sikkim. North East India and at the border of India and China. The border is not normally accessible by civilians (or atleast the part I visited). What I saw was a wall/fence at the border. We could see chinese military on the other side. We were told that the soldiers themselves were quite friendly (since there’s no real fighting between India and China). Indian soldiers offered tea and other items to their Chinese counterparts. The Indian soldiers told us that they were better off than the Chinese soldiers on the other side, and that the Chinese Govt. did not take good care of the Chinese soldiers, and so they slipped things over the border to help them from time to time. I was also told that one of the reasons for this was that the Chinese did not have any town close to the border, while India did, and therefore supplies came easier to the Indian side. (This information is possibly dated. It was about 10 years back).
Mix of cultures I doubt. However Indians native to the North East do have facial features that are similar to the Chinese/Nepalis. No Indian town that I’m aware of speaks Chinese/Mandarin, however India has a sizeable Chinese population and they do speak Chinese. Chinese cuisine is one of the more popular cuisines in India.
I doubt they do. Although I have no information on this.
Politically not the warmest of relationships. Historically, China has supported Pakistan while Russia (USSR) has supported India. People to people, the Chinese in this country are not scorned or illtreated.
Also note that the India-Pakistan border sees firing on an almost daily basis, while I can’t recall newsreports about firing across the India-China border.
Please note that these answers are more opinion than fact. Someone better informed might come along, but I thought this could help give you some perspective.
The border, for the most part, is closed. But around Sikkim, it tends to be a little open, primarily because both, India and China claim Sikkim to be theirs. In fact, the Chinese authorities had declared that those living in Sikkim did not need a visa to visit China, since it was a part of China. But this changed last year, when China finally declared Sikkim to be a part of India. In return, India declared Tibet to be a part of China. This did not go down well with the Indian public (the part about Tibet, I mean).
The cultures do not mix as much, mainly because China has been promoting a homogenious culture across it lentgh and breadth. that has meant the destruction of the local cultures there. On the Indian side, the arrival of Hindi movies (Hindi is not the main language in these parts) and the culture of Notrh India has eroded some of hte local flavors. In fact, in some of the Norht-East states, militant groups have declared a ban on Hindi movies and also dresses like the Salwar Kameez for women.
Nope. No chance. We do pee on the other side if we are able to visit the borders (we do it on the Pakistani and Bangladeshi borders as well) before the other side can catch us. Besides, we already have the recepies for Chinese food
The overall Indo-China relations are ambilvalent. China has always supported Pakistan in all matters related to the subcontinent. And China views India as a competitor on the IT and BPO front. The last Indian defense minister, George Fernandes had declared China as India’s enemy no.1
But yes, Chinese food is very popular in India like xash laid.
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Until very recently, China and India did not share a border. Tibet (not looking to argue whether or not Tibet is/was a sovereign country) was the buffer state between India and China. AFAIK, historic relations between india and china were without tension in part because the two did not share a border. This all changed in 1950, when China and India did in fact share a border.
There have been border wars/clashes between China and India since 1950. The last I remember was in the late 1980’s (IIRC 1987 and 1988). Random letters has linked the 1962 border war.
The border between Tibet and Nepal is pretty open. Or I should say a lot of two way traffic between the two. Between India and Tibet there probably is very limited traffic. Remember the border is basically in the Himalaya’s, and the Tibetan side is pretty inhospitable and barren owing to the rain all getting dumped in the indian side of the himalayan mountains. There is no real “through” traffic. It also follows that if one really wanted to get from india to Tibet and didn’t mind some serious hiking in the absolute middle of nowhere at extremely high elevations, then one could probably sneak from one country to the other. Tibetans including the Dalai Lama have done this.
I am not aware of a mixed town like a Mexican border town. On the burmese border yes, but not on the India Tibet border. Remember most of the border is drawn through some really inhospitable mountain peaks. There aren’t villages on neighboring sides of the border owing to lack of land for a town. So it follows that one doesn’t commute across the border, which usually means going over a nasty mountain pass that’s often closed for the winter.
India China relations seem to be pretty decent. Remember other than some inhospitable mountain areas, they really don’t compete for land or come into direct contact. In terms of trade, there is very little between India and China. For international trade, China and India compete some in outsourcing and manufacturing (India does orders of magnitude more outsourcing, and China orders of magnitude more manufaturing for export)
Indian author Vikrim Seth (Suitable Boy) learned Chinese in Nanjing China (Nanking) in the 1980’s and wrote a book on his trip through Tibet and Sinkiang (Xinjiang) to Nepal (IIRC via Nepal) called From Heaven Lake: Travels Through Sinkiang and Tibet Chatto & Windus, 1983 and you can read a review here: http://www.indiaclub.com/shop/SearchResults.asp?ProdStock=1704
